The Crisis. Группа авторов
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.
Not so our great ‡ Deliver’r sought renown;
He knew from whom, and why, he had the Crown.
But now, the Globe and Scepter’s held for show,
Bute, says that ||Craft is all a King should know;
Quotes bright examples from each Stuart’s reign;
To such a Scholar not one Hint’s in vain.
A Just Petition’s answer’d with a sneer;
And to secure his point, he drops a Tear.
Unhappy York! Too fickle to resist!
Alas! thy Death encreas’d the Tyrants List!
Not to be won by all that Sense could try,
You fell by water from the weakest Eye!
[print edition page 152]
If *Hypocrites are Murd’rers, who shall dare
To excuse that Guilt, which bare-fac’d thanks declare?
When harmless Lives were lost, and Rome was burn’d,
NERO, in form his grateful thanks return’d;
Happy to have a cool, obedient Scot
Perform his bloody Orders to a jot;
Happy to find two more so bravely warm’d,
So hot for Blood, to stab one † Youth unarm’d.
O! when in British Annals shall this blot
Of Sanguinary Power be forgot!
Never whilst this corrupt and bloody Reign
Shall Furnish a Record of Slaves and Slain.
Never whilst brave America can feel
The Sense of wrongs, or the redress of Steel:
Never whilst Liberty and Right Divine,
Mark the vile Stuart from the Brunswick Line.
Behold! what Bute’s long-labour’d Culture brings,
A King of Patches! And a shame to Kings!
A Baby! who is humour’d till he thinks
That Water sacred, which a Monarch drinks.
Taught that the height of Piety’s to kneel,
He says his pray’rs and bids the Vulgar feel.
Let meaner Souls relent, forgive forget;
Such Weakness ne’er disgrac’d a Stuart yet.
No—let the Slave that thwarts US be undone,
Long live the Mother in the Tyrant Son!
Thus lectures Bute,—and this advice embrac’d,
All Sense of Virtue in the Bud’s effac’d,
How shou’d King’s see in infancy made blind?
Whose Manhood’s watch’d, whose Knowledge is confin’d?
To whom no page in History’s reveal’d,
[print edition page 153]
But where they find the Subject’s Cause appeal’d
To Heav’n?—this same Redress Carte’s Volumes teach;
These George may read—these Bute and Mansfield preach.
True to his trust the Thane his task begun;
He pleas’d the Mother and he dup’d the Son.
Taught him to fly above the legal Sphere,
And by sad Charles’s Star his Course to steer;
To bear no Counsel, no sage hint, no Guide;
But think all Subjects born for King’s to ride;
By *Famine brave resistance to entomb,
And (with Macbeth) to “leap the life to come”;
To wait no Tide, attend no rising Gale,
But rashly spread Prerogative’s full sail:
To heed no Subject in his bold careers,
But Passive Pensioners and rotten Peers.
To spare no Life, if poignant Satyr strikes;
To Plan the Death of him he most dislikes;
Waiting impatient for the setting Sun,
To hear good news from †Martyn and from Dun.
To give in jest a Coronation Pledge,
Nor think an Oath more sacred than a ‡Wedge.
Alas! that Off’ring shou’d suggest a Thought,
That Charity by former Kings was wrought;
That, from the royal Cradle to the Grave,
The truest Piety’s to guard and save.
Such Acts as these to Crowns a Lustre lend;
This, Mansfield, this is being “Virtues Friend.”
But, when Destruction is a King’s Command,
And Death gains Passports from the royal Hand;
When Carnage is the Word—when gen’rous Gage,
Dreads that his Name shou’d blot th’historic Page,
And, with a Tenderness his Prince will blame,
[print edition page 154]
Shrinks from rank Murder, and eternal Shame;
When Conscience and Remorse from Court is flown,
Nor dare sollicit a despotic Throne;
All must be Slaves, till Spirit shall return,
To fire those Bosoms where it us’d to burn;
Till we consider Names far less than Things,
Nor care from what sound Stem we take our Kings;
Till scepter’d Pride is taught to bless the Hand
That calls her to protect a gen’rous Land;
Is taught that British Monarchs owe their State,
To those who can depose them or create;
Provok’d, insult’d, spurn’d can spare, or try;
Or throw, with Scorn, their royal Creature by.
BUTE! MANSFIELD! These are Doctrines which appear
Horrid and Harsh to your distemper’d Ear;
But there will come a Time when you shall rue
That e’er you counsell’d with a Heart untrue:
When from those Counsels deadly