Weight in what such Heads advise;
Madmen in council are to me a Prize.
Since Smith is Dead, Pomfret may be endured:
[print edition page 149]
We loose a Vote, shou’d the poor Man be cur’d.
Besides, he Speaks—in Sentiments unites,
He sometimes Raves and Stares, but never Bites.”
“Granted, my Lord”—but yet (unknown to yield,
As your Troops are) why don’t you take the Field
In Person? Clear Suspicions, Doubts dispel:
No Lord contrives, abetts, or speaks, so well.
Does virtuous Camden talk your Spirit down,
Or Chatham awe you with a Roman frown?
When Patriot Rockingham, or Richmond rise,
Does Freedom’s ray annoy your dazzled Eyes?
Does Shelburne’s Boldness shake your dastard Soul?
Or Temple’s perseverance want Controul?
Can you, with Forces so well paid, and fed,
Despond, unless your Thane is at your Head?
Can you, his staunch Lieutenant Colonel, fail
In Senate, as in Council, to prevail?
Or is your Courage check’d in it’s Career,
Because you’ve lost five thousand Pounds a Year?
Long in Commission you had kept the Seals;
*Three Judges moving on your Lordship’s Wheels;
Their Mouths pronounc’d, but your’s prescrib’d the Law;
Thus have we Kings and Judges too, of Straw.
If ten such learn’d Triumvirates as that,
With all their Law will scarce make half a Pratt;
Who can behold (and not with Rage be stirr’d)
A Prætor †sliver’d from the weakest Third?
This Thought of yours, my Lord, your Pow’r ensures,
The weaker the Man is, the more he’s yours.
In Council, Court, and Parliament we see
Your faithful Shadow moves as you decree;
[print edition page 150]
witness the *Cause of Thickness against Leigh.]
This Project shows your Machiavelian skill,
You’re † Speaker thus (and more than Speaker) still.
Profoundly Politic in all you do,
Thus are you Chancellor and Speaker too.
Yet, when you can foresee an hard fought Day,
Like Falstaff, from your post you sneak away.
The risque your rag-o-muffin bands may share:
You (like your THANE) make Self your dearest Care.
Boldly you counsel underneath the Rose;
But fly the Conflict when the Armies close.
A War of Reason gives your Lordship pain:
Virtue alone such Conflicts can sustain.
Too free, too pure, to serve Oppression’s end,
She can’t mistake a Mansfield for a Friend.
Some few hard fronts can stand the shock of Steel,
But none the Thunder of the Public-Weal.
Ev’n JOVE himself, GREAT JOVE, can’t bear reproach,
Nor pass without a pannic in his Coach,
When to NORTH’S smuggled Parliament he rides,
The God betraying what the Stoic hides.
Fain would he smile—shrill hoots his muscles check,
Then how he wishes England had one ‡Neck!
At ev’ry Hiss he feels a conscious Start,
And Groans re-echo’d pierce his Tyrant-Heart;
A Heart, in infancy too soon ensur’d:
To slight those Ills his People have endur’d;
Harden’d by Female Insolence and Pride;
To Bute entrusted as it’s only Guide,
A Guide to what? not to the People’s Love,
(The safest Ground on which a King can move)
[print edition page 151]
Nor to the Path of Honour, Truth, or Fame,
In which our Edward’s won a glorious Name;
Not, with discernment, to enforce the Laws,
Or yield to Subjects in a *Righteous Cause;
To aid the just, to sooth the giddy Throng,
And wisely to distinguish right from wrong;
To temper Justice with an even Hand,
And drive Corruption from a sinking Land;
But train’d (alas!) to act the meanest part,
To speak a Language foreign to his heart,
To promise more than Briton’s ever hear’d,
Trusting to have his †sacred Lyes rever’d;
To set his Honour and his soul to Sale,
As Water false, as courtly Sunshine frail;
In Theory well-School’d; in Practice taught
To be the sad reverse of what he ought.
Honour and Faith in Falshood’s, Stream he laves,
And toil’s to make a freeborn People Slaves.
