Easie your Style, unstudy’d all and clear. Prosaic Lines are pardonable here.  There are whose Breath would blast the brightest Fame, } Who from base Actions court an odious Name, } With Beauty and with Virtue War proclaim; } Who bundle up the Scandals of the Town, 1040 And in lewd Couplets make it all their own:  Just Shame be theirs who thus debauch a Muse, To vile Lampoons a noble Art abuse:  As ill be theirs, and half of DATS’s Fate, Who always dully rail against the State. Kings are but Men, nor are their Councils more, Those Ills we can’t avert we must deplore:  Not many Poets were for Statesmen made, It asks more Brains than stocks the Rhiming Trade:  (At least, when they the Ministry receive, 1050 To Poets Militant their Muse they leave.) All sordid Flat’ry hate, it pleases none But Tyrants grinning on their Iron Throne:  Yet where wer’e rul’d with wise impartial Sway, The Muses should their grateful Homage pay:  ’Tis base alike a Tyrant’s Name to raise, And grudg a Parent Prince our tributary Praise.  No wonder those who by Proscriptions gain } In Marian Days, or Sylla’s bloody Reign, } Of the divine Augustus should complain; } 1060 Who stoops to wear a Crown’s uneasie Weight, As Atlas under Heav’n, to prop the State:  No Glory strikes his Great exalted Mind, No Pleasure like obliging all Mankind; He lets the Factious their weak Malice vent, Punish’d enough while they themselves torment:  Satiate with Conquest, his dread Sword he sheaths, And with a Nod disbands ten thousand Deaths.  Who dares Rebellious Arms against him move While his Praetorian Guard’s his Subjects Love? 1070 Admir’d by all the bravest and the best, Who wear a Roman Soul within their ample Breast:  Tho charm’d with both, which shall they more admire In Peace his Wisdom, or in War his Fire? —­One Labour yet remains, and that they ask, Alcides never clear’d a nobler Task; O Father! banish’d Vertue O restore!  Let Hydra Vice pollute thy Reign no more!  Strike through the Monster-Form, which threatning stands, Fierce with a thousand Throats, a thousand Hands! 1080 Rescue once more thy Trojans sacred Line } From slavish Chains, so shall thy Temples shine } With Stars, and all Elysium shall be thine. }

FINIS.