Of each, is--to be richer than the rest: And yet no doubts the poor man's draught controul, He dreads no poison in his homely bowl; Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine. Will you not now the pair of sages praise, Who the same end pursued by several ways? One pitied, one contemned, the woeful times; One laughed at follies, one lamented crimes. Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies, What stores of brine supplied the weeper's eyes. Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake His sides and shoulders, till he felt them ache; Though in his country town no lictors were, Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune, did appear; Nor all the foppish gravity of show, Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow. What had he done, had he beheld on high Our prætor seated in mock majesty; His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place, While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face, He moves, in the dull ceremonial track, With Jove's embroidered coat upon his back! A suit of hangings had not more opprest His shoulders, than that long laborious vest; A heavy gewgaw, called a crown, that spread About his temples, drowned his narrow head, And would have crushed it with the massy freight, But that a sweating slave sustained the weight; A slave, in the same chariot seen to ride, To mortify the mighty madman's pride. Add now the imperial eagle, raised on high, With golden beak, the mark of majesty; Trumpets before, and on the left and right A cavalcade of nobles, all in white; In their own natures false and flattering tribes, But made his friends by places and by bribes. In his own age, Democritus could find Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind: Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs, With ditches fenced, a heaven fat with fogs, May form a spirit fit to sway the state, And make the neighbouring monarchs fear their fate. He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears; At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears: An equal temper in his mind he found, When fortune flattered him, and when she frowned. 'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request Are hurtful things, or useless at the best. Some ask for envied power; which public hate Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate: Down go the titles; and the statue crowned, Is by base hands in the next river drowned. The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel, The same effects of vulgar fury feel: The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke, While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke. Sejanus, almost first of Roman names,[143] The great Sejanus crackles in the flames: Formed in the forge, the pliant brass is laid } On anvils; and of head and limbs are made, }