No calling was without deceit.

* * * * *

Thus every part was full of vice,
Yet the whole mass a paradise:
Flattered in peace, and feared in wars,
They were th' esteem of foreigners,
And lavish of their wealth and lives,
The balance of all other hives.
Such were the blessings of that state;
Their crimes conspired to make them great.

* * * * *

The root of evil, avarice,
That damned, ill-natured, baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality,
That noble sin; whilst luxury
Employed a million of the poor,
And odious pride a million more;
Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry;
Their darling folly--fickleness
In diet, furniture, and dress--
That strange, ridiculous vice, was made
The very wheel that turned the trade.
Their laws and clothes were equally
Objects of mutability;
For what was well done for a time,