A patriot of an open mind,
  Whose constant actions prove him just
  To both a king’s and people’s trust;
  May he with gratitude attend,
  And owe his rise to such a friend. 
     You praise his parts, for business fit,
  His learning, probity, and wit;
  But those alone will never do,
  Unless his patron have them too.
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  I’ve heard of times (pray God defend us,
  We’re not so good but He can mend us)
  When wicked ministers have trod
  On kings and people, law and God;
  With arrogance they girt the throne,
  And knew no interest but their own. 
  Then virtue, from preferment barr’d,
  Gets nothing but its own reward. 
  A gang of petty knaves attend ’em,
  With proper parts to recommend ’em.
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  Then if their patron burn with lust,
  The first in favour’s pimp the first. 
  His doors are never closed to spies,
  Who cheer his heart with double lies;
  They flatter him, his foes defame,
  So lull the pangs of guilt and shame. 
  If schemes of lucre haunt his brain,
  Projectors swell his greedy train;
  Vile brokers ply his private ear
  With jobs of plunder for the year;
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  All consciences must bend and ply;
  You must vote on, and not know why: 
  Through thick and thin you must go on;
  One scruple, and your place is gone. 
  Since plagues like these have cursed a land,
  And favourites cannot always stand;
  Good courtiers should for change be ready,
  And not have principles too steady: 
  For should a knave engross the power,
  (God shield the realm, from that sad hour,)
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  He must have rogues, or slavish fools: 
  For what’s a knave without his tools? 
     Wherever those a people drain,
  And strut with infamy and gain,
  I envy not their guilt and state,
  And scorn to share the public hate. 
  Let their own servile creatures rise
  By screening fraud, and venting lies;
  Give me, kind heaven, a private station,[7]
  A mind serene for contemplation: 
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  Title and profit I resign;
  The post of honour shall be mine. 
  My fable read, their merits view,
  Then herd who will with such a crew. 
     In days of yore (my cautious rhymes
  Always except the present times)
  A greedy vulture skilled in game,
  Inured to guilt, unawed by shame,
  Approached the throne in evil hour,
  And step by step intrudes to power;
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  When at the royal eagle’s ear,
  He longs to ease the monarch’s care. 
  The monarch grants.  With pride elate,
  Behold him minister of state! 
  Around him throng the feathered rout;
  Friends must be served, and some must out,
  Each thinks his own the best pretension;
  This asks a place, and that a pension. 
     The nightingale was set aside,
  A forward daw his room supplied.
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     ‘This bird,’