Even they would have the power, who want the will: But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood, To take the bad together with the good? Wouldst thou not rather choose a small renown, To be the mayor of some poor paltry town; Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak; To pound false weights, and scanty measures break? Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray In every wish, and knew not how to pray; For he, who grasped the world's exhausted store, Yet never had enough, but wished for more, Raised a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height, Which, mouldering, crushed him underneath the weight. What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget, And ruined him, who, greater than the Great,[145] The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke, And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke: What else but his immoderate lust of power, Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour? For few usurpers to the shades descend By a dry death, or with a quiet end. The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down To his proud pedant, or declined a noun, (So small an elf, that, when the days are foul, He and his satchel must be borne to school,) Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less, To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes: But both those orators, so much renowned, In their own depths of eloquence were drowned:[146] The hand and head were never lost of those Who dealt in doggrel, or who punned in prose. "Fortune foretuned the dying notes of Rome, Till I, thy consul sole, consoled thy doom."[147] His fate had crept below the lifted swords, Had all his malice been to murder words. I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times, Than that Philippic[148], fatally divine, Which is inscribed the second, should be mine. Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng, Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue, Who shook the theatres, and swayed the state Of Athens, found a more propitious fate. Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope, His sire, the blear-eyed Vulcan of a shop, From Mars his forge, sent to Minerva's schools, To learn the unlucky art of wheedling fools. With itch of honour, and opinion vain, All things beyond their native worth we strain; The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove, An empty coat of armour hung above The conqueror's chariot and in triumph borne, A streamer from a boarded galley torn, A chap-fallen beaver loosely hanging by The cloven helm, an arch of victory; On whose high convex sits a captive foe, And, sighing, casts a mournful look below;[149]-- Of every nation each illustrious name, Such toys as these have cheated into fame; Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain The windy satisfaction of the brain. So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;