Or if in tittle-tattle, toothpick way, Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,-- 110 A gainer still thy friend himself must find, His grief suspended, and improved his mind. Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed Where virtue, self-approved, reclines her head; Whilst vice beneath imagined horrors mourns, And conscience plants the villain's couch with thorns; Impatient of restraint, the active mind, No more by servile prejudice confined, Leaps from her seat, as waken'd from a trance And darts through Nature at a single glance 120 Then we our friends, our foes, ourselves, survey, And see by Night what fools we are by day. Stripp'd of her gaudy plumes, and vain disguise, See where ambition, mean and loathsome, lies; Reflection with relentless hand pulls down The tyrant's bloody wreath and ravish'd crown. In vain he tells of battles bravely won, Of nations conquer'd, and of worlds undone; Triumphs like these but ill with manhood suit, And sink the conqueror beneath the brute. 130 But if, in searching round the world, we find Some generous youth, the friend of all mankind, Whose anger, like the bolt of Jove, is sped In terrors only at the guilty head, Whose mercies, like heaven's dew, refreshing fall In general love and charity to all, Pleased we behold such worth on any throne, And doubly pleased we find it on our own. Through a false medium things are shown by day; Pomp, wealth, and titles, judgment lead astray. 140 How many from appearance borrow state, Whom Night disdains to number with the great! Must not we laugh to see yon lordling proud Snuff up vile incense from a fawning crowd? Whilst in his beam surrounding clients play, Like insects in the sun's enlivening ray, Whilst, Jehu-like, he drives at furious rate, And seems the only charioteer of state, Talking himself into a little god, And ruling empires with a single nod; 150 Who would not think, to hear him law dispense, That he had interest, and that they had sense? Injurious thought! beneath Night's honest shade, When pomp is buried, and false colours fade, Plainly we see at that impartial hour, Them dupes to pride, and him the tool of power. God help the man, condemn'd by cruel fate To court the seeming, or the real great! Much sorrow shall he feel, and suffer more Than any slave who labours at the oar! 160 By slavish methods must he learn to please, By smooth-tongued flattery, that cursed court-disease; Supple, to every wayward mood strike sail, And shift with shifting humour's peevish gale. To nature dead, he must adopt vile art, And wear a smile, with anguish in his heart. A sense of honour would destroy his schemes, And conscience ne'er must speak unless in dreams. When he hath tamely borne, for many years, Cold looks, forbidding frowns, contemptuous sneers, 170 When he at last expects, good easy man!