A. 'Tis your belief the world was made for man; Kings do but reafon on the self same plan:
Maintaining your's, you cannot their's condemn,
Who think, or feem to think, man made for them.
B. Seldom, alas! the pow'r of logic reigns
With much fufficiency in royal brains;
Such reas'ning falls like an inverted cone,
Wanting its proper base to stand upon.
Man made for kings! thofe optics are but dim
That tell you fo-fay, rather, they for him.
That were indeed a king-ennobling thought,
Could they, or would they, reason as they ought.
The diadem, with mighty projects lin❜d,
To catch renown by ruining mankind,
Is worth, with all its gold and glitt'ring ftore,
Juft what the toy will fell for, and no more.
Oh! bright occafions of difpenfing good,
How feldom used, how little understood!
Το pour in virtue's lap her just reward,
Keep vice reftrain'd behind a double guard;
To quell the faction that affronts the throne
By filent magnanimity alone;
To nurse with tender care the thriving arts,
Watch every beam philofophy imparts;
To give religion her unbridled scope,
Nor judge by statute a believer's hope;
With close fidelity and love unfeign'd,
To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd;
Covetous only of a virtuous praise;
His life a leffon to the land he sways;
To touch the fword with confcientious awe,
Nor draw it but when duty bids him draw;
To sheath it in the peace-reftoring close
With joy beyond what victory bestows;
Bleft country, where these kingly glories fhine!
Bleft England, if this happiness be thine!
A. Guard what you fay; the patriotic tribe
Will fneer, and charge you with a bribe.-B. A bribe?
The worth of his three kingdoms I defy,
To lure me to the bafenefs of a lie.
And, of all lies, (be that one poet's boast)
The lie that flatters I abhor the most.
Those arts be their's who hate his gentle reign,
But he that loves him has no need to feign.
A. Your smooth eulogium, to one crown addrefs'd, Seems to imply a cenfure on the rest.
B. Quevedo, as he tells his fober tale,
Afk'd, when in hell, to fee the royal jail;
Approv'd their method in all other things;
But where, good fir, do you confine your kings?
There-faid 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 ftrike
The guilty and not guilty, both alike.
I grant the farcasm is too fevere,
And we can readily refute it here;
While Alfred's name, the father of his age,
And the Sixth Edward's grace th' historic page.
A. Kings then at last have but the lot of all, By their own conduct they muft ftand or fall.
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 fubject's faults a fubject may proclaim,
A monarch's errors are forbidden game!
Thus, free from cenfure, 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,
Obfequious, from the cradle to the throne;
Before whofe infant eyes the flatt'rer bows,
And binds a wreath about their baby brows;
Whom education ftiffens into state,
And death awakens from that dream too late.
A.Thus men,whose thoughts contemplative have dwelt
On fituations that they never felt,
Start up fagacious, cover'd with the duft
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, fubjects their's;
Poets, of all men, ever least regret
Increafing taxes and the nation's debt.
Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse
The mighty plan, oracular, in verse,
No bard, howe'er majeftic, old or new,
Should claim my fixt attention more than you.
B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would effay
To turn the course of Helicon that way;
Nor would the nine confent the facred tide
Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapfide,
Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse
The leathern ears of stock-jobbers and jews.
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