Hail, sacred themes! the Muse’s chief delight! 
  Oh, bring the darling objects to my sight! 
  My breast with elevated thought shall glow,
  My fancy brighten, and my numbers flow! 
  The Aonian grove with rapture would I tread,
  To crop unfading wreaths for William’s head,
  But that my strain, unheard amidst the throng,
  Must yield to Lockman’s ode, and Hambury’s song. 
  Nor would the enamour’d Muse neglect to pay
  To Stanhope’s[3] worth the tributary lay, 110
  The soul unstain’d, the sense sublime to paint,
  A people’s patron, pride, and ornament,
  Did not his virtues eternised remain
  The boasted theme of Pope’s immortal strain. 
  Not e’en the pleasing task is left to raise
  A grateful monument to Barnard’s praise,
  Else should the venerable patriot stand
  The unshaken pillar of a sinking land. 
  The gladdening prospect let me still pursue,
  And bring fair Virtue’s triumph to the view; 120
  Alike to me, by fortune blest or not,
  From soaring Cobham to the melting Scot.[4]
  But, lo! a swarm of harpies intervene,
  To ravage, mangle, and pollute the scene! 
  Gorged with our plunder, yet still gaunt for spoil,
  Rapacious Gideon fastens on our isle;
  Insatiate Lascelles, and the fiend Vaneck,
  Rise on our ruins, and enjoy the wreck;
  While griping Jasper glories in his prize,
  Wrung from the widow’s tears and orphan’s cries. 130

  FRIEND.

  Relapsed again! strange tendency to rail! 
  I fear’d this meekness would not long prevail.

  POET.

  You deem it rancour, then?  Look round and see
  What vices flourish still unpruned by me: 
  Corruption, roll’d in a triumphant car,
  Displays his burnish’d front and glittering star,
  Nor heeds the public scorn, or transient curse,
  Unknown alike to honour and remorse. 
  Behold the leering belle, caress’d by all,
  Adorn each private feast and public ball, 140
  Where peers attentive listen and adore,
  And not one matron shuns the titled whore. 
  At Peter’s obsequies[5] I sung no dirge;
  Nor has my satire yet supplied a scourge
  For the vile tribes of usurers and bites,
  Who sneak at Jonathan’s, and swear at White’s. 
  Each low pursuit, and slighter folly, bred
  Within the selfish heart and hollow head,
  Thrives uncontroll’d, and blossoms o’er the land,
  Nor feels the rigour of my chastening hand. 150
  While Codrus shivers o’er his bags of gold,
  By famine wither’d, and benumb’d by cold,
  I mark his haggard eyes with frenzy roll,
  And feast upon the terrors of his soul;
  The wrecks of war, the perils of the deep,
  That curse with hideous dreams the caitiff’s sleep;
  Insolvent debtors, thieves, and civil strife,
  Which daily persecute his wretched life,