placed,
  And kings, like slaves, beneath the crowd debased. 220
  So fulsome is their food, that flocks refuse
  To bite, and only dogs for physic use. 
  As, where the lightning runs along the ground,
  No husbandry can heal the blasting wound;
  Nor bladed grass, nor bearded corn succeeds,
  But scales of scurf and putrefaction breeds: 
  Such wars, such waste, such fiery tracks of dearth
  Their zeal has left, and such a teemless earth,
  But, as the poisons of the deadliest kind
  Are to their own unhappy coasts confined; 230
  As only Indian shades of sight deprive,
  And magic plants will but in Colchos thrive;
  So Presbytery and pestilential zeal
  Can only nourish in a commonweal.

    From Celtic woods is chased the wolfish crew;
  But ah! some pity even to brutes is due: 
  Their native walks methinks they might enjoy,
  Curb’d of their native malice to destroy. 
  Of all the tyrannies on human kind,
  The worst is that which persecutes the mind. 240
  Let us but weigh at what offence we strike;
  ’Tis but because we cannot think alike. 
  In punishing of this, we overthrow
  The laws of nations and of nature too. 
  Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway,
  Where still the stronger on the weaker prey. 
  Man only of a softer mould is made,
  Not for his fellows’ ruin, but their aid: 
  Created kind, beneficent, and free,
  The noble image of the Deity. 250

    One portion of informing fire was given
  To brutes, the inferior family of heaven: 
  The Smith Divine, as with a careless beat, 253
  Struck out the mute creation at a heat: 
  But when arrived at last to human race,
  The Godhead took a deep-considering space;
  And to distinguish man from all the rest,
  Unlock’d the sacred treasures of his breast;
  And mercy mix’d with reason did impart,
  One to his head, the other to his heart:  260
  Reason to rule, and mercy to forgive;
  The first is law, the last prerogative. 
  And like his mind his outward form appear’d,
  When, issuing naked, to the wondering herd,
  He charm’d their eyes; and, for they loved, they fear’d: 
  Not arm’d with horns of arbitrary might,
  Or claws to seize their furry spoils in fight,
  Or with increase of feet to o’ertake them in their flight: 
  Of easy shape, and pliant every way;
  Confessing still the softness of his clay, 270
  And kind as kings upon their coronation day: 
  With open hands, and with extended space
  Of arms, to satisfy a large embrace. 
  Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man
  His kingdom o’er his kindred world began: 
  Till knowledge misapplied, misunderstood,