Laughter is eafy; but the wonder lies,
What ftore of brine fupply'd the weeper's eyes,
Democritus could feed his fpleen, and shake
His fides and fhoulders till he felt 'em ake;
Tho' in his country-town no lictors were,
Nor rods, nor ax, nor tribune did

appear:

Nor all the foppish gravity of fhow,

Which cunning magiftrates on crowds beflow:
What had he done, had he beheld, on high,
Our prætor feated, in mock majefty;
His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a fet formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroider'd coat upon his back :
A fute of hangings had not more opprest
His fhoulders, than that long, laborious veft:
A heavy gugaw, (call'd a crown,) that spread
About his temples, drown'd his narrow head;
And would have crufh'd it with the maffy freight,
But that a fweating slave sustain'd the weight:
A flave in the fame chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now th' imperial eagle, rais'd on high,
With golden beak (the mark of majesty)
Trumpets before, and on the left and right,
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white:

In their own natures falfe and flatt'ring tribes,
But made his friends, by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind:
Learn from fo great a wit; a land of bogs
With ditches fenc'd, a heav'n fat with fogs,
May form a fpirit fit to fway the ftate;

And make the neighb'ring monarchs fear their fate.
He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears;
At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears:

An

An equal temper in his mind he found,

When Fortune flatter'd him, and when she frown'd. 'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request, Are hurtful things, or useless at the best.

Some ask for envy'd pow'r; which public hate
Purfues, and hurries headlong to their fate:
Down go the titles; and the statue crown'd,
Is by bafe hands in the next river drown'd.
The guiltless horfes and the chariot wheel,
The fame effects of vulgar fury feel:

The smith prepares his hammer for the ftroke,
While the lung'd bellows hiffing fire provoke ;
Sejanus 2, almost first of Roman names,
The great Sejanus crackles in the flames:
Form'd in the forge, the pliant brass is laid
On anvils; and of head and limbs are made,
Pans, cans, and pifs-pots, a whole kitchen-trade.
Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull,
Milk-white, and large, lead to the Capitol ;
Sejanus with a rope, is dragg'd along;
The sport and laughter of the giddy throng!
Good Lord, they cry, what Ethiop lips he has,
How foul a fnout, and what a hanging face?
By heav'n, I never could endure his fight;
But fay, how came his monstrous crimes to light?
What is the charge, and who the evidence,
(The faviour of the nation and the prince?)
Nothing of this; but our old Cæfar fent
A noify letter to his parliament:
Nay, firs, if Cæfar writ, I ask no more,
'He's guilty; and the queftion's out of door.

}

2 Sejanus was Tiberius's firft favourite; and while he continued fo, had the highest marks of honour bestowed on him; ftatues and triumphal chariots were every where erected to him: But as foon as he fell into difgrace with the emperor, these were all immediately difmounted; and the fenate and common people insulted over him as meanly, as they had fawned on him before.

How

How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,)
When the king's trump, the mob are for the king;
They follow fortune, and the common cry
Is ftill against the rogue condemn'd to die.
But the fame very mob, that rafcal crowd,
Had cry'd Sejanus, with a fhout as loud;
Had his defigns (by fortune's favour bleft)
Succeeded, and the prince's age oppreit.

But long, long fince, the times have chang'd their face,
The people grown degenerate and bafe:
Not fuffer'd now the freedom of their choice,
To make their magiftrates, and fell their voice.
Our wife fore-fathers, great by fea and land,
Had once the pow'r and abfolute command;
All offices of truft, themfelves difpos'd;

Rais'd whom they pleas'd, and whom they pleas'd depos'd.
But we who give our native rights away,

And our enflav'd pofterity betray,

Are now reduc'd to beg an alms, and go

On holidays to fee a puppet-show.

There was a damn'd defign, cries one, no doubt; For warrants are already iffued out:

I met Brutidius in a mortal fright;

He's dipt for certain, and plays leaft in fight:
I fear the rage of our offended prince,
Who thinks the fenate flack in his defence!
Come let us hafte, our loyal zeal to show,
And fpurn the wretched corps of Cæfar's foe:
But let our flaves be prefent there, left they
Accufe their mafters, and for gain betray.
Such were the whifpers of thofe jealous times,
About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.

Now tell me truly, wouldst thou change thy fate
To be, like him, firft minister of state ?
To have thy levees crouded with resort,
Of a depending, gaping, fervile court:

Difpofe

Difpofe all honours of the fword and gown,
Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown:
To hold thy prince in pupil age, and sway
That monarch, whom the mafter'd world obey?
While he intent on fecret luft alone,

Lives to himself, abandoning the throne;
Coop'd 3 in a narrow ifle, obferying dreams
With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes !
I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
For ev'ry man's a fool to that degree;
All with the dire prerogative to kill;

Ev'n they would have the pow'r, who want the will:
But wouldst thou have thy wishes underfood,
To take the bad together with the good,
Wouldst thou not rather chufe a fmall renown,
To be the may'r of fome poor paltry town,
Bigly to look, and barb'roufly to speak;
To pound falle weights, and scanty measures break?
Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
In ev'ry with, and knew not how to pray :
For he who grafp'd the world's exhausted store
Yet never had enough, but wifh'd for more,
Rais'd a top-heavy tow'r, of monstrous height,
Which mould'ring, crush'd him underneath the weight.
What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget?
It ruin'd 4 him, who, greater than the Great,
The ftubborn pride of Roman nobles broke;
And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
What else but his immoderate luft of pow'r,
Pray'rs made and granted in a luckless hour?

3 The island of Caprea, which lies about a league out at fea from the Campanian fhore, was the fcene of Tiberius's pleasures in the latter part of his reign. There he lived for fome years with diviners, foothfayers, and worfe company. And from thence difpatched

all his orders to the fenate.

4 Julius Cæfar, who got the better of Pompey that was ftiled The Great.

For

For few ufurpers to the fhades defcend
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.

The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down
To his proud pedant, or declin'd a noun,

(So fmall an elf, that when the days are foul,
He and his fatchel must be borne to school,)
Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
To 5 prove a Tully, or Demofthenes :

But both thofe orators, fo much renown'd,
In their own depths of eloquence were drown'd:
The hand and head were never loft, of those
Who dealt in dogrel, or who punn'd in profe.
"Fortune 6 foretan'd the dying notes of Rome :
Till I, thy conful fole, confol'd thy doom."
His fate had crept below the lifted fwords,
Had all his malice been to murder words.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhimes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than 7 that Philipique fatally divine,
Which is infcrib'd the fecond, fhould be mine.
Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
Who shook the theatres and sway'd the state
Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
His fire, the blear-ey'd Vulcan of a shop,

5 Demofthenes and Tully, both died for their oratory. Demofthenes gave himself poifon, to avoid being carried to Antipater, one of Alexander's captains, who had then made him felf master of Athens. Tully was murdered by M. Anthony's order, in return for those invectives he had made against him.

6 The Latin of this couplet is a famous verse of Tully's, in which he fets out the happiness of his own confulfhip; famous for the vanity, and the ill poetry of it. For Tully, as he had a great deal of the one, fo he had no great fhare of the other.

7 The orations of Tully, againft M. Antony, were filed by him Philippics, in imitation of Demoftenes, who had given that name before to thofe he made against Philip of Macedon.

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