"The other, born in Britain's southern tract, Had fixed his milder loyalty, and placed His gentler sentiments of love and hate, There, where _they_ placed them who in conscience prized The new succession, as a line of kings 431 Whose oath had virtue to protect the land Against the dire assaults of papacy And arbitrary rule. But launch thy bark On the distempered flood of public life, 435 And cause for most rare triumph will be thine If, spite of keenest eye and steadiest hand, The stream, that bears thee forward, prove not, soon Or late, a perilous master. He--who oft, Beneath[548] the battlements and stately trees 440 That round his mansion cast a sober gloom, Had moralised on this, and other truths Of kindred import, pleased and satisfied-- Was forced to vent his wisdom with a sigh Heaved from the heart in fortune's bitterness, 445 When he had crushed a plentiful estate By ruinous contest, to obtain a seat In Britain's senate. Fruitless was the attempt: And while the uproar of that desperate strife Continued yet to vibrate on his ear, 450 The vanquished Whig,[HL] under a borrowed name,[549] (For the mere sound and echo of his own Haunted him with sensations of disgust That[550] he was glad to lose) slunk from the world To the deep shade of those[551] untravelled Wilds; 455 In which the Scottish Laird had long possessed An undisturbed abode. Here, then, they met, Two doughty champions; flaming Jacobite And sullen Hanoverian! You might think That losses and vexations, less severe 460 Than those which they had severally sustained, Would have inclined each to abate his zeal For his ungrateful cause; no,--I have heard My reverend Father tell that, 'mid the calm Of that small town encountering thus, they filled, 465 Daily, its bowling-green with harmless strife; Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church; And vexed the market-place. But in the breasts Of these opponents gradually was wrought, With little change of general sentiment, 470 Such leaning towards[552] each other, that their days By choice were spent in constant fellowship; And if, at times, they fretted with the yoke, Those very bickerings made them love it more. 474