[6]
So easie still it proves in Factious Times,
With publick Zeal to cancel private Crimes:
How safe is Treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the Peoples Will?
Where Crouds can wink; and no offence be known,
Since in anothers guilt they find their own.
Yet, Fame deserv'd, no Enemy can grudges;
The Statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israels Courts ne're sat an Abbethdin
With more discerning Eyes, or Hands more clean:
Unbrib'd, unsought, the Wretched to redress;
Swift of Dispatch, and easie of Access.
Oh, had he been content to serve the Crown,
With Vertues only proper to the Gown;
Or, had the rankness of the Soil been freed.
From Cockle, that opprest the Noble Seed:
David, for him his tuneful Harp had strung,
And Heav'n had wanted one Immortal Song.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And Fortunes Ice prefers to Vertues Land:
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful Fame, and lazy Happiness;
Disdain'd the Golden Fruit to gather free,
And lent the Croud his Arm to shake the Tree.
Now, manifest of Crimes, contriv'd long since,
He stood at bold Defiance with his Prince:
Held up the Buckler of the Peoples Cause,
Against the Crown; and sculk'd behind the Laws.
The wish'd occasion of the Plot he takes;
Some Circumstances finds, but more he makes.
By buzzing Emissaries, fills the ears
Of listning Crouds, 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 easie to Rebel.
For, govern'd 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.
With publick Zeal to cancel private Crimes:
How safe is Treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the Peoples Will?
Where Crouds can wink; and no offence be known,
Since in anothers guilt they find their own.
Yet, Fame deserv'd, no Enemy can grudges;
The Statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israels Courts ne're sat an Abbethdin
With more discerning Eyes, or Hands more clean:
Unbrib'd, unsought, the Wretched to redress;
Swift of Dispatch, and easie of Access.
Oh, had he been content to serve the Crown,
With Vertues only proper to the Gown;
Or, had the rankness of the Soil been freed.
From Cockle, that opprest the Noble Seed:
David, for him his tuneful Harp had strung,
And Heav'n had wanted one Immortal Song.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And Fortunes Ice prefers to Vertues Land:
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful Fame, and lazy Happiness;
Disdain'd the Golden Fruit to gather free,
And lent the Croud his Arm to shake the Tree.
Now, manifest of Crimes, contriv'd long since,
He stood at bold Defiance with his Prince:
Held up the Buckler of the Peoples Cause,
Against the Crown; and sculk'd behind the Laws.
The wish'd occasion of the Plot he takes;
Some Circumstances finds, but more he makes.
By buzzing Emissaries, fills the ears
Of listning Crouds, 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 easie to Rebel.
For, govern'd 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
