And David's mildness manag'd it so well,
The bad found no occasion to rebel.
But when to sin our biass'd nature leans,
The careful devil is still at hand with means,
And providently pimps for ill desires;
The good old cause reviv'd a plot requires.
Plots, true or false, are necessary things.
To raise up commonwealths, and ruin kings.
Th' inhabitants of old Jerusalem

Were Jebusites; the town so call'd from them;
And theirs the native right---

But when the chosen people grew more strong,
The rightful cause at length became the wrong,
And ev'ry loss the men of Jebus bore
They still were thought God's enemies the more.
Thus worn or weaken'd, well or ill, content,
Submit they must to David's government:
Impoverish'd and depriv'd of all command,
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;
And what was harder yet to flesh and blood,
Their gods disgrac'd and burnt like common wood.
This set the heathen priesthood in a flame;
For priests of all religion are the same.
Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,
Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,
In his defence his servants are as bold
As if he had been born of beaten gold.

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The Jewish Rabbins, though their enemies,
In this conclude them honest men and wise:
For 'twas their duty all the learned think,

T' espouse his cause by whom they eat and drink,
From whence began that plot, the nation's curse,
Bad in itself but represented worse:

Rais'd in extremes, and in extremes decry'd,
With oaths affirm'd, with dying vows deny'd,
Not weigh'd nor winnow'd by the multitude.
But swallow'd in the mass unchew'd and crude.

110

Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with

To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise,

[lies,

Succeeding times did equal folly call,

Believing nothing, or believing all.
Th' Egyptian.rites the Jebusites embrac❜d,
Where gods were recommended by their taste,
Such sav'ry deities must needs be good,
As serv'd at once for worship and for food.
By force they could not introduce these gods;
For ten to one, in former days, was odds.
So fraud was us'd (the sacrificer's trade)
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews,
And rak'd for converts e'en the court and stews;
Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took,
Because the fleece accompanies the flock.

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Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay 130 By guns, invented since iull many a day :

Volume II.

B

Our author swears it not; but who can know
How far the devil and Jebusites may go?

This plot, which fail'd for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangʼrous consequence:

140

For as when raging fevers boil the biood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And ev'ry hostile humour, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
So several factions, from this first ferment,
Work up to foam, and threat the government. [wise,
Some by their friends, more by themselves thought
Oppos'd the pow'r to which they could not rise:
Some had in courts been great, and thrown from
Like fiends were harden'd in impenitence: [thence,
Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
From pardon'd rebels kinsmen to the throne,
Were rais'd in pow'r and public office high,
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
Of these the false Achithophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curs'd;
For close designs and crooked councils fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place,
In pow'r unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.

150

}

A daring pilot in extremity;

159

Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high

Helsought the storm; but, for a calm unfit,

Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near ally'd,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour bless'd,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son;
Got while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like Anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

To compass this the triple bond he broke,
The pillars of the public safety shook,

And fitted Isr'el for a foreign yoke;

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18

Then seis'd with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name:
So easy still it proves, in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will?
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own?

Dryden.]

Bij

Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge;

The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Isr'el's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin

With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean;
Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress,
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the Crown
With virtues only proper to the gown,
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed,
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heav'n had wanted one immortal song.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Achithophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdain'd the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now manifest of crimes contriv'd long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince:
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the Crown, and skulk'd behind the laws.
The wish'd occasion of the plot he takes,
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes;
By huzzing emissaries fills the ears

Of list'ning crowds with jealousies and fears
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
And proves the King himself a Jebusite.

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