Howe'er he may difpute their right,
And Coke with Burgerfdicius fight,
Muft make at Tyburn his confeffion.

DEAN.

I fear, Sir, here you beg the question.
A fubject born in any state

May, if he please, depatriate,

(Unless, by juftice to be mumbled,

He's forc'd to stay, like nabob Rumbold ;)

And go, for reasons weak or weighty,

To Zealand-New, or Otaheite.

205

210

'S QUIR E.

Yet there what freedom will he have,

215

When made Queen Oberea's flave?

Her Majefty may lay a tax,

I fear would weaken ftronger backs,

Than ev'n was your's my doughty Dean,
When nerv'd with youth, and stout eighteen.

DEAN.

Perhaps the might. Then let's fuppofe

To fome unpeopled ifle he goes,

And takes a mistress in his fleeve,

To live as Adam did with Eve;

220

Or fay, that he had luck to find

225

A hundred more of the fame mind,

Το

To migrate with their mates by dozens,
And there to live like cater-coufins,

We will not call them firs, and madams,
But a cool hundred Eves and Adams;

230

Ver. 230.] Here the Dean turns afide to his own ingenious hypothesis, which he makes the true basis of civil government, and which, the more to diffeminate it, I fhall here briefly explain. He fuppofes, that a hundred Adams and Eves fhould all be produced full grown, and in conjugal pairs; and then concludes, that they would naturally herd together, and form a civil fociety, from their inftinctive love of living together as gregarious animals. But, as some might object that another inftinctive appetite would speedily disturb the peace of this fociety, and that Horace's teterrima belli caufa might make it a state of war, he fagely provides against this by noting, "that the appetite be"tween the fexes can have no place in the question, because is "is not of that fort which renders mankind gregarious." Yet, as he also owns, that the most solitary animals, at certain feasons, "converfe in pairs," it is neceffary, for the fupport of his hypothefis, that all his Adams and Eves fhould be as chafte as turtles ; and, therefore, I have called them a cool hundred, an epithet which, the reader fees, is here far from being an expletive, but highly emphatical; for, if the Dean's hundred Adams and Eves were not more cool than an hundred pairs of people of fashion, whom I could mention, it is to be feared, that many of the males in his civil fociety, would not only be gregarious animals, but abfolutely horned cattle. See Tucker on Government, P. 136.

I think

They fay, and with them I agree,
That, as to men's equality,

It refts on native rights they have,
Not to become another's slave ;
Or tamely bear a tyrant's yoke:
This truth you parry with a joke.

'S QUIRE.

70

Jokes, Mr. Dean, I'd have you know,
Have parried many a ftouter blow.

75

Ver. 73.] The paffage in Mr. Locke's treatife, which the

Dean here alludes to, feems to be this: "Though I said that all

men are by nature equal, I cannot be fuppofed to understand all forts of equality: age or virtue may give men a juft prece"dency excellency of parts and merit may place others above "the common level: birth may fubject fome, and alliance or "benefits, others, to pay an observance to those, to whom nature, gratitude, or other refpects may have made it due and yet all "this confifts with the equality, which all men are in, in re"spect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another : which was "the equality I there (ch. 2d.) spoke of, as proper to the business "in hand, being that equal right, that every man hath, to his "natural freedom, without being fubjected to the will or autho"rity of any other man." Ch. VI. fect. 54. To this the Dean accedes in his first chapter. "First then, I agree with Mr. Locke and his difciples, that there is a sense, in which it may be said, "that no man is born the political subject of another.

A

A joke like this, as I conceive,
Is Reason's representative,

Who, vefted with his rights, is fent
To difputation's parliament.

DEAN.

Yet fcorns, like fome they patriots call,
To vote, as he inftructs, at all.

'S QUIRE.

Sometimes he may-but to proceed-
All men at birth, it is agreed,
Have equal learning, wit and power,
Though, at Lucina's fqualling hour,
The new-born babe, in nurfe's lap,
Have only power to fuck her pap.

Good heavens! to talk of wit and learning
In infants void of all difcerning,

Is just as if thefe Whigs difputed,

As moft fools do, to be confuted,

Whether their teeth, in breadth and length,
Had equal fize, and equal strength;

So

$5

90

When, bless each little flobbering mouth,

95

It had not cut a fingle tooth.

DEAN..

Your inftance, I confess, is pretty :

I wish it were as apt as witty.

'SQUIRE.

But let us give them all they afk,
Their equal birth, a harder task

I think remains behind, to prove

That men thro' life must equal move; · None e'er affume a jot of power

More than he had at natal hour.

100

Strange doctrine this! ye Whigs, fhall none

105

Be long and lank as Jenkinson,

None grow to full fix feet or more,
Because fome only measure four?

Or, because Hunter cannot treat us
With different fize of fame-ag'd fœtus?
Thus, Mr. Dean, the point I've prov'd;
And, if your Reverence is fo mev'd,
You'll find, with like facility

I prove they all are not born free.

DEAN.

My fprightly 'Squire, if this be proving,
Then billing is the whole of loving,

Dame Logic knows, whene'er I meet her,
With more fubftantial sport I treat her.
Thefe Whigs will anfwer your demand
With faying, all they understand
By power is, "That alone is just,
"Which to a few the reft entrust ;

110

115

120

"And