as sparkling as their wine.
As for the general vices which we find,
They’re guilty of in common with mankind,
Satire forbear, and silently endure,
We must conceal the crimes we cannot cure;
Nor shall my verse the brighter sex defame,
For English beauty will preserve her name;
Beyond dispute agreeable and fair,
And modester than other nations are;
For where the vice prevails, the great temptation
Is want of money more than inclination;
In general this only is allow’d,
They’re something noisy, and a little proud.
An Englishman is gentlest in command,
Obedience is a stranger in the land:
Hardly subjected to the magistrate;
For Englishmen do all subjection hate.
Humblest when rich, but peevish when they’re poor,
And think whate’er they have, they merit more.
The meanest English plowman studies law,
And keeps thereby the magistrates in awe,
Will boldly tell them what they ought to do,
And sometimes punish their omissions too.
Their liberty and property’s so dear,
They scorn their laws or governors to fear;
So bugbear’d with the name of slavery,
They can’t submit to their own liberty.
Restraint from ill is freedom to the wise!
But Englishmen do all restraint despise.
Slaves to the liquor, drudges to the pots;
The mob are statesmen, and their statesmen sots.
Their governors, they count such dang’rous things,
That ’tis their custom to affront their kings:
So jealous of the power their kings possess’d,
They suffer neither power nor kings to rest.
The bad with force they eagerly subdue;
The good with constant clamours they pursue,
And did King Jesus reign, they’d murmur too.
A discontented nation, and by far
Harder to rule in times of peace than war:
Easily set together by the ears,
And full of causeless jealousies and fears:
Apt to revolt, and willing to rebel,
And never are contented when they’re well.
No government could ever please them long,
Could tie their hands, or rectify their tongue.
In this, to ancient Israel well compared,
Eternal murmurs are among them heard.
It was but lately, that they were oppress’d,
Their rights invaded, and their laws suppress’d:
When nicely tender of their liberty,
Lord! what a noise they made of slavery.
In daily tumults show’d their discontent,
Lampoon’d their king, and mock’d his government.
And if in arms they did not first appear,
’Twas want of force, and not for want of fear.
In humbler tone than English used to do,
At foreign hands for foreign aid they sue.
William, the great successor of Nassau,
Their prayers heard, and their oppressions saw;
He saw and saved them: God and him they praised
To this their thanks, to that their trophies raised.
But glutted with their own felicities,
They soon their new deliverer despise;
Say all their prayers back, their joy disown,
Unsing their thanks, and pull their trophies down;
Their harps of praise are on the willows hung;
For Englishmen are ne’er contented long.
The reverend clergy too, and who’d ha’ thought
That they who had such non-resistance taught,
Should e’er to arms against their prince be brought
Who up to heav’n did regal power advance;
Subjecting English laws to modes of France
Twisting religion so with loyalty,
As one could never live, and t’other die;
And yet no sooner did their prince design
Their glebes and perquisites to undermine,
But all their passive doctrines laid aside,
The clergy their own principles denied;
Unpreach’d their non-resisting cant, and pray’d
To heav’n for help, and to the Dutch for aid;
The church chimed all her doctrines back again,
And pulpit-champions did the cause maintain;
Flew in the face of all their former zeal,
And non-resistance did at once repeal.
The Rabbi’s say it would be too prolix,
To tie religion up to politics,
The churches’ safety is suprema lex: And so by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws post facto in the parliament, In urgent cases have attained assent; But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity.
