Lives on in grandeur, and runs out in state. The helpless widow, wrung with deep despair, In bitterness of soul pours forth her prayer, Hugging her starving babes with streaming eyes, And calls down vengeance, vengeance from the skies. 70 What is't to Faber? He stands safe and clear, Heaven can commence no legal action here; And on his breast a mighty plate he wears, A plate more firm than triple brass, which bears The name of Privilege, 'gainst vulgar awe; He feels no conscience, and he fears no law. Nor think, acquainted with small knaves alone, Who have not shame outlived, and grace outgrown, The great world hidden from thy reptile view, That on such men, to whom contempt is due, 80 Contempt shall fall, and their vile author's name Recorded stand through all the land of shame. No--to his porch, like Persians to the sun, Behold contending crowds of courtiers run; See, to his aid what noble troops advance, All sworn to keep his crimes in countenance; Nor wonder at it--they partake the charge, As small their conscience, and their debts as large. Propp'd by such clients, and without control From all that's honest in the human soul; 90 In grandeur mean, with insolence unjust, Whilst none but knaves can praise, and fools will trust, Caress'd and courted, Faber seems to stand A mighty pillar in a guilty land. And (a sad truth, to which succeeding times Will scarce give credit, when 'tis told in rhymes) Did not strict Honour with a jealous eye Watch round the throne, did not true Piety (Who, link'd with Honour for the noblest ends, Ranks none but honest men amongst her friends) 100 Forbid us to be crush'd with such a weight, He might in time be minister of state. But why enlarge I on such petty crimes? They might have shock'd the faith of former times, But now are held as nothing--we begin Where our sires ended, and improve in sin, Rack our invention, and leave nothing new In vice and folly for our sons to do. Nor deem this censure hard; there's not a place Most consecrate to purposes of Grace, 110 Which Vice hath not polluted; none so high, But with bold pinion she hath dared to fly, And build there for her pleasure; none so low But she hath crept into it, made it know And feel her power; in courts, in camps, she reigns, O'er sober citizens, and simple swains; E'en in our temples she hath fix'd her throne, And 'bove God's holy altars placed her own. More to increase the horror of our state, To make her empire lasting as 'tis great; 120 To make us, in full-grown perfection, feel Curses which neither Art nor Time can heal; All shame discarded, all remains of pride, Meanness sits crown'd, and triumphs by her side: Meanness, who gleans out of the human mind Those few good seeds which Vice had left behind, Those seeds which might in time to virtue tend, And leaves the soul without a power to mend;