A furious band that spurn him from the throne;
And all is uproar. Thus ambition grasps
The empire of the soul: thus pale revenge
Unsheaths her murd'rous dagger; and the hands55
Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts,
Watch to o'erturn the barrier of the laws
That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues
The wicked bear, or o'er the trembling scene
The tragic muse discloses, under shapes60
Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease or pomp,
Stole first into the mind. Yet not by all
Those lying forms which fancy in the brain
Engenders, are the kindling passions driv'n
To guilty deeds; nor reason bound in chains,65
That vice alone may lord it: oft adorn'd
With solemn pageants, folly mounts the throne;
And plays her ideot-anticks like a queen.
A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways
She wheels her giddy empire.—Lo! thus far70
With bold adventure, to the Mantuan lyre
I sing of nature's charms, and touch well-pleas'd
A stricter note: now haply must my song
Unbend her serious measure, and reveal
In lighter strains, how folly's aukward arts[1]75
- ↑ how folly's aukward arts, &c.] Notwithstanding the general influence of ridicule on private and civil life, as
