A. Your smooth eulogium, to one crown ad

dress'd,

Seems to imply a censure on the rest.

B. Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale, Ask'd, when in hell, to see the royal jail;

Approv'd their method in all other things;

But where, good sir, do you confine
your kings?
There-said his guide-the group is full in view.
Indeed?-replied the Don-there are but few.
His black interpreter the charge disdain’d—
Few, fellow?-there are all that ever reign'd.
Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike
The guilty and not guilty, both alike.

I grant the sarcasm is too severe,

And we can readily refute it here;
While Alfred's name, the father of his age,

And the Sixth Edward's grace th' historic

page.

A. Kings then at last have but the lot of

all.

By their own conduct they must stand or fall.

B. True. While they live, the courtly laureat pays His quit-rent ode, his pepper-corn of praise;

And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write, Adds, as he can, his tributary mite:

A subject's faults a subject may proclaim,

A monarch's errors are forbidden game!
Thus, free from censure, over-aw'd by fear,
And prais❜d for virtues that they scorn to wear,
The fleeting forms of majesty engage

Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage;
Then leave their crimes for history to scan,
And ask with busy scorn, Was this the man?

I pity kings whom worship waits upon,
Obsequious, from the cradle to the throne;
Before whose infant eyes the flatt'rer bows,
And binds a wreath about their baby brows;
Whom education stiffens into state,

And death awakens from that dream too late.
Oh! if servility with supple knees,

Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please;

'If smooth dissimulation, skill'd to grace
A devil's purpose with an angel's face;
If smiling peeresses and simp'ring peers,
Encompassing his throne a few short years;
If the gilt carriage and the pamper'd steed,
That wants no driving, and disdains the lead;
If guards, mechanically form'd in ranks,

Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks,
Should'ring and standing as if stuck to stone,
While condescending majesty looks on;
If monarchy consist in such base things,
Sighing, I say again, I pity kings!

To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, Ev'n when he labours for his country's good; To see a band, called patriot, for no cause, But that they catch at popular applause, Careless of all th' anxiety he feels,

Hook disappointment on the public wheels;
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,

Most confident, when palpably most wrong;

If this be kingly, then farewell for me

All kingship; and

I be poor may

and free!

To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs,
To which th' unwash'd artificer repairs,

T' indulge his genius after long fatigue,
By diving into cabinet intrigue;

(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play)

To win no praise when well-wrought plans pre

vail,

But to be rudely censur'd when they fail;

To doubt the love his fav'rites may pretend,

And in reality to find no friend;

If he indulge a cultivated taste,

His gall'ries with the works of art well grac'd,
To hear it call'd extravagance and waste;
If these attendants, and if such as these,
Must follow royalty, then welcome ease;
However humble and confin'd the sphere,
Happy the state that has not these to fear.

A. Thus men, whose thoughts contemplative

have dwelt

On situations that they never felt,

Start up sagacious, covered with the dust
Of dreaming study and pedantic rust,

And prate and preach about what others prove,
As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares;
They have their weight to carry, subjects theirs;
Poets, of all men, ever least regret

Increasing taxes and the nation's debt.

Could

you contrive the payment, and rehearse The mighty plan, oracular, in verse,

No bard, howe'er majestic, old or new,

Should claim my fixt attention more than you.

B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay To turn the course of Helicon that way;

Nor would the nine consent the sacred tide

Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside,