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Enabled by a chain of facts to tell
Not only how they rose, but why they fell.

Let me not only the distempers know
Which in all states from common causes grow,
But likewise those, which, by the will of Fate,
On each peculiar mode of empire wait;
Which in its very constitution lurk,

Too sure at last to do its destined work :

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Let me, forewarn'd, each sign, each system learn,
That I my people's danger may discern,
Ere 'tis too late wish'd health to re-assure,
And, if it can be found, find out a cure.

Let me, (though great, grave brethren of the

gown

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Preach all faith up, and preach all reason down,
Making those jar, whom reason meant to join,
And vesting in themselves a right divine)
Let me, through reason's glass, with searching eye,
Into the depth of that religion pry

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Which law hath sanction'd: let me find out there
What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air,
We well may change; and what, without a crime,
Cannot be changed to the last hour of time;
Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal
Which, without knowledge, furious bigots feel,
Fair in pretence, though at the heart unsound,
These separate points at random to confound.

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The times have been, when priests have dared to tread,

Proud and insulting, on their monarch's head
When, whilst they made religion a pretence,

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Out of the world they banish'd common sense;
When some soft king, too open to deceit,
Easy and unsuspecting join'd the cheat,
Duped by mock piety, and gave his name
To serve the vilest purposes of shame.
Fear not, my People, where no cause of fear
Can justly rise-your king secures you here;
Your king, who scorns the haughty prelate's nod,
Nor deems the voice of priests, the voice of God.
Let me, (though lawyers may perhaps forbid
Their monarch to behold what they wish hid,
And, for the purposes of knavish gain,
Would have their trade a mystery remain)
Let me, disdaining all such slavish awe,
Dive to the very bottom of the law;
Let me (the weak, dead letter left behind)
Search out the principles, the spirit find,
Till, from the parts, made master of the whole,
I see the Constitution's very soul.

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Let me, (though statesmen will no doubt resist, And to my eyes present a fearful list

Of men, whose wills are opposite to mine,
Of men, great men, determined to resign)

Let me, (with firmness, which becomes a king,
Conscious from what a source my actions spring,
Determined not by worlds to be withstood,
When my grand object is my country's good)
Unravel all low ministerial scenes,

Destroy their jobs, lay bare their ways and means,
And trap them step by step; let me well know
How places, pensions, and preferments, go;

Why Guilt's provided for, when Worth is not,
And why one man of merit is forgot;
Let me in peace, in war, supreme preside,
And dare to know my way without a guide.

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Let me, (though Dignity, by nature proud, Retires from view, and swells behind a cloud, As if the sun shone with less powerful ray, Less grace, less glory, shining every day, Though when she comes forth into public sight, Unbending as a ghost, she stalks upright, With such an air as we have often seen, And often laugh'd at in a tragic queen, Nor, at her presence, though base myriads crook The supple knee, vouchsafes a single look) Let me, (all vain parade, all empty pride, All terrors of dominion laid aside,

All ornament, and needless helps of art,

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All those big looks, which speak a little heart) 640
Know (which few kings, alas! have ever known)
How affability becomes a throne,

Destroys all fear, bids love with reverence live,
And gives those graces pride can never give.
Let the stern tyrant keep a distant state,
And, hating all men, fear return of hate,
Conscious of guilt, retreat behind his throne,
Secure from all upbraidings but his own:
Let all my subjects have access to me,
Be my ears open as my heart is free;

In full fair tide let information flow;

That evil is half cured, whose cause we know.

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And thou, where'er thou art, thou wretched

thing,

Who art afraid to look up to a king,

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Lay by thy fears—make but thy grievance plain,
And, if I not redress thee, may my reign
Close up that very moment. To prevent,
The course of Justice, from her fair intent,
In vain my nearest, dearest, friend shall plead,
In vain my mother kneel-my soul may bleed, 660
But must not change-when Justice draws the

dart,

Though it is doom'd to pierce a favourite's heart, 'Tis mine to give it force, to give it aimI know it duty, and I feel it fame.

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662 The invariable burthen of all that was said or sung by Wilkes and his adherents was the influence of Lord Bute as a favourite, which, although of short duration and rather nominal than real, laid the foundation for that inner cabinet, that power behind the throne, but greater than the throne itself, which existed during much of George the Third's reign, and tended occasionally to counteract the plans of his ostensible and responsible ministers.

THE AUTHOR.

THIS Poem was published in December 1763, and for it and the Duellist, Churchill obtained from Mr. Flexney and Mr. Kearsley the sum of £450.

The sale was very extensive, and the price of half a crown required for so short a poem rendered it a profitable concern to the booksellers. The Rosciad, a production of nearly four times the length, had been published by Churchill at the moderate price of one shilling, but at that period his name had not risen to that degree of celebrity which afterwards enabled his majesty of Gotham to impose a monthly poll-tax of half a crown upon his liege subjects.

The poem having been announced and advertised long previous to its actual publication, the following friendly epigram was written by Colman:

But where is this Author was promised so long
From Churchill that giant so tall and so strong?

He's sick, Sir, cries one; he's burnt out, cries another,
And the high flame of genius sinks down into smother:
Like the ghost in Cock Lane he has frighten'd us all,
And knock'd us and scratch'd us the great and the small;
But now of his spirit no more we're afraid,

For Parson and Fanny together are laid.

By contemporary critics "The Author" was considered as the most agreeable and unexceptionable of Churchill's poems, both as regarded the tendency of the subject and the execution, the interests of genius and learning being cordially espoused and powerfully supported, while the contempt of professed ignorance and the shallowness of pretenders to science were justly exposed and lashed by the blameless rod of general satire.

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