From earthly vapours ere they shine in skies.
Prodigious actions may as well be done
By weaver's issue, as by prince's son.
This arch-attestor for the public good
By that one deed ennobles all his blood.
Who ever ask'd the witness's high race,
Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace?
Ours was a Levite, and as times went then,
His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.
Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud,
Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud:
His long chin prov'd his wit; his saint-like grace
A church vermilion, and a Moses' face.
His memory, miraculously great,

Could plots, exceeding man's belief, repeat;
Which therefore cannot be accounted lies,
For human wit could never such devise.
Some future truths are mingled in his book;
But where the witness fail'd the prophet spoke :
Some things like visionary flight appear:
The spirit caught him up the Lord knows where,
And gave him his rabbinical degree,
Unknown to foreign university.

His judgment yet his memory did excel;
Which piec'd his wondrous evidence so well,
And suited to the temper of the times,
Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes.
Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call,
And rashly judge his writ apocryphal;

Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made:
He takes his life, who takes away his trade.
Were I myself in witness Corah's place,
The wretch who did me such a dire disgrace
Should whet my memory, though once forgot,
To make him an appendix of my plot.

His zeal to Heaven made him his prince despise,
And load his person with indignities.
But zeal peculiar privilege affords,
Indulging latitude to deeds and words:
And Corah might for Agag's murder call,
In terms as coarse as Samuel us'd to Saul.
What others in his evidence did join,
The best that could be had for love or coin,
In Corah's own predicament will fall:
For witness is a common name to all.

Surrounded thus with friends of every sort,
Deluded Absalom forsakes the court:
Impatient of high hopes, urg'd with renown,
And fir'd with near possession of a crown.
Th' admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise,
And on his goodly person feed their eyes.
His joy conceal'd, he sets himself to show;
On each side bowing popularly low:

His looks, his gestures, and his words he frames,
And with familiar case repeats their names.
Thus form'd by nature, furnish'd out with arts,
He glides unfelt into their secret hearts.
Then with a kind compassionating look,
And sighs, bespeaking pity ere he spoke,
Few words he said; but easy those and fit,
More slow than Hybla-drops, and far more sweet.
I mourn, my countrymen, your lost estate;
Though far unable to prevent your fate.
Behold a banish'd man for your dear cause
Expos'd a prey to arbitrary laws!
Yet oh! that I alone could be undone,

Cut off from empire, and no more a son!
Now all your liberties a spoil are made;
Egypt and Tyrus intercept your trade,
And Jebusites your sacred rites invade.
My father, whom with reverence yet I name,
Charm'd into ease, is careless of his fame;
And, brib'd with petty sums of foreign gold,
Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old;
Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys;
And all his power against himself employs.
He gives, and let him give, my right away:
But why should he his own and yours betray?
He, only he, can make the nation bleed,
And he alone from my revenge is freed.
Take then my tears, with that he wip'd his eyes,
'Tis all the aid my present power supplies:
No court-informer can these arms accuse;
These arms may sons against their fathers use:
And 'tis my wish, the next successor's reign
May make no other Israelite complain.

Youth, beauty, graceful action, seldom fail;
But common interest always will prevail :
And pity never ceases to be shewn

To him who makes the people's wrongs his own.
The crowd, that still believe their kings oppress,
With lifted hands their young Messiah bless:
Who now begins his progress to ordain
With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train:
From east to west his glories he displays,
And, like the sun, the promis'd land surveys.
Fame runs before him as the morning star,
And shouts of joy salute him from afar :
Each house receives him as a guardian god,
And consecrates the place of his abode.
But hospitable treats did most commend
Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend.
This moving court, that caught the people's eyes,
And scem'd but pomp, did other ends disguise;
Achitophel had form'd it, with intent

To sound the depths, and fathom where it went,
The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes,
And try their strength before they came to blows.
Yet all was colour'd with a smooth pretence
Of specious love, and duty to their prince.
Religion, and redress of grievances,

Two names that always cheat, and always please,
Are often urg'd; and good king David's life
Endanger'd by a brother and a wife.
Thus in a pageant shew a plot is made,
And peace itself is war in masquerade.
Oh foolish Israel! never warn'd by ill!
Still the same bait, and circumvented still!
Did ever men forsake their present ease,
In midst of health imagine a disease;
Take pains contingent mischiefs to foresee,
Make heirs for monarchs, and for God decree?
What shall we think? Can people give away,
Both for themselves and sons, their native sway?
Then they are left defenceless to the sword
Of each unbounded, arbitrary lord!
And laws are vain, by which we right enjoy,
If kings unquestion'd can those laws destroy.
Yet if the crowd be judge of fit and just,
And kings are only officers in trust,
Then this resuming covenant was declar'd
When kings were made, or is for ever barr'd.

If those who gave the sceptre could not tie
By their own deed their own posterity,
How then could Adam bind his future race?
How could his forfeit on mankind take place?
Or how could heavenly justice damn us all,
Who ne'er consented to our father's fall?

Then kings are slaves to those whom they command,
And tenants to their people's pleasure stand.
Add, that the power for property allow'd
Is mischievously seated in the crowd:
For who can be secure of private right,

If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might?
Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few;
And faultless kings run down by common cry,
For vice, oppression, and for tyranny.
What standard is there in a fickle rout,
Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out?
Nor only crowds but sanhedrims may be
Infected with this public lunacy,

And share the madness of rebellious times,
To murder monarchs for imagin'd crimes.
If they may give and take whene'er they please,
Not kings alone, the Godhead's images,
But government itself at length must fall
To nature's state, where all have right to all.
Yet, grant our lords the people kings can make,
What prudent men a settled throne would shake?
For whatsoe'er their sufferings were before,
That change they covet makes them suffer more.
All other errors but disturb a state;
But innovation is the blow of fate.

If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall,

To patch their flaws, and buttress up the wall,
Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark;
For all beyond it is to touch the ark.

To change foundations, cast the frame anew,
Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue;
At once divine and human laws controul,
And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.
The tampering world is subject to this curse,
To physic their disease into a worse.

Now what relief can righteous David bring?
How fatal 'tis to be too good a king!
Friends he has few, so high the madness grows;
Who dare be such must be the people's foes.
Yet some there were, ev'n in the worst of days;
Some let me name, and naming is to praise.

In this short file Berzillai first appears;
Berzillai, crown'd with honour and with years.
Long since, the rising rebels he withstood
In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood:
Unfortunately brave to buoy the state;
But sinking underneath his master's fate:
In exile with his godlike prince he mourn'd;
For him he suffer'd, and with him return'd.
The court he practis'd, not the courtier's art:
Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart;
Which well the noblest objects knew to choose,
The fighting warrior, and recording Muse.
His bed could once a fruitful issue boast;
Now more than half a father's name is lost.
His eldest hope, with every grace adorn'd;
By me, so Heaven will have it, always mourn'd,
And always honour'd; snatch'd in manhood's prime
B' unequal fates and providence's crime:

Yet not before the goal of honour won,
All parts fulfill'd of subject and of son:
Swift was the race, but short the time to run.
Oh narrow circle, but of power divine,
Scanted in space, but perfect in thy line!
By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known,
Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own:
Thy force infus'd, the fainting Tyrians propp'd:
And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stopp'd.
Oh ancient honour! Oh unconquer'd hand,
Whom foes unpunish'd never could withstand!
But Israel was unworthy of his name:
Short is the date of all immoderate fame.
It looks as Heaven our ruin had design'd,
And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind.
Now free, from earth thy disencumber'd soul
Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry

pole.

From thence thy kindred legions mayst thou bring,
To aid the guardian angel of thy king.

Here stop, my Muse, here cease thy painful flight:
No pinions can pursue immortal height:
Tell good Berzillai thou canst sing no more,
And tell thy soul she should have fled before:
Or fled she with his life, and left this verse
To hang on her departed patron's hearse?
Now take thy steepy flight from heaven, and see
If thou canst find on earth another he:
Another he would be too hard to find;

See then whom thou canst see not far behind.
Zadoc the priest, whom, shunning power and place,
His lowly mind advanc'd to David's grace.
With him the Sagan of Jerusalem,

Of hospitable soul, and noble stem;

Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
The prophet's sons, by such example led,
To learning and to loyalty were bred:
For colleges on bounteous kings depend,
And never rebel was to arts a friend.
To these succeed the pillars of the laws;
Who best can plead, and best can judge a cause.
Next them a train of loyal peers ascend;
Sharp-judging Adriel, the Muses' friend,
Himself a Muse: in sanhedrims debate
True to his prince, but not a slave of state;
Whom David's love with honours did adorn,
That from his disobedient son were torn.
Jotham of piercing wit and pregnant thought;
Endued by nature, and by learning taught,
To move assemblies; who but only try'd
The worse awhile, then chose the better side:
Nor chose alone, but turn'd the balance too;
So much the weight of one brave man can do.
Hushai, the friend of David in distress;
In public storms of manly steadfastness:
By foreign treaties he inform'd his youth,
And join'd experience to his native truth.
His frugal care supply'd the wanting throne;
Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own:
'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow;
But hard the task to manage well the low:
For sovereign power is too depress'd or high,
When kings are forc'd to sell, or crowds to buy.
Indulge one labour more, my weary Muse,
For Amiel: who can Amiel's praise refuse?

Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet
In his own worth, and without title great:
The sanhedrim long time as chief he rul'd;
Their reason guided, and their passion cool'd:
So dext'rous was he in the crown's defence,
So form'd to speak a loyal nation's sense,
That, as their band was Israel's tribes in small,
So fit was he to represent them all.
Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend,
Whose loose careers his steady skill commend:
They, like th' unequal ruler of the day,
Misguide the seasons, and mistake the way:
While he withdrawn, at their mad labours smiles,
And safe enjoys the sabbath of his toils.

These were the chief, a small but faithful band
Of worthies, in the breach who dar'd to stand,
And tempt th' united fury of the land.
With grief they view'd such powerful engines bent
To batter down the lawful government.

A numerous faction, with pretended frights,
In sanhedrims to plume the regal rights;
The true successor from the court remov'd;
The plot, by hireling witnesses, improv'd.
These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound,
They shew'd the king the danger of the wound;
That no concessions from the throne would please,
But lenitives fomented the disease:
That Absalom, ambitious of the crown,
Was made the lure to draw the people down:
That false Achitophel's pernicious hate
Had turn'd the plot to ruin church and state:
The council violent, the rabble worse:
That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse.

With all these loads of injuries opprest,
And long revolving in his careful breast
Th' event of things, at last his patience tir'd,
Thus, from his royal throne, by Heaven inspir'd,
The god-like David spoke; with awful fear
His train their Maker in their master hear.

Thus long have I, by native mercy sway'd, My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delay'd: So willing to forgive th' offending age; So much the father did the king assuage. But now so far my clemency they slight, Th' offenders question my forgiving right. That one was made for many, they contend; But 'tis no rule; for that's a monarch's end. They call my tenderness of blood, my fear; Though manly tempers can the longest bear. Yet, since they will divert my native course, 'Tis time to shew I am not good by force. Those heap'd affronts that haughty subjects bring Are burdens for a camel, not a king. Kings are the public pillars of the state, Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight: If my young Samson will pretend a call To shake the column, let him share the fall: But oh, that yet he would repent and live! How easy 'tis for parents to forgive! With how few tears a pardon might be won From nature, pleading for a darling son! Poor, pitied youth, by my paternal care, Rais'd up to all the height his frame could bear! Had God ordain'd his fate for empire born, He would have given his soul another turn: Gull'd with a patriot's name, whose modern sense

Is one that would by law supplant his prince,
The people's brave, the politician's tool;
Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
Whence comes it, that religion and the laws
Should more be Absalom's than David's cause?
His old instructor, ere he lost his place,
Was never thought indu'd with so much grace.
Good heav'ns, how faction can a patriot paint!
My rebel ever proves my people's saint:
Would they impose an heir upon the throne?
Let sanhedrims be taught to give their own.
A king's at least a part of government;
And mine as requisite as their consent:
Without my leave a future king to choose,
Infers a right the present to depose:
True, they petition me t' approve their choice:
But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice.
My pious subjects for my safety pray,
Which to secure, they take my pow'r away.
From plots and treasons Heav'n preserve my years,
But save me most from my petitioners.
Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave;
God cannot grant so much as they can crave.
What then is left, but with a jealous eye
To guard the small remains of royalty?
The law shall still direct my peaceful sway,
And the same law teach rebels to obey:
Votes shall no more establish'd pow'r controul,
Such votes as make a part exceed the whole:
No groundless clamours shall my friends remove,
Nor crowds have pow'r to punish ere they prove:
For Gods and god-like kings their care express,
Still to defend their servants in distress.
Oh, that my pow'r to saving were confin'd!
Why am I forc'd, like Heav'n, against my mind,
To make examples of another kind?

Must I at length the sword of justice draw?
Oh, curs'd effects of necessary law!
How ill my fear they by my mercy scan!
Beware the fury of a patient man.

Law they require, let law then shew her face.
They could not be content to look on grace
Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye
To tempt the terror of her front, and die.
By their own arts, 'tis righteously decreed,
Those dire artificers of death shall bleed.
Against themselves their witnesses will swear,
Till, viper-like, their mother plot they tear;
And suck for nutriment that bloody gore
Which was their principle of life before.
Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight;
Thus on my foes my foes shall do me right:
Nor doubt th' event: for factious crowds engage,
In their first onset, all their brutal rage.
Then let 'em take an unresisted course:
Retire and traverse, and delude their force:
But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight,
And rise upon 'em with redoubled might:
For lawful pow'r is still superior found;
When long driv'n back, at length it stands the ground.
He said, th' Almighty nodding gave consent;
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran:
Once more the god-like David was restor'd,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.

KEY TO ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL.

One thought content the good to be enjoy'd:

Chancellor in general.

Absalom, Duke of Monmouth.

Achitophel, the Earl of Shaftesbury.
Adriel, Earl of Mulgrave.

Agog, Sir Edmundbury Godfrey.

Amiel, Mr. Seymour, Speaker of the House of Commons.
Annabel, Duchess of Monmouth.

Balaam, Earl of Huntingdon.
Barzillai, Duke of Ormond.

Bathsheba, Duchess of Portsmouth.

Caleb, Lord Grey.

Corah, Dr. Oates.

David, Charles II.

Egypt, France.

Ethnic Plot, the Popish Plot.

Gath, the Land of Exile, more particularly Brussels, where King Charles II. long resided.

Hebron, Scotland.

Hebrew Priests, the Church of England Clergy.

Hushai, Earl of Rochester.

Ishbosheth, Richard Cromwell.

Israel, England.

Issachar, Thomas Thynne, Esq.

Jebusites, Papists.

Jerusalem, London.

Jews, English.

Jonas, Sir William Jones.

Jordan, Dover.

Jotham, Marquis of Halifax.

Michal, Queen Catherine.

Nadab, Lord Howard of Escriek.

Pharaoh, King of France.

DIM as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is reason to the soul: and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear,
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows reason at religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led
From cause to cause, to nature's secret head;
And found that one first principle must be :
But what, or who, that universal He;
Whether some soul incompassing this ball,
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms' interfering dance,
Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance;
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not ev'n the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he:
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rashly judg'd of providence and fate:
But least of all could their endeavours find
What most concern'd the good of human kind :
For happiness was never to be found,

But vanish'd from them like enchanted ground.

The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
A thorny, or at best a barren soil:

In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:

In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach Infinity?

For what could fathom God were more than He.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;
Cries supnxa, the mighty secret's found:
God is that spring of good; supreme, and best;
We made to serve, and in that service blest.
If so, some rules of worship must be given,
Distributed alike to all by Heaven:
Else God were partial, and to some deny'd
The means his justice should for all provide.
This general worship is to praise and pray:
One part to borrow blessings, one to pay:
And when frail nature slides into offence,
The sacrifice for crimes is penitence.
Yet, since the effects of providence, we find,
Are variously dispens'd to human kind;
That vice triumphs, and virtue suffers here,
A brand that sovereign justice cannot bear;
Our reason prompts us to a future state:
The last appeal from fortune and from fate:
Where God's all-righteous ways will be declar'd;
The bad meet punishment, the good reward.

[soar:

Thus man by his own strength to heaven would
And would not be oblig'd to God for more.
Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled
To think thy wit these god-like notions bred!
These truths are not the product of thy mind,
But dropt from heaven, and of a nobler kind.
Reveal'd religion first inform'd thy sight,
And reason saw not till faith sprung the light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source:
'Tis revelation what thou think'st discourse.
Else how com'st thou to see these truths so clear,
Which so obscure to heathens did appear?
Not Plato these, nor Aristotle found:
Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd.
Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime,
Or canst thou lower dive, or higher climb?
Canst thou by reason more of godhead know
Than Plutarch, Seneca, or Cicero ?
Those giant wits in happier ages born,

When arms and arts did Greece and Rome adorn,
Knew no such system: no such piles could raise
Of natural worship, built on prayer and praise
To one sole God.

Nor did remorse to expiate sin prescribe:
But slew their fellow-creatures for a bribe:
The guiltless victim groan'd for their offence;
And cruelty and blood was penitence.

If sheep and oxen could atone for men,
Ah! at how cheap a rate the rich might sin!
And great oppressors might Heaven's wrath beguile,
By offering his own creatures for a spoil!

Dar'st thou, poor worm, offend Infinity?
And must the terms of peace be given by thee?

Then thou art Justice in the last appeal;
Thy easy God instructs thee to rebel:
And, like a king remote and weak, must take
What satisfaction thou art pleas'd to make.

But if there be a power too just and strong
To wink at crimes, and bear unpunish'd wrong;
Look humbly upward, see his will disclose
The forfeit first, and then the fine impose:
A mulct thy poverty could never pay,
Had not eternal wisdom found the way,
And with celestial wealth supply'd thy store:

His justice makes the fine, his mercy quits the score.
See God descending in thy human frame;
Th' offended suffering in th' offender's name :
All thy misdeeds to him imputed see,
And all his righteousness devolv'd on thee.

For, granting we have sinn'd, and that th' offence
Of man is made against Omnipotence,
Some price that bears proportion must be paid;
And infinite with infinite be weigh'd.
See then the Deist lost: remorse for vice
Not paid; or, paid, inadequate in price:
What farther means can reason now direct,
Or what relief from human wit expect?
That shews us sick; and sadly are we sure
Still to be sick, till Heaven reveal the cure:
If then Heaven's will must needs be understood,
Which must, if we want cure, and Heaven be good,
Let all records of will reveal'd be shown;
With scripture all in equal balance thrown;
And our one sacred book will be that one.

Proof needs not here, for whether we compare
That impious, idle, superstitious ware
Of rites, lustrations, offerings, which before,
In various ages, various countries bore,
With Christian faith and virtues, we shall find
None answering the great ends of human kind
But this one rule of life, that shews us best
How God may be appeas'd, and mortals blest.
Whether from length of time its worth we draw,
The word is scarce more ancient than the law:
Heaven's early care prescrib'd for every age;
First, in the soul, and after, in the page.
Or, whether more abstractedly we look,
Or on the writers, or the written book,

Cross to our interests, curbing sense and sin;
Oppress'd without, and undermin'd within,
It thrives through pain; its own tormentors tires;
And with a stubborn patience still aspires.
To what can reason such effects assign
Transcending nature, but to laws divine;
Which in that sacred volume are contain'd;
Sufficient, clear, and for that use ordain'd?

But stay: the Deist here will urge anew,
No supernatural worship can be true;
Because a general law is that alone
Which must to all, and every where, be known:
A style so large as not this book can claim,
Nor aught that bears reveal'd religion's name.
"Tis said the sound of a Messiah's birth

Is gone through all the habitable earth:
But still that text must be confin'd alone
To what was then inhabited and known:
And what provision could from thence accrue
To Indian souls, and worlds discover'd new?
In other parts it helps, that ages past,
The scriptures there were known, and were embrac'd,
Till sin spread once again the shades of night:
What's that to these, who never saw the light?

Of all objections this indeed is chief
To startle reason, stagger frail belief:
We grant, 'tis true, that Heaven from human sense
Has hid the secret paths of providence:
But boundless wisdom, boundless mercy, may
Find ev'n for those bewilder'd souls a way:
If from his nature foes may pity claim,
Much more may strangers who ne'er heard his name.
And though no name be for salvation known,
But that of his eternal Son's alone;
Who knows how far transcending goodness can
Extend the merits of that Son to man?
Who knows what reasons may his mercy lead;
Or ignorance invincible may plead?
Not only charity bids hope the best,
But more the great apostle has exprest:
"That if the Gentiles, whom no law inspir'd,
By nature did what was by law requir'd;
They, who the written rule had never known,
Were to themselves both rule and law alone:
To nature's plain indictment they shall plead;

arts,

In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice,
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price.
If on the book itself we cast our view,
Concurrent heathens prove the story true:
The doctrine, miracles; which must convince,
For Heaven in them appeals to human sense:
And though they prove not, they confirm the cause,
When what is taught agrees with nature's laws.

Then for the style, majestic and divine,
It speaks no less than God in every line:
Commanding words; whose force is still the same
As the first fiat that produc'd our frame.
All faiths beside, or did by arms ascend;

Or sense indulg'd has made mankind their friend:
This only doctrine does our lusts oppose:
Unfed by nature's soil, in which it grows;

Most righteous doom! because a rule reveal'd Is none to those from whom it was conceal'd, Then those who follow'd reason's dictates right, Liv'd up, and lifted high their natural light, With Socrates may see their Maker's face, While thousand rubric martyrs want a place.

Nor does it balk my charity, to find Th' Egyptian bishop of another mind; For though his creed eternal truth contains, 'Tis hard for man to doom to endless pains All who believ'd not all his zeal requir'd; Unless he first could prove he was inspir'd. Then let us either think he meant to say This faith, where publish'd, was the only way; Or else conclude that, Arius to confute, The good old man, too eager in dispute, Flew high; and as his christian fury rose, Damn'd all for heretics who durst oppose.

Thus far my charity this path has try'd; A much unskilful, but well-meaning guide: