A numerous faction, with prétended frights,
In Sanhedrims to plume the legal rights;
The true successor from the court removed;
The plot, by hireling witnesses, improved.
These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound,
They shewed the king the danger of the wound;
That no concessions from the throne would please,
But lenitives fomented the disease:
That Absalom, ambitious of the crown,
Was made the lure to draw the people down :
That false Achitophel's pernicious hate
Had turned the plot to ruin church and state:
The council violent, the rabble worse;
That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse.
With all these loads of injuries opprest,
And long revolving in his careful breast
The event of things, at last, his patience tired,
Thus, from his royal throne, by heaven inspired,
The god-like David spoke; with awful fear
His train their Maker in their master hear. *
Thus long, have I by native mercy swayed, My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delayed; So willing to forgive the offending age; So much the father did the king assuage. But now so far my clemency they slight, The offenders question my forgiving right. † That one was made for many, they contend; But 'tis to rule; for that's a monarch's end. They call my tenderness of blood, my fear; Though manly tempers can the longest bear. Yet since they will divert my native course, 'Tis time to shew I am not good by force. Those heaped affronts, that haughty subjects bring, Are burdens for a camel, not a king.
Kings are the public pillars of the state,
Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight:
If my young Sampson will pretend a call
To shake the column, let him share the fall :*
But oh, that yet he would repent and live!
How easy 'tis for parents to forgive!
With how few tears a pardon might be won
From nature, pleading for a darling son!
Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care
Raised up to all the height his frame could bear!
Had God ordained his fate for empire born,
He would have given his soul another turn:
Gulled with a patriot's name, whose modern sense
Is one that would by law supplant his prince;
The people's brave, the politician's tool;
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
Whence comes it, that religion and the laws
Should more be Absalom's than David's cause?
His old instructor, ere he lost his place,
Was never thought endued with so much grace.
Good heavens, how faction can a patriot paint!
My rebel ever proves my people's saint.
Would they impose an heir upon the throne?
Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own.
A king's at least a part of government;
And mine as requisite as their consent:
Without my leave a future king to chuse,
Infers a right the present to depose.
True, they petition me to approve their choice;
But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice.
My pious subjects for my safety pray;
Which to secure, they take my power away.
From plots and treasons heaven preserve my years,
But save me most from my petitioners!†
*The four following lines were added after the first edition. See Introduction. † Note XLIII.
Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave;
God cannot grant so much as they can crave.
What then is left, but with a jealous eye
To guard the small remains of royalty?
The law shall still direct my peaceful sway,
And the same law teach rebels to obey:
Votes shall no more established power controul,
Such votes, as make a part exceed the whole.
No groundless clamours shall my friends remove,
Nor crowds have power to punish ere they prove;
For Gods and god-like kings their care express,
Still to defend their servants in distress.
Oh, that my power to saving were confined!
Why am I forced, like heaven, against my mind,
To make examples of another kind?
Must I at length the sword of justice draw?
Oh curst effects of necessary law!
How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!
Beware the fury of a patient man.
Law they require, let law then shew her face;
They could not be content to look on grace,
Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye,
To tempt the terror of her front, and die.
By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed,
Those dire artificers of death shall bleed.
Against themselves their witnesses will swear,
"Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear;
And suck for nutriment that bloody gore,
Which was their principle of life before.
Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight;
Thus on my foes, my foes shall do me right:
Nor doubt the event; for factious crowds engage,
In their first onset, all their brutal rage.
Then let them take an unresisted course;
Retire, and traverse, and delude their force :
But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight,
And rise upon them with redoubled might:
For lawful power is still superior found;
When long driven back, at length it stands the ground.
He said; the Almighty, nodding, gave consent,
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran;
Once more the god-like David was restored,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.
Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear,
A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care.---P. 217.
Queen Catherine of Portugal, the wife of Charles II., resembled the daughter of Saul in the circumstance mentioned in the text. She was plain in her person, and consequently possessed little influence over her gallant husband. She was, however, always treated by him with decent civility; and indeed, when persecuted by the popular party, experienced his warmest protection. Her greatest fault was her being educated a Catholic; her greatest misfortune, her bearing the king no children; and her greatest foible an excessive love of dancing. It might have occurred to the good people of these times, that loving a ball was not a capital sin, even in a person whose figure excluded her from the hopes of gracing it; that a princess of Portugal must be a Catholic, if she had any religion at all; and, finally, that to bear children, it is necessary some one should take the trouble of getting them. But these obvious considerations did not prevent her being grossly abused in the libels of the times, † and very nearly made a party in Dr Titus Oates' Appendix to his Original Plot.
+ See a very scurrilous one, entitled, "The Queen's Ball," in the State Poems, Vol. III. p. 74, beginning,
Reform, great queen, the errors of your youth,
And hear a thing you never heard, called Truth.
Poor private balls content the Fairy Queen;
You must dance, and dance damnably, to be seen,
Ill-natured little goblin, and designed
For nothing but to dance and vex mankind,
What wiser thing could our great monarch do,
Than root ambition out, by showing you?
You can the most aspiring thoughts pull down.
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