The onfet, and irregular. At length
One eminent above the reft, for ftrength,
For ftratagem, or courage, or for all,
Was chosen leader : him they ferv'd in war,
And him in peace, for fake of warlike deeds Rev'renc'd no lefs. Who could with him compare? Or who so worthy to controul themselves
As he whose prowefs had fubdu'd 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 fkill in government, at length made king. King was a name too proud for man to wear With modefty and meeknefs; and the crown, So dazzling in their eyes who fet it on, Was fure t' intoxicate the brows it bound. It is the abject property of moft,
That being parcel of the common mass, And deftitute of means to raise themselves, They fink and fettle lower than they need.
They know not what it is to feel within,
A comprehensive faculty; that grafps
Great purposes with ease, that turns and wields, Almoft without an effort, plans too vaft
For their conception, which they cannot move. Conscious of impotence, they foon grow With gazing, when they fee an able man Step forth to notice; and befotted thus, Build him a pedestal, and fay, Stand there, And be our admiration and our praise.
They roll themselves before him in the duft, Then most deserving in their own account When most extravagant in his applause, As if exalting him they rais'd themselves.
Thus by degrees, felf-cheated of their found And fober judgment, that he is but man, They demi-deify and fume him fo, That in due feafon he forgets it too. Inflated and aftrut with felf-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 To bear his burdens; drawing in his gears
And sweating in his fervice, his caprice Becomes the foul that animates them all. He deems a thousand, or ten thousand lives, Spent in the purchase of renown for him, An eafy reck'ning, and they think the fame. Thus kings were first invented, and thus kings
Were burnish'd into heroes, and became
The arbiters of this terraqueous fwamp,
Storks among frogs, that have but croak'd and died.
Strange, that fuch folly as lifts bloated man
To eminence fit only for a god,
Should ever drivel out of human lips,
Ev'n in the cradled weakness of the world!
Still stranger much, that when at length mankind
Had reach'd the finewy firmness of their youth,
And could difcriminate and argue well
On fubjects more myfterious, they were yet Babes in the cause of freedom, and should fear And quake before the gods themselves had made. But above measure ftrange, that neither proof Of fad experience, nor examples fet
By some whose patriot virtue has prevail'd, Can even now, when they are grown mature In wisdom, and with philofophic deeps Familiar, serve t'emancipate the rest! Such dupes are men to cuftom, and fo prone To rev'rence what is ancient, and can plead A courfe of long obfervance for its use, That even fervitude, the worst of ills, Because deliver'd down from fire to fon, - Is kept and guarded as a facred thing. But is it fit, or can it bear the shock Of rational difcuffion, 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 bofoms of the flaves he rules,
Should be a defpot abfolute, 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 giv'n or wrong fuftain'd,
And force the beggarly laft 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 fplendid opportunity to die?
Say ye, who (with lefs prudence than of old Jotham afcrib'd to his affembled trees In politic convention) put your trust
I' th' fhadow of a bramble, and reclin'd
In fancied peace beneath his dang'rous branch, Rejoice in him, and celebrate his fway, Where find ye paffive fortitude? Whence fprings Your felf-denying zeal, that holds it good To stroke the prickly grievance, and to hang
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