your Sov’reign’s heat asswage,
And arm him for the ‡horned Cattle’s rage.
[print edition page 148]
Instruct him how to Speak, to Sneer, and Frown,
To try if Tricks will bear a City down:
To be astonish’d that one Voice shou’d sue
To turn a Tyrant from his Bloody-view.
Death is the Word—let loose the Dogs of Prey;
Burgoyne’s the Man, my Lord; encrease his Pay.
Your Heart’s well known; your Voice attention Draws;
Arise and vindicate your Master’s cause.
In Art supreme, in Perfidity not weak,
Show bashful Lordlings what it is to speak.
Let not such Fools as Suffolk, when they rise,
Without a word of English, snatch the Prize.
Shall Peers, whose Infamy is scarce half-blown,
Vaunt Mansfield’s Schemes, as if they were his own;
In Language, which no Grammar e’er equipp’d,
Language, for which a School-boy wou’d be whipp’d?
No.—Be yourself, my Lord; and unconfin’d,
Assert your Right of ruining Mankind.
Break forth in all your Ciceronian blaze,
And let your Front no more than Heart amaze.
Equal in Private and in Public shine,
And dare to be another Cataline.
Shou’d galling Junius make a new attack,
(Whose Lashes still are flagrant on your Back,)
The Libeller by some State blood-hound Trace,
And let him feel the Terrors of your Place.
Grafton in Friendship some sure Snare will lay,
As Friend, and Spy, he’ll join him and betray.
If precedent Injustice can anoint,
John Wilkes’s Case, will be a Case in point.
Then, make the Senate ring; like Pomfret rave;
And scorn by pension’d Proxies to enslave.
“Pomfret!—there’s 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,