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 may I be poor 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 prevail,
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, cover'd 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 their's;
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 fixt attention more than you.

my

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, Or tinkle in 'Change alley, to amuse The leathern ears of stock-jobbers and jews.

A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme
To themes more pertinent, if less sublime.
When ministers and ministerial arts;

Patriots, who love good places at their hearts;
When admirals, extoll'd for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill;

Generals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay;

When freedom, wounded almost to despair,
Though discontent alone can find out where;
When themes like these employ the poet's tongue,
I hear as mute as if a syren sung.

Or tell me, if you can, what pow'r maintains
A Britain's scorn of arbitrary chains?

That were a theme might animate the dead,
And move the lips of poets cast in lead.

B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet
elude

Conjecture and remark, however shrewd.
They take, perhaps, a well-directed aim,
Who seek it in his climate and his frame.
Lib'ral in all things else, yet nature here
With stern severity deals out the year.
Winter invades the spring, and often pours
A chilling flood on summer's drooping flow'rs;
Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams,
Ungenial blasts attending, curl the streams;
The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork
With double toil, and shiver at their work;
Thus with a rigour, for his good design'd,
She rears her fav'rite man of all mankind.
His form robust and of elastic tone,
Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone,
Supplies with warm activity and force

A mind well-lodg'd, and masculine of course.
Hence liberty, sweet liberty inspires,
And keeps alive, his fierce but noble fires.

Patient of constitutional controul,

He bears it with meek manliness of soul;
But, if authority grow wanton, woe

To him that treads upon his free-born toe;
One step beyond the bound'ry of the laws
Fires him at once in freedom's glorious cause.
Thus proud prerogative, not much rever'd,
Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard;
And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay,
Is kept, to strut, look big, and talk away.

Born in a climate softer far than our's,

Not form'd like us, with such Herculean pow'rs,
The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away:
He drinks his simple bev'rage with a gust;
And, feasting on an onion and a crust,
We never feel the alacrity and joy

With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roy,
Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee,
As if he heard his king say....Slave, be free.

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Vigilant over all that he has made,
Kind Providence attends with gracious aid;
Bids equity throughout his works prevail,
And weighs the nations in an even scale;
He can encourage slav'ry to a smile,
And fill with discontent a British isle.