Sofa and couch and high-built throne august.

The same lubricity was found in all,

And all was moist to the warm touch; a

scene

170

Of evanescent glory, once a stream, And soon to slide into a stream again. Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke Of undesigned severity, that glanced (Made by a monarch) on her own estate, On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 'Twas transient in its nature, as in show 'Twas durable; as worthless as it seemed Intrinsically precious; to the foot Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.

Great princes have great playthings. Some have played

At hewing mountains into men, and some At building human wonders mountain high. Some have amused the dull sad years of life,

180

Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad, With schemes of monumental fame; and sought

By pyramids and mausolean pomp, Short-lived themselves, to immortalize their bones.

Some seek diversion in the tented field, And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise,

Kings would not play at. Nations would do well

To extort their truncheons from the puny hands

230

And those in self-defence. Savage at first
The onset, and irregular. At length
One eminent above the rest, for strength,
For stratagem, or courage, or for all,
Was chosen leader; him they served in war,
And him in peace, for sake of warlike
deeds

Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare?

Or who so worthy to control themselves
As he whose prowess had subdued their
foes?

Thus war affording field for the display
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of

peace,

Which have their exigencies too, and call 240 For skill in government, at length made

king.

King was a name too proud for man to wear With modesty and meekness; and the

crown,

So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,

Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.
It is the abject property of most,
That being parcel of the common mass,
And destitute of means to raise themselves,
They sink and settle lower than they need.
They know not what it is to feel within 250
A comprehensive faculty that grasps
Great purposes with ease, that turns and
wields,

Almost without an effort, plans too vast
For their conception, which they cannot

move.

Conscious of impotence, they soon grow drunk

With gazing, when they see an able man Step forth to notice; and besotted thus, Build him a pedestal, and say, “Stand there, And be our admiration and our praise." They roll themselves before him in the dust,

260

Then most deserving in their own account
When most extravagant in his applause,
As if exalting him they raised themselves.
Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound
And sober judgment, that he is but man,
They demi-deify and fume him so,
That in due season he forgets it too.
Inflated and astrut with self-conceit,
He gulps the windy diet, and ere long, 269
Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks
The world was made in vain, if not for him.
Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges
born

To bear his burdens; drawing in his gears
And sweating in his service; his caprice
Becomes the soul that animates them all.
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,
Spent in the purchase of renown for him,
An easy reckoning, and they think the

In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest! Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone

To reverence what is ancient, and can plead

3:00

A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because delivered down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
But is it fit, or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man,
Compounded and made up like other men
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet
As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules, 310
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freeman of his land?
Should, when he pleases, and on whom he
will,

Wage war, with any or with no pretence
Of provocation given or wrong sustained,
And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That his own humour dictates, from the
clutch

320

Of poverty, that thus he may procure
His thousands, weary of penurious life,
A splendid opportunity to die?
Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old
Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees
In politic convention) put your trust
In the shadow of a bramble, and reclined
In fancied peace beneath his dangerous
branch,

Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway,
Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence

springs

Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, To administer, to guard, to adorn the State, But not to warp or change it. We are his, To serve him nobly in the common cause, True to the death, but not to be his slaves. Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love

350

Of kings, between your loyalty and ours:
We love the man, the paltry pageant you;
We the chief patron of the commonwealth,
You the regardless author of its woes;
We, for the sake of liberty, a king,
You chains and bondage for a tyrant's sake.
Our love is principle, and has its root
In reason, is judicious, manly, free;
Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod,
And licks the foot that treads it in the
dust.

Were kingship as true treasure as it seems,
Sterling, and worthy of a wise man's wish,
I would not be a king to be beloved,
Causeless, and daubed with undiscerning
praise,

360

Where love is mere attachment to the throne,

Not to the man who fills it as he ought. Whose freedom is by suffrance, and at will

Of a superior, he is never free.
Who lives, and is not weary of a life
Exposed to manacles, deserves them well.
The State that strives for liberty, though
foiled,

And forced to abandon what she bravely

pace,

1 The author hopes that he shall not be censured for unnecessary warmth upon so interesting a subject. He is aware that it is become almost fashionable to stigmatize such sentiments as no better than empty declamation; but it is an ill symptom, and peculiar to modern times.

421

To read engraven on the mouldy walls,
In staggering types, his predecessor's tale,
A sad memorial, and subjoin his own —
To turn purveyor to an overgorged
And bloated spider, till the pampered pest
Is made familiar, watches its approach,
Comes at his call, and serves him for a
friend-

To wear out time in numbering to and fro
The studs that thick emboss his iron door,
Then downward, and then upward, then
aslant,

And then alternate, with a sickly hope By dint of change to give his tasteless task

And beg for exile, or the pangs of death? That man should thus encroach on fellowman,

Abridge him of his just and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps a heedless word To barrenness, and solitude, and tears, 441 Moves indignation, makes the name of king

(Of king whom such prerogative can please)

As dreadful as the Manichean God, Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume, And we are weeds without it. All con

The eyesight of discovery, and begets,
In those that suffer it, a sordid mind
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit

To be the tenant of man's noble form. Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,

With all thy loss of empire, and though squeezed

By public exigence till annual food
Fails for the craving hunger of the State,
Thee I account still happy, and the chief 460
Among the nations, seeing thou art free,
My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,
Replete with vapours, and disposes much
All hearts to sadness, and none more than
mine;

Thine unadulterate manners are less soft
And plausible than social life requires,
And thou hast need of discipline and art
To give thee what politer France receives
From nature's bounty that humane ad-
dress

Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.
Do I forebode impossible events,
And tremble at vain dreams? Heaven
grant I may!

We build with what we deem eternal rock; A distant age asks where the fabric stood; And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, The indiscoverable secret sleeps.

But there is yet a liberty 'unsung By poets, and by senators unpraised, Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the

powers

540

Of earth and hell confederate take away;
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind;
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more.
'Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven,
Bought with His blood who gave it to man-
kind,

And sealed with the same token. It is held
By charter, and that charter sanctioned sure
By the unimpeachable and awful oath
And promise of a God. His other gifts 550
All bear the royal stamp that speaks them
His,

And are august, but this transcends them all.
His other works, the visible display
Of all-creating energy and might,
Are grand, no doubt, and worthy of the
Word

That, finding an interminable space
Unoccupied, has filled the void so well,
And made so sparkling what was dark be-
fore.

But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true,
Smit with the beauty of so fair a scene, 560
Might well suppose the artificer divine
Meant it eternal, had He not Himself
Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is,
And still designing a more glorious far,
Doomed it as insufficient for His praise.
These therefore are occasional, and pass;
Formed for the confutation of the fool, 567
Whose lying heart disputes against a God;
That office served, they must be swept away.
Not so the labours of His love: they shine
In other heavens than these that we behold,
And fade not. There is paradise that fears
No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends
Large prelibation oft to saints below.
Of these the first in order, and the pledge
And confident assurance of the rest,
Is liberty; a flight into His arms,
Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way,
A clear escape from tyrannizing lust,
And full immunity from penal woe.

580

Chains are the portion of revolted man, Stripes, and a dungeon; and his body serves The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,