The inhabitants of old Jerusalem *

Were Jebusites ;† the town so called from them ; And theirs the native right.

But when the chosen people grew more strong,
The rightful cause at length became the wrong;
And every loss the men of Jebus bore,

They still were thought God's enemies the more.
Thus worn or weakened, well or ill content,
Submit they must to David's government;
Impoverished and deprived of all command,
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;
And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood,
Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood.
This set the heathen priesthood in a flame;
For priests of all religions are the same.
Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,
Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,
In his defence his servants are as bold,
As if he had been born of beaten gold.
The Jewish rabbins, though their enemies,
In this conclude them honest men and wise;
For 'twas their duty, all the learned think,
To espouse his cause, by whom they eat and drink.
From hence began that plot, the nation's curse,
Bad in itself, but represented worse;

Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried;
With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied;
Not weighed nor winnowed by the multitude,
But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude.
Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with
lies,

To please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.

* London. § Note VI.

+ Roman Catholics.

First edit. and.

2

Succeeding times did equal folly call,
Believing nothing, or believing all.

The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced,
Where gods were recommended by their taste.
Such savoury deities must needs be good,
As served at once for worship and for food.*
By force they could not introduce these gods,-
For ten to one in former days was odds,-
So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade;
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade.
Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews,
And raked for converts even the court and stews;
Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took,
Because the fleece accompanies the flock.
Some thought they God's anointed meant to slay
By guns, invented since full many a day:
Our author swears it not; but who can know
How far the devil and Jebusites may go? †
This plot, which failed for want of common sense,
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence;
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood,
The standing lake soon floats into a flood,
And every hostile humour, which before
Slept quiet in its channels, bubbles o'er;
So several factions, from this first ferment,
Work up to foam, and threat the government.
Some by their friends, more by themselves thought

wise,

Opposed the power to which they could not rise; Some had in courts been great, and, thrown from thence,

Like fiends, were hardened in impenitence;
Some, by their monarch's fatal mercy, grown
From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne,

A sneer at the doctrine of transubstantiation, which our author afterwards attempted to defend. + Note VII.

Were raised in power and public office high;
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie.
Of these the false Achitophel * was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfixed in principles and place;
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ;
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy-body to decay,

And o'er-informed the tenement of clay;
A daring pilot in extremity;

(Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son; †
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state.
To compass this the triple bond he broke ;
The pillars of the public safety shook;
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke; +
Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.

*Shaftesbury. See note VIII. + Note IX.

‡ Note X.

§ First edit. A patron's. The next twelve lines were added after the first edition. See Introduction.

So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,

Where none can sin against the people's will?
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own?
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin *
With more discerning eyes, or hands more clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of dispatch, and easy of access.

Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtue only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws. †
The wished occasion of the plot he takes;
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes ;
By buzzing emissaries, fills the ears

Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears,
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light,
And proves the king himself a Jebusite.

Weak arguments! which yet, he knew full well,
Were strong with people easy to rebel.

For, governed by the moon, the giddy Jews
Tread the same track when she the prime renews ;
And once in twenty years their scribes record,
By natural instinct they change their lord.
Achitophel still wants a chief, and none
Was found so fit as warlike Absalom.
Not that he wished his greatness to create,
For politicians neither love nor håte ;
But, for he knew his title not allowed,
Would keep him still depending on the crowd;
That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be
Drawn to the dregs of a democracy.

Him he attempts with studied arts to please,
And sheds his venom in such words as these.
Auspicious prince, at whose nativity
Some royal planet ruled the southern sky;
Thy longing country's darling and desire;
Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire;
Their second Moses, whose extended wand
Divides the seas, and shews the promised land ;
Whose dawning day, in every distant age,
Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage;
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
Thee, Saviour, thee the nation's vows confess,
And, never satisfied with seeing, bless ;
Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,
And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name.
How long wilt thou the general joy detain,
Starve and defraud the people of thy reign;
Content ingloriously to pass thy days,
Like one of virtue's fools that feed on praise;
'Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright,
Grow stale, and tarnish with our daily sight?
Believe me, royal youth, thy fruit must be

* First edit. Shuts up.