A shadow to amuse mankind,
But never frights the wise or well-fixed mind:
Virtue despises human scorn,
And scandals innocence adorn.

* * * * *

Sometimes, the air of scandal to maintain,
Villains look from thy lofty loops in vain;
But who can judge of crimes by punishment
Where parties rule and L[ord]s subservient?
Justice with, change of interest learns to bow,
And what was merit once is murder now:
Actions receive their tincture from the times,
And as they change, are virtues made or crimes.
Thou art the state-trap of the law,
But neither can keep knaves nor honest men in awe;
These are too hardened in offence,
And those upheld by innocence.

* * * * *

Thou art no shame to truth and honesty,
Nor is the character of such defaced by thee
Who suffer by oppressive injury.
Shame, like the exhalations of the sun,
Falls back where first the motion was begun;
And he who for no crime shall on thy brows appear
Bears less reproach than they who placed him there.