Where thy gull'd eyes, in all the gaudy round,
Met nothing but a lie in ev'ry face;
And the gross flatt'ry of a gaping crowd,
Envious who first shall catch, and first applaud
The stuff, or royal nonsense. Dryden's Don Sebastian.
No law betwixt two sov'reigns can decide,
But that of arms, where fortune is the judge,
Soldiers the lawyers, and the bar the field.
Dryden's Love Triumphant.
Are crowns and empire,
The government and safety of mankind,
Trifles of such light moment, to be left
Like some rich toy, a ring, or fancy'd gem,
The pledge of parting friends? Can kings do this,
And give away a people for a legacy?
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey, a. 3, s. 1.
Unbounded power and height of greatness give
To kings that lustre which we think divine;
The wise who know them, know they are but men,
Nay, sometimes weak ones too. The crowd indeed,
Who kneel before the image, not the god,
Worship the deity their hands have made.
Rowe's Ambitious Stepmother.
We view the outward glories of a crown;
But dazzl'd with the lustre, cannot see
The thorns that line it, and whose painful prickings
Embitter all the pompous sweets of empire.
Happier the wretch, who at his daily toils,
Sweats for his homely dinner, than a king
In all the dangerous pomp of royalty!
He knows no fears of state to damp his joys;
No treason shakes the humble bed he lies on;
Nor dreads the poison in his peaceful bowls.
Hill's Fair Inconstant
Seek not to govern by the lust of power;
Make not thy will thy law; believe thy people
Thy children all; so shalt thou kindly mix
Their interest with thy own, and fix the basis
Of future happiness in godlike justice.
The king that yields to popular commotions,
Is more the slave, than sovereign of his people.
Philip's Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
The vulgar call us gods, and fondly think,
That kings are cast in more than mortal moulds :
Alas! they little know that when the mind
Is cloy'd with pomp, our taste is pall'd to joy;
But grows more sensible to grief and pain.
The stupid peasant, with as quick a sense,
Enjoys the fragrance of the rose as I;
And his rough hard hand is proof against the thorn,
Which, rankling in my tender skin, would seem
A viper's tooth.
The man, whom Heaven appoints
To govern others, should himself first learn
To bend his passions to the sway of reason.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda, a. 4, s. 2.
A sovereign's great example forms a people :
The public breast is noble, or is vile,
As he inspires it. Mallett and Thomson's Alfred.
Let him maintain his pow'r, but not increase it;
The string Prerogative when strain'd too high
Cracks like the tortur'd chord of harmony,
And spoils the concert between king and subject.
Havard's King Charles I.
The king, who delegates
His pow'r to other's hands, but ill deserves
Brooke's Earl of Warwick.
A prince is but a man, and man may err;
But when forgetting his ennobled rank,
He makes due reparation for his faults,
From Heaven he pardon hopes, from man demands it.
Murphy's Zobeide.
O Royalty! What joys hast thou to boast,
Το recompense thy cares? Ambition seems
The passion of a god. Yet, from my throne
Have I with envy seen the naked slave
Rejoicing in the music of his chains,
And singing toil away; and then, at eve,
Returning peaceful to his couch of rest:
Whilst I sat anxious and perplex'd with cares;
Projecting, plotting, fearful of events:
Or like a wounded snake, lay down to writhe,
The sleepless night, upon a bed of state.
Home hath he none who once becomes a king!
Behind the pillar'd masses of his halls
The dagger'd traitor lurks; his vaulted roofs
Do nightly echo to the whisper'd vows
Of those who curse him.
Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, pt. 2, a. 5, s. 2.
Oh! unhappy state of kings!
'Tis well the robe of majesty is gay,
Or who would put it on?
Hannah More's Daniel, pt. 6.
A crown! what is it?
It is to bear the miseries of a people!
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care!
To have your best success ascribed to Fortune,
And Fortune's failures all ascribed to you!
It is to sit upon a joyless height,
To ev'ry blast of changing fate expos'd!
Too high for hope! too great for happiness!
All these men, or their fathers, were my friends
Till they became my subjects; they fell from me
As faithless leaves drop from the o'erblown flower,
And left me a lone blighted thorny stalk,
Which, in its solitude, can shelter nothing.
Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 3, s. 2.
Ill do you know the spectral forms that wait
Upon a king; Care with his furrowed brow,
Unsleeping watchfulness, lone secresy,
Attend his throne by day, his couch by night.
Lord John Russell's Don Carlos.
The people cry, "There is the prince shall reign
When Philip is no more:" old nurses bless
His beardless face, and silly children toss
Their tiny caps into the air; while I
Am met by frigid reverence, passive awe,
That fears, yet dares not own itself for fear;
As though the public hangman stalked behind me.
And thus it is to reign-to gain men's hate.
Thus, for the future monarch, fancy weaves
A spotless robe, entwines his sceptre round
With flowery garlands, places on his head
A crown of laurels, while the weary present,
Like a state riddle, or a last year's fashion,
Carries no grace with it. Base vulgar world!
'Tis thus that men for ever live in hope,
And he that has done nothing is held forth
As capable of all things.
Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game, which were their subjects wise,
Kings should not play at. Nations would do well
Textort their truncheons from the
puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil
Because men suffer it, their toy the world.
King was a name too proud for man to wear
With modesty and meekness, and the crown,
So dazzling in their eyes who set it on,
Was sure t' intoxicate the brows it bound.
We too are friends to loyalty. We love
The king who loves the law; respects his bounds,
And reigns content within them. Him we serve
Freely and with delight, who leaves us free.
But recollecting still that he is man,
We trust him not too far.
And king in England too, he may be weak
And vain enough to be ambitious still,
May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs,
Or covet more than freemen chuse to grant :
Beyond that mark is treason.
T'administer, to guard, t' adorn the state,
But not to warp or change it. We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
The kiss you take is paid by that you give ;
The joy is mutual, and I'm still in debt.
Lord Lansdown's Heroic Love
She brought her cheek up close, and lean'd on his ; At which he whisper'd kisses back on her's.
Oh! let me live for ever on those lips!
The nectar of the gods to these is tasteless.
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