"Now Rome reign'd Empress o're the vanquished ball, As far as earth and seas, obey'd by all: Uneasie yet, with more desires she's curst, And boundless, as her empire, is her thirst. In burden'd vessels now they travelled o're The furrow'd deep to seas unknown before: And any hidden part of land or sea, That gold afforded, was an enemy. Thus fate the seeds of civil fury rais'd, When great in wealth no common pleasure pleas'd. Delights more out of fashion by the town: Th' souldiers scarlet now from Spain must come; The purple of the sea contemn'd is grown. India with silks, Africk with precious stone, Arabia with its spices hither come, And with their ruin raise the pride of Rome. But other spoils, destructive to her peace, Rome's ruin bode, and future ills encrease: Through Libyan desarts are wild monsters chas'd. And the remotest parts of Africk trac'd: Where the unwieldy elephant that's ta'en, For fatal value of his tooth is slain. Uncommon tygers are imported here, And triumphant in the theatre; Where, while devouring jaws on men they try, The people clap to see their fellows die. But oh! who can without a blush relate The horrid scene of their approaching fate? When Persian customs, fashionable grown, Made nature start, and her best work disown, Male infants are divorc'd from all that can, By timely progress ripen into man. Thus circling nature dampt, a while restrain Her hasty course, and a pause remains; Till working a return t'her wonted post, She seeks her self, and to her self is lost. The herd of fops the frantick humour take, Each keeps a capon, loves its mincing gate, Its flowing hair, and striving all it can, In changing mode and dress, t' appear a man. Behold the wilder luxury of Rome, From Africk furniture, slaves, tables come, And purple carpets made in Africk loom. Thus their estates run out, while all around The sot-companions in their wine are drown'd; The souldier loads, neglected is his sword, With all his spoils the dearly noble board: Rome's appetite grows witty, and what's caught In Sicily, to their boards are living brought: But stomachs gorg'd, (a dearer luxury) Must with expensive sauce new hunger buy. The Phasian banks, the birds all eaten, gone, With their forsaken trees in silence moan, And have no musick but the winds alone. In Mars's Field no less a frenzie reigns, Where brib'd assemblies make a prey of gains. Their servile votes obey the chink of gold, A people and a senate to be sold! The senate's self, which should our rights maintain, From their free spirits, stoop to sordid gain, The power of right by gold corrupted dies, And trampled majesty beneath it lies: Cato's pretence the giddy rout neglect, Yet did not him, but him they rais'd deject: