In the right line they say their title lies: But if its twisted?--then the title dies. Look at it!--knotted, spliced in every place! Closely survey the intersected race-- So full of violations, such a brood. Of false successions, spurious births, and blood; Such perjuries, such frauds, to mount a throne, That Kings might blush their ancestors to own! {185} Oh! but Possession supersedes the Line! Indeed!--then king, as king, has Right Divine; And, coy Succession fled from majesty, Makes Usurpation as divine as he; _De Facto is de Jure_, and a throne, To every dog that steals it is his bone! Hence tyrants--and from these infected springs, Flows the best title of _the Best of Kings!_ * * The Best of Kings (Court slang) the King for the time being.--Many a king has been the worst man of his age, but no king was ever the best. In 1683, the very year of Charles the Second's reign, in which Lord William Russel and Algernon Sydney were murdered under the forms of law, by packed juries, and the king's passive obedient judges--when the throne floated in blood, and the king's manners were notoriously and disgust-ingly sensual and dissolute--in that year, J. Shnrley, M. A. in his 'Ecclesiastical History Epitomised,' gives Charles the title of "the best of kings!" calls his life and reign virtuous! and prays that his days may be as the days of Heaven!--This loyal author calls himself, The Christian reader's "beloved Brother in Christ!" Of the same king, Charles II., Horace Walpole (Lord Orford) gives this character in his Epistle from Florence:-- (Dodsley's Collection, vol. iii. p. 92.) Fortune, or fair, or frowning, on his soul Could stamp no virtue, and no vice controul! Honour or morals, gratitude or truth, Nor taught his ripen'd age, nor knew his youth! The care of nations left to whores or chance, Plund'rer of Britain, pensioner of France; Free to buffoons, to ministers denied, He lived an atheist, and a bigot died! All kings have parasites and praise; the Press records their actions; and Posterity gives their characters. {086} _Right of Succession_, or what other claim Of right to rule, by whatsoever name Or title call'd, by whomsoever urged, Is in the people's right of choosing merged. The right's the People's, and the People's choice Binds kings in duty to obey their voice; The Public Will, the only Right Divine, Sanctions the office, or divides the line; Topples the crown from off the tyrant's head, And puts a king to govern in his stead. Tyrant and king are vastly different things-- We're robb'd by tyrants, but obey'd by kings!