Establish'd gratiâ Dei blockheads,

Born with three kingdoms in their pocketsYet, with a brass that nothing stops,

Push up into the loftiest stations,

And, though too dull to manage shops,
Presume, the dolts, to manage nations!

This class it is, that moves my gall,
And stirs up bile, and spleen, and all.
While other senseless things appear
To know the limits of their sphere—
While not a cow on earth romances
So much as to conceit she dances-

While the most jumping frog we know of,
Would scarce at Astley's hope to show off-
Your ***
*s, your ***s dare,

Untrain'd as are their minds, to set them To any business, any where,

At

any time that fools will let them.

But leave we here these upstart things—
My business is, just now, with Kings;
To whom, and to their right-line glory,
I dedicate the following story.

FABLE.

THE wise men of Egypt were secret as dummies;

And, ev'n when they most condescended to teach, They pack'd up their meaning, as they did their mummies,

In so many wrappers, 'twas out of one's reach.

They were also, good people, much given to KingsFond of craft and of crocodiles, monkeys and

mystery;

But blue-bottle flies were their best belov'd thingsAs will partly appear in this very short history.

A Scythian philosopher (nephew, they say,

To that other great traveller, young Anacharsis,)

Stept into a temple at Memphis one day,

To have a short peep at their mystical farces.

He saw * a brisk blue-bottle Fly on an altar, Made much of, and worshipp'd, as something divine;

* According to Elian, it was in the island of Leucadia they practised this ceremony-θυειν βουν ταις μυιαις. — De Animal. lib. ii. cap. 8.

While a large, handsome Bullock, led there in a halter,

Before it lay stabb'd at the foot of the shrine.

Surpris'd at such doings, he whisper'd his teacher"If 'tisn't impertinent, may I ask why

"Should a Bullock, that useful and powerful creature,

"Be thus offer'd up to a blue-bottle Fly?"

"No wonder❞—said t'other—"you stare at the sight,

"But we as a Symbol of Monarchy view it— "That Fly on the shrine is Legitimate Right,

"And that Bullock, the People, that's sacrific'd to it."

FABLE V.

CHURCH AND STATE.

PROEM.

"The moment any religion becomes national, or established, its purity must certainly be lost, because it is then impossible to keep it unconnected with men's interests; and, if connected, it must inevitably be perverted by them."- SOAME JENYNS.

THUS did SOAME JENYNS-though a Tory,
A Lord of Trade and the Plantations ;
Feel how Religion's simple glory

Is stain'd by State associations.

When CATHERINE, ere she crush'd the Poles,

Appeal'd to the benign Divinity;

Then cut them up in protocols,

Made fractions of their

souls very

*

All in the name of the bless'd Trinity;

Or when her grandson, ALEXANDER,

That mighty Northern salamander†,

* Ames, demi-ames, &c.

+ The salamander is supposed to have the power of extinguishing fire by its natural coldness and moisture.

Whose icy touch, felt all about,

Puts

every

fire of Freedom out

When he, too, winds up his Ukases
With God and the Panagia's praises-
When he, of royal Saints the type,
In holy water dips the spunge,
With which, at one imperial wipe,

He would all human rights expunge;

When LOUIS (whom as Ķing, and eater,
Some name Dix-huit, and some Des-huitres,)
Calls down "St. Louis' God" to witness
The right, humanity, and fitness

Of sending eighty thousand Solons,

Sages, with muskets and lac'd coats, To cram instruction, nolens volens,

Down the poor struggling Spaniards' throatsI can't help thinking, (though to Kings I must, of course, like other men, bow,) That when a Christian monarch brings Religion's name to gloss these things— Such blasphemy out-Benbows Benbow! *

* A well-known publisher of irreligious books.