The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 07 by John Dryden
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page 25 of 564 (04%)
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Cry freedom up, with popular noisy votes,
And get enough to cut each other's throats. Lop all the rights that fence your monarch's throne; For fear of too much power, pray leave him none. A noise was made of arbitrary sway; But, in revenge, you whigs have found a way An arbitrary duty now to pay. Let his own servants turn to save their stake, Glean from his plenty, and his wants forsake; But let some Judas near his person stay, To swallow the last sop, and then betray. Make London independent of the crown; A realm apart; the kingdom of the town. Let ignoramus juries find no traitors[3], And ignoramus poets scribble satires. And, that your meaning none may fail to scan, Do what in coffee-houses you began,-- Pull down the master, and set up the man. Footnotes: 1. The association proposed in parliament was, by the royalists, said to be, a revival of the Solemn League and Covenant. But the draught of an association, found in Lord Shaftesbury's cabinet, and produced on his trial, in which that memorable engagement seems to be pretty closely copied, was probably what our poet alludes to. 2. The protestant flail was a kind of bludgeon, so jointed as to fold together, and lie concealed in the pocket. They are supposed to have been invented to arm the insurgents about this period. In the |
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