The smith of Ephesus[4] thought Dian's shrine,
By which his craft most throve, the most divine;
And even the _true_ faith seems not half so true,
When linkt with _one_ good living as with _two_.
Had Wolcot first been pensioned by the throne,
Kings would have suffered by his praise alone;
And Paine perhaps, for something snug _per ann_.,
Had laught like Wellesley at all Rights of Man.
But 'tis not only individual minds,--
Whole nations too the same delusion blinds.
Thus England, hot from Denmark's smoking meads,
Turns up her eyes at Gallia's guilty deeds;
Thus, self-pleased still, the same dishonoring chain
She binds in Ireland she would break in Spain;
While praised at distance, but at home forbid,
Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid.
If Grotius be thy guide, shut, shut the book,--
In force alone for Laws of Nations look.
Let shipless Danes and whining Yankees dwell
On naval rights, with Grotius and Vattel.
While Cobbet's pirate code alone appears
Sound moral sense to England and Algiers.
Woe to the Sceptic in these party days
Who wafts to neither shrine his puffs of praise!
For him no pension pours its annual fruits,
No fertile sinecure spontaneous shoots;
Not _his_ the meed that crowned Don Hookham's rhyme,
Nor sees he e'er in dreams of future time
Those shadowy forms of sleek reversions rise,
So dear to Scotchmen's second-sighted eyes.
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