To speak, to hearken, to debate, and dine: 
This pleased our traveller, for he felt his force
In either way, to eat or to discourse. 
   Nothing more easy than to gain access
To men like these, with his polite address: 
So he succeeded, and first look’d around,
To view his objects and to take his ground;
And therefore silent chose awhile to sit,
Then enter boldly by some lucky hit;
Some observation keen or stroke severe,
To cause some wonder or excite some fear. 
   Now, dinner past, no longer he supprest
His strong dislike to be a silent guest;
Subjects and words were now at his command —
When disappointment frown’d on all he plann’d;
For, hark!—­he heard amazed, on every side,
His church insulted and her priests belied;
The laws reviled, the ruling power abused,
The land derided, and its foes excused:  —
He heard and ponder’d—­What, to men so vile,
Should be his language?—­For his threat’ning style
They were too many;—­if his speech were meek,
They would despise such poor attempts to speak: 
At other times with every word at will,
He now sat lost, perplex’d, astonish’d, still. 
   Here were Socinians, Deists, and indeed
All who, as foes to England’s Church, agreed;
But still with creeds unlike, and some without a creed: 
Here, too, fierce friends of liberty he saw,
Who own’d no prince and who obey no law;
There were reformers of each different sort,
Foes to the laws, the priesthood, and the court;
Some on their favourite plans alone intent,
Some purely angry and malevolent: 
The rash were proud to blame their country’s laws;
The vain, to seem supporters of a cause;
One call’d for change, that he would dread to see;
Another sigh’d for Gallic liberty! 
And numbers joining with the forward crew,
For no one reason—­but that numbers do. 
   “How,” said the Justice, “can this trouble rise,
This shame and pain, from creatures I despise?”
And Conscience answer’d—­“The prevailing cause
Is thy delight in listening to applause;
Here, thou art seated with a tribe, who spurn
Thy favourite themes, and into laughter turn
Thy fears and wishes:  silent and obscure,
Thyself, shalt thou the long harangue endure;
And learn, by feeling, what it is to force
On thy unwilling friends the long discourse: 
What though thy thoughts be just, and these, it seems,
Are traitors’ projects, idiots’ empty schemes;
Yet minds, like bodies, cramm’d, reject their food,
Nor will be forced and tortured for their good!”
   At length, a sharp, shrewd, sallow man arose,
And begg’d he briefly might his mind disclose;
“It was his duty, in these worst of times,
T’inform the govern’d of their rulers’ crimes:” 
This pleasant subject to attend, they each
Prepare to listen, and forbore to teach. 
   Then voluble and fierce the wordy man
Through a long chain of favourite horrors ran: