That which _thy_ Priests, and _thine_ alone, maintain, Which, as It dies, or lives, They fall, or reign: May ye, O Cam and Isis, preach it long, 'The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong!' Pope. It was a maxim of the Constitution of this country that the King could do no wrong. He had high authority for stating that _the King could not commit Folly, much less Crime._ --Report of a Bishop's Speech. If a King can do no wrong, why was King James II. banished? and if a King can do wrong, why the plague are we constantly affirming that he cannot? Either way we should stand self-condemned, and if we are not set down as a nation of scoundrels, we must think ourselves pretty easy under the appellation of fools.--Swift, ----------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. King though he be, 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 choose to grant: Beyond that mark is TREASON. --Cowper {137} PREFACE. "Perish those poets, and be hush'd the song, Which with this _nonsense_ charm'd the world so long, That he who does no right, can do no wrong." De Foe. To condemn _nonsense_, especially in high places, is proper: there are ancient precedents for it. A thousand years before Christ, Nathan, a priest in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, knew that David the Lord's anointed, had not only worked _folly_ in Israel, by committing adultery with a beautiful woman, but had committed _crime_, by causing her husband to be put to death. The honest priest charged both the folly and the crime upon the king! He went up to his majesty with this Address: "_Thou art the man!_" He prosecuted him at the bar of his own conscience, convicted him, and passed sentence upon him--"_The sword shall not depart from thine house!_"