Triumphant Spain the vengeful draught enjoy'd; 965
Abandon'd Frederick *pin'd, and Raleigh bled:
But nothing that to these internal broils,
That rancour, he began; while lawless Sway
He, with his flavish Doctors, try'd to rear
On metaphyfic, on enchanted ground †,
And all the mazy quibbles of the schools;
As if for one, and sometimes for the worst,
Heaven had mankind in vengeance only made.
Vain the pretence! not fo the dire effect,
The fierce, the foolish difcord thence deriv'd ‡,975 That tears the country ftill, by party-rage
And minifterial clamour kept alive.
In action weak, and for the wordy war
Beft fitted, faint this prince purfu'd his claim;
Content to teach the fubje&t-herd how great, 980
How facred he! how defpicable they!
But his unyielding fon | thefe doctrines drank,
With all a bigot's rage (who never damps
By reafoning his fire), and what they taught,
Warm, and tenacious, into practice push'd.
Senates, in vain, their kind restraint apply'd;
Ele&tor Palatine, and who had been chofen King of Bohemia, but was ftript of all his dominions and dignities by the Emperor Ferdinand, while James I. his father-in-law, being amufed from time to time, endeavoured to mediate a peace.
+ The monftrous and till then unheard of doctrines of divine indefeafible hereditary right, paffive obedience, c. The parties of Whig and Tory.
The more they struggled to support the laws,
His juftice-dreading ministers the more
Drove him beyond their bounds. Tir'd with the check Of faithful Love, and with the flattery pleas'd 990 Of false defigning Guilt, the fountain* he
Of public Wisdom and of Justice fhut.
Wide mourn'd the land.
Free, cordial, large, of never-failing source,
Straight to the voted aid
Th' illegal impofition follow'd harsh,
With execration given, or ruthless squeez'd
From an infulted people, by a band
Of the worst ruffians, thofe of tyrant power.
Oppreffion walk'd at large, and pour'd abroad
Her unrelenting train: informers, spies,
Bloodhounds, that sturdy Freedom to the grove
Purfue; projectors of aggrieving schemes,
Commerce + to load for unprotected seas,
To fell the starving many to the few ‡,
And drain a thousand ways th' exhausted land. 1005
Even from that place whence healing peace fhould
And gospel truth, inhuman bigots shed
Their poison round; and on the venal bench,
Instead of Justice, Party held the scale,
And Violence the fword. Afflicted years,
Too patient, felt at last their vengeance full.
*Parliaments. + Monopolies, The raging High Church fermons of thefe times infpiring at once a fpirit of flavith fubmiffion to the Court, and of bitter per fecution against those whom they call Church and State Puritans.
Mid the low murmurs of fubmiffive fear
And mingled rage, My Hampden rais'd his voice, And to the laws appeal'd; the laws no more
İn judgment fate, behov'd some other ear; 1015 When inftant from the keen refentive North,
By long oppreffion, by religion rous'd,
Was call'd, tho' meant to furnish hostile aid,
The more than Roman fenate. There a flame 1020
Broke out that clear'd, confum'd, renew'd the land.
In deep emotion hurl'd, nor Greece, nor Rome,
Indignant bursting from a tyrant's chain,
While, full of Me, each agitated foul
Strung every nerve, and flam'd in every eye,
Had e'er beheld fuch light and heat combin'd!
Such heads and heart! fuch dreadful zeal, led on
By calm majeftic Wisdom, taught its courfe
What nuisance to devour; fuch wisdom fir'd
With unabating zeal, and aim'd fincere
To clear the weedy ftate, restore the laws,
And for the future to fecure their fway.
This, then, the purpose of My mildest fons; But man is blind. A nation once inflam'd (Chief should the breath of factious Fury blow,1035 With the wild rage of mad enthusiast swell'd) Not eafy cools again. From breast to breast, From eye to eye, the kindling passions mix In heightened blaze, and, ever wise and just,
High Heaven to gracious ends directs the storm.
Thus in one conflagration Britain wrapt,
And by Confufion's lawless fons defpoil'd,
King, Lords,and Commons,thundering to the ground,
Succeffive, rufh'd.-Lo! from their afhes rofe,
Gay-beaming radiant youth, the Phoenix-ftate*. 1045
The grevious yoke of vaffalage, the yoke
Of private life, lay by those flames diffolv'd;
And from the wasteful, the luxurious king +,
Was purchas'd that which taught the young to bend.
Stronger reftor'd, the Commons tax'd the whole,
And built on that eternal rock their power.
The crown, of its hereditary wealth
Defpoil'd, on Senates more dependant grew,
And they more frequent, more affur'd. Yet liv'd,
And in full vigour spread that bitter root,
The paffive doctrines, by their patrons firft
Oppos'd, ferocious, when they touch themselves.
This wild delufive cant, the rafh cabal
Of hungry courtiers, ravenous for prey,
The bigot, reftless in a double chain
To blind a-new the land, the constant need
Of finding faithlefs means, of shifting forms,
And flattering fenates to supply his waste;
These tore fome moments from the careless Prince,
And in his breaft awak'd the kindred plan.
By dangerous foftness long he min'd his way;
At the Reftoration. + Charles II.
By subtle arts, diffimulation deep;
By sharing what Corruption fhower'd, profuse;
By breathing wide the gay licentious plague,
And pleasing manners, fitted to deceive.
At laft fubfided the delirious joy,
On whese high billow, from the faintly reign,
The nation drové too far. A penfion'd king,
Against his country brib'd by Gallic gold,
The port pernicious fold *, the Scylla fince, 1075
And fell Charybdis, of the British feas;
Freedom attack'd abroad †, with furer blow
To cut it off at home; the Saviour-League
Of Europe broke; the progress even advanc'd
Of universal sway ||, which to reduce
Such feas of blood and treasure Britain coft;
The millions, by a generous people given,
Or squander'd vile, or to corrupt, difgrace,
And awe the land with forces not their own ti
Employ'd; the darling Church herfelf betray'd;
All thefe, broad glaring, ope'd the general eye, 1086
And wak'd My spirit, the refifting soul.
Mild was, at first, and half asham'd, the check Of fenates, fhook from the fantastic dream
Of abfolute fubmiffion, tenets vile !
Which flaves would blush to own, and which, reduc'd
+ The war, in conjunction with France, against the Dutch.
The Triple Alliance.
Under Lewis XIV.
+ A ftanding army, raised without the consent of parliament.
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