How then could Adam bind his future race?
How could his forfeit on mankind take place?
Or how could heavenly justice damn us all,
Who ne'er consented to our father's fall?
Then kings are slaves to those whom they command,
And tenants to their people's pleasure stand:
Add, that the pow'r for property allow'd,
Is mischievously seated in the crowd;
For who can be secure of private right,

If sov'reign sway may be dissolv'd by might?
Nor is the people's judgment always true;
The most may err as grossly as the few:
And faultless kings run down by common cry,
For vice, oppression, and for tyranny.
What standard is there in a fickle rout,
Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out?
Not only crowds, but sanhedrims may be
Infected with this public lunacy,

And share the madness of rebellious times,
To murder monarchs for imagin'd crimes.
If they may give and take whene'er they please,
Not kings alone, the Godhead's images,
But government itself at length must fall
To Nature's state, where all have right to all.
Yet, grant our lords the People kings can make,
What prudent men a settled throne would shake
For whatsoe'er their suff'rings were before,
That change they covet makes them suffer more.
Volumell.

D

780

790

All other errors but disturb a state,

But innovation is the blow of Fate.

If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall,

To patch their flaws and buttress up the wall,
Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark;
For all beyond it is to touch the ark.

To change foundations, cast the frame anew
Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue;
At once divine and human laws control,
And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.
The tamp'ring world is subject to this curse,
To physic their disease into a worse.

Now what relief can righteous David bring?
How fatal 'tis to be too good a king!

Friends he has few, so high the madness grows;
Who dare be such must be the people's foes.
Yet some there were, e'en in the worst of days;
Some let me name, and naming is to praise.

In this short file Barzillai first appears,
Barzillai! crown'd with honour and with years.
Long since the rising rebels he withstood
In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood;
Unfortunately brave, to buoy the state,
But sinking underneath his master's fate:
In exile with his godlike prince he mourn'd,
For him he suffer'd, and with him return'd.
The Court he practis'd, not the courtier's art,
Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart,

800

810

820

Which well the noblest objects knew to chuse,
The fighting warrior, and recording muse.
His bed could once a fruitful issue boast,

Now more than half a father's name is lost.

830

His eldest hope, with ev'ry grace adorn'd,

By me (so Heav'n will have it) always mourn'd,
And always honour'd, snatch'd in manhood's prime
B' unequal fates, and providence's crime;
Yet not before the goal of honour won,

All parts fulfill'd of subject and of son;
Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
Oh narrow circle, but of pow'r divine,
Scanted in space, but perfect in thy line!

By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known,
Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own:
Thy force infus'd, the fainting Tyrians prop'd,'
And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stop'd.
Oh ancient honour! oh unconquer'd hand!
Whom foes unpunish'd never could withstand!
But Israel was unworthy of his name;
Short is the date of all immodʼrate fame,
It looks as Heav'n our ruin had design'd,

}

841

And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind.

849

Now, free from earth, thy disencumber'd soul [pole : Mounts up and leaves behind the clouds and starry From thence thy kindred legions may'st thou bring, To aid the guardian angel of thy king.

Dryden.]

Dij

Here stop, my Muse, here cease thy painful flight,
No pinions can pursue immortal height:

Tell good Barzillai thou canst sing no more,
And tell thy Soul she should have fled before:
Or fled she with his life, and left this verse
To hang on her departed patron's hearse?
Now take thy steepy flight from heav'n, and see 860
If thou canst find on earth another he:

Another he would be too hard to find:

See then whom thou canst see not far behind.
Zadoc the priest, whom shunning pow'r and place,
His lowly mind advanc'd to David's grace;
With him the Sagan of Jerusalem,

Of hospitable soul and noble stem:

Him of the Western dome, whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words and heav'nly eloquence.

The Prophets' sons, by such example led,
To learning and to loyalty were bred:
For colleges on bounteous kings depend,
And never rebel was to arts a friend.
To these succeed the pillars of the laws,
Who best can plead, and best can judge a cause.
Next them a train of loyal peers ascend:
Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses' friend,
Himself a muse; in sanhedrim's debate,
True to his prince, but not a slave of state;
Whom David's love with honours did adorn,
That from his disobedient son were torn:

870

880

Jotham, of piercing wit and pregnant thought,
Endu'd by Nature and by Learning taught,
To move assemblies, who but only try'd
The worse a while, then chose the better side:
Nor chose alone, but turn'd the balance too;
So much the weight of one brave man can do.
Hushai, the friend of David in distress,
In public storms of manly stedfastness:
By foreign treaties he inform'd his youth,
And join'd experience to his native truth:
His frugal care supply'd the wanting throne,
Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own:
'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow,
But hard the task to manage well the low;
For sov'reign pow'r is too depress'd or high,
When kings are forc'd to sell, or crowds to buy.
Indulge one labour more, my weary Muse,
For Amiel; who can Amiel's praise refuse?
Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet
In his own worth, and without title great.
The sanhedrim long time as chief he rul'd,
Their reason guided, and their passion cool'd:
So dex'trous was he in the Crown's defence,
So form'd to speak a loyal nation's sense,
That, as their band was Isr'el's tribes in small,
So fit was he to represent them all.

Now rather charioteers the seat ascend,

Whose loose careers his steady skill commend:

890