And I’m not without Hope but, if suffer’d to grow, I may reap in due Time what I taught you to sow. But I’m sorry to find that, in spite of my Care For that Country’s Estate, I’ve my Enemies there, Whom though I’ve attended with studious Skill, I don’t know a people have us’d me so ill. Go, Wretches ingrate; see my Subjects in France, With what excellent skill they my Business advance! Do they stick to Agreements, or such Kind of Things? Is there Truth in their Courtiers, or Faith in their Kings? Their Notions of Honour, or keeping of Treaties, 121 Are govern’d by that kind of Body their Fleet is; While you of a Nation I take such Delight in Are inferior in Fraud, tho’ you beat them at fighting. Ye Spirits uncurb’d by the Dictates of Schools, The Lectures of Priests, or Morality’s Rules, Or the pitifull Dreams of the Herd we dispise— The Puritan dull, and the Prelate precise; Ye learned Philosophers, Deists devout, Who know not the Depth of the Thing you’re about— 130 But, I’m willing to own it, ’tis proper you should And Satan here thanks you: ye’ve done him much Good. Before ye began to reform Men’s Opinions, How bounded my Realm, how restrain’d my Dominions! But now, since ’tis clear that there’s no Revelation, } I’ve a pretty good Footing, my Friends, in the Nation; } And I’d have you go on with each learn’d Dissertation. } For our firmest Adherents we commonly call The Man who believes there’s no Devil at all; And, as you so clearly convince your attendants 140 We’re nothing, and all our good Company send hence, Your learned Opinion, I find as I read it, Advances my Gain, whilst it shatters my Credit, As Bankrupts who wilfully plunge into Shame, To gain in their purse what they lose in their Fame. For the learned, the wise, and the deep-sighted Few, I’ve an excellent Work which I’d have ye pursue! Your Genius may mend a dull Devil’s Designs, May alter my Manner, and polish my Lines. The Scheme is exalted! is quite in your walk; 150 And I care not in what kind of Language I talk. ’Tis to prove to Mankind, to whom pleasures belong, Your Moralists, too, as your Pastors, are wrong; That not to Religion alone is confin’d Our work, but a full Reformation’s design’d; Till your Country all Kinds of Enjoyment excell in, And [become] much the Kind of a Place which we dwell in. But first you’ll my Congratulations receive For the exquisite Pleasure your arguments give, Which we hear with a vast deal of Joy and Delight 160 At Coachmakers’ Hall, almost every Night, And are so entertain’d with the things in that Style That we’d thoughts of erecting our Houses-Carlisle. But the Motion was quash’d on a due recollection— Our good Subjects here ev’ry Party and Sect shun— That we have the same Constant Business in View, And can never dissent in opinion like you;