Who, true to all those sacred bands, Which private happiness demands, Yet never lets them rise above The stronger ties of public love. With conscious pride see England stand, Our holy Charter in her hand; She waves it round, and o'er the isle See Liberty and Courage smile. No more she mourns her treasures hurl'd In subsidies to all the world; 470 No more by foreign threats dismay'd, No more deceived with foreign aid, She deals out sums to petty states, Whom Honour scorns and Reason hates, But, wiser by experience grown, Finds safety in herself alone. 'Whilst thus,' she cries, 'my children stand An honest, valiant, native band, A train'd militia, brave and free, True to their king, and true to me, 480 No foreign hirelings shall be known, Nor need we hirelings of our own: Under a just and pious reign The statesman's sophistry is vain; Vain is each vile, corrupt pretence, These are my natural defence; Their faith I know, and they shall prove The bulwark of the king they love.' These, and a thousand things beside, Did we consult a poet's pride, 490 Some gay, some serious, might be said, But ten to one they'd not be read; Or were they by some curious few, Not even those would think them true; For, from the time that Jubal first Sweet ditties to the harp rehearsed, Poets have always been suspected Of having truth in rhyme neglected, That bard except, who from his youth Equally famed for faith and truth, 500 By Prudence taught, in courtly chime To courtly ears brought truth in rhyme.[228] But though to poets we allow, No matter when acquired or how, From truth unbounded deviation, Which custom calls Imagination, Yet can't they be supposed to lie One half so fast as Fame can fly; Therefore (to solve this Gordian knot, A point we almost had forgot) 510 To courteous readers be it known, That, fond of verse and falsehood grown, Whilst we in sweet digression sung, Fame check'd her flight, and held her tongue, And now pursues, with double force And double speed, her destined course, Nor stops till she the place[229] arrives Where Genius starves and Dulness thrives; Where riches virtue are esteem'd And craft is truest wisdom deem'd, 520 Where Commerce proudly rears her throne, In state to other lands unknown: Where, to be cheated and to cheat, Strangers from every quarter meet; Where Christians, Jews, and Turks shake hands, United in commercial bands: All of one faith, and that to own No god but Interest alone. When gods and goddesses come down To look about them here in Town, 530 (For change of air is understood By sons of Physic to be good, In due proportions, now and then, For these same gods as well as men) By custom ruled, and not a poet So very dull but he must know it, In order to remain _incog_.