wandT

He gave them, in its distribution fairbeis no 941
And equal; and he bade them dwell in peace()
Peace was awhile their care: they plough'd, and sow'd,
And reap'd their plenty without grudge or strife, //
But violence can never longer sleep at 5af.
Than human passions please. In every heart
Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war;
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.l
Cain had already shed a brother's blood;
The deluge wash'd it out; but left unquench'd‹ 10
The seeds of murder in the breast of man.
Soon by a righteous judgment in the line
Of his descending progeny was found a 267 20:2
The first artificer of death; the shrewd bom drW
Contriver, who first sweated at the forge, laseb oğ
And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel 6W
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. 11 21 j
Him, Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times,sdT
The sword and falchion their inventor claimò baA
And the first smith was the first murderer's sons T
His art survived the waters; and ere long, 75AT
When man was multiplied and spread abroad ne Ē
In tribes and clans, and had begun to call ng taon)
These meadows and that range of hills his own,an A
The tasted sweets of property begat

To improve and cultivate their just demesne, c?
Made others covet what they saw so fair.

Thus war began on earth:
And those in self-defence.

these fought for spoil, i Savage at first f

The onset, and irregular At length not over 98 One eminent above the rest for strength, [209 buễ For stratagem, or courage, or for all,

25%, 9259 Was chosen leader; him they served in war, be £. And him in peace, for sake of warlike deeds

t

Reverenced no less. Who could with him compare?
Or who so worthy to control themselves,

As he, whose prowess had subdued their foes?
Thus war, affording field for the display
Of virtue, made one chief, whom times of peace,
Which have their exigencies too, and call
For skill in government, at length made king.
King was a name too proud for man to wear
With modesty and meekness; and the crown,
So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,
Was sure to intoxicate the brows it bound.
It is the abject property of most,
That, being parcel of the common mass,
And destitute of means to raise themselves,
They sink, and settle lower than they need.
They know not what it is to feel within
A comprehensive faculty, that grasps

Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields,
Almost without an effort, plans too vast
For their conception, which they cannot move.
Conscious of impotence they soon grow drunk
With gazing, when they see an able man
Step forth to notice; and, besotted thus,
Build him a pedestal, and say,
“Stand there,
And be our admiration and our praise."

They roll themselves before him in the dust, 401
Then most deserving in their own account,
When most extravagant in his applause,

As if exalting him they raised themselves. nod
Thus by degrees, self-cheated of their sound
And sober judgment, that he is but man,
They demi-deify and fume him so,
That in due season he forgets it too.
Inflated and astrut with self-conceit,
He gulps the windy diet; and, ere long,
Adopting their mistake, profoundly thinks
The world was made in vain, if not for him.
Thenceforth they are his cattle: drudges, born i
To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,
And sweating in his service, his caprice
Becomes the soul that animates them all.
He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives,
Spent in the purchase of renown for him,
An easy reckoning; and they think the same.
Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings
Were burnish'd into heroes, and became
The arbiters of this terraqueous swamp;

Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died.
Strange, that such folly, as lifts bloated man
To eminence, fit only for a god,

Should ever drivel out of human lips,

E'en in the cradled weakness of the world!

1

Still stranger much, that, when at length mankind! Had reach'd the sinewy firmness of their youth, ** And could discriminate and argue well

On subjects more mysterious, they were yet
Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear
And quake before the gods themselves had made.
But above measure strange, that neither proof
Of sad experience, nor examples set
By some, whose patriot virtue has prevail'd,
Can even now, when they are grown mature
In wisdom, and with philosophic deeds
Familiar, serve to emancipate the rest!
Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To reverence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing!
But is it fit, or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man,
Compounded and made up like other men
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet,
As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freeman of his land?
Should, when he pleases, and on whom he will,
Wage war, with any or with no pretence
Of provocation given, or wrong sustain'd,
And force the beggarly last doit, by means
That his own humour dictates, from the clutch
Of Poverty, that thus he may procure

His thousands, weary of penurious life,

A splendid opportunity to die?

Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old #7 Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees

In politic convention) put your trust.

In the shadow of a bramble, and, reclined
In fancied peace beneath his dangerous branch,oř
Rejoice in him, and celebrate his sway,

Where find ye passive fortitude? Whence springs
Your self-denying zeal, that holds it good

To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang 1
His thorns with streamers of continual praise ?)
We too are friends to loyalty. We love

The king who loves the law, respects his bounds,
And reigns content within them: him we serve!
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free:
But, recollecting still that he is man,

We trust him not too far. King though he be,
And king in England too, he may be weak,
And vain enough to be ambitious still;
May exercise amiss his proper powers,

Or covet more than freemen choose to grant: b/
Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours, 1 1
To administer, to guard, to adorn the state,!.
But not to warp or change it. We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.‚am 10
Mark now the difference, ye that boast your love s
Of kings, between your loyalty and ours.
We love the man, the paltry pageant you iďt
We the chief patron of the commonwealth,