With close fidelity and love unfeign'd To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd ; His life a lesson to the land he sways; To touch the sword with conscientious awe, 80 A. Guard what you say; the patriotic tribe Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe.——— B. A bribe? The worth of his three kingdoms I defy, To lure me to the baseness of a lie: And, of all lies, (be that one poet's boast) The lie that flatters I abhor the most. Those arts be theirs, who hate his gentle reign, But he that loves him has no need to feign. go 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 101 The guilty and not guilty both alike. I grant the sarcasm is too severe, And we can readily refute it here; 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 quitrent ode, his peppercorn of praise; 110 And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write, Adds, as he can, his tributary mite; A subject's faults a subject may proclaim, Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage; I pity kings, whom Worship waits upon 121 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 130 A devil's purpose with an angel's face ; To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, Ev'n when he labours for his country's good, To see a band, call'd 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; 140 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, 149 (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, 160 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, |