Of weak-minded Tyrants. SECT. III.

OLympus kept her Scepter without stain,
Till she let fall Pow'rs tender reputation,
By gracing Venus and her Son to Raign,
Who with the First Gods had no estimation,
For when these faint thoughts came to rule above
Pow'r lost at once both Majesty and Love.

A work of Saturn, who with narrow spite
Mow'd down the Fat, and let the Lean Ears spring,
That after his sithe nothing prosper might;
Time that begets and blasteth every thing,
To Barley making Wheat degenerate,
As Eagles did into the Kites estate.

But let us grant excess of Tyranny
Could scape the heavy hand of God and Man;
Yet by the natural variety
Of frailties, raigning since the world began;
Faint relaxations doubtless will ensue,
And change Force into Craft, old times to new.

Worth must decay, and height of pow'r decline,
Vices shall still, but not the same Vice, Raign;
Error in Mankind is an endless Mine,
And to the worst, things ever did constrain:
Unbound it would live, and delight by change
To make those formes still welcome that be strange

Hence like a Ball, how hath this world been tost
From hand to hand, betwixt the Persians, Medes,
Romans and Greeks, Each name in other lost?
And while Romes pride her Government misleads
To scorn the Asian Grecian Arms and Worth,
Made slave she was to those Lords she brought forth.

What marvel is it then to see the Earth
Thus chang'd from Order into Anarchy?
When these Ideas of refined birth
Were thus transform'd from reasons Monarchy
Into that false Oligarchy of passion,
Where Princes must bear every bodies fashion?

And whereby man may really conclude,
That in it self Time onely doth not change,
Nature affecting like vicissitude;
Whence to see Vice succeed worth is not strange,
Weakness and strength, aswell as Youth and Age
Having in each Estate a various stage.

So that out of this Phaenix fire there bred
Birds that do wear no Feathers of their own,
But borrow'd Plumes, which imping ever need,
And such as are by divers colours known,
Not of or for themselves to move or be
But under them that guide their Infancy.

Which changling weakness made to serve, not raign,
Possessing all without a doing Lust;
To add more scorn to her fore-runners stain
Dare neither cherish ill, nor goodness trust;
But slacks those Engines which are wound before,
And so gives people back their own again and more.

Then, Man, mark by this change, what thou hast won
That leav'st a Torrid, for a frozen Zone;
And art by Vice-vicissitudes undone,
Whose state is ever fatal to her own,
The active Tyrant scarce allowing breath,
While this unactive threatens lingring death.

For where to Power absolute, such spirits
Are raised up, as unacquainted be
How to create, to censure faults or merits,
Where to be bound, to bind or to be free,
Amidst the ocean of Mans discontent,
They want both Map and Scale of Government.

Since where the Poyze, betwixt Heart, Wit, and Right
Unequalis, and Wit predominant,
Opinions shadows must seem infinite
To Passive Circles large, the Active scant,
All cleer Zones dimly overcast with fear,
And to those false Mists Mankind forc't to swear.

Whence from inferiors, visions fitted be,
Deceiving frailty with her own desire;
Ease is made Greatness, Trust a Liberty,
A point of Craft for power to retire,
To work by others held a Soveraign State,
Resting as God, who yet distributes Fate.

Under which Clouds, while Pow'r would shadow Sloth
And make the Crown a specious hive for Drones,
Unactiveness finds scorn, and ruine both,
Vice and Misfortune seldom go alone,
Pow'r loosing it self by distast of pain,
Since they that labor will be sure to raign.

For though like AEolus from the hills of Might,
Thrones can let winds out to move Earth and Sea,
Yet neither can they calm or guide them right
From blasting of that Mountain where they lay,
Because these spirits joyn, part, war, agree
To rob weak minds of strong authority,

Thus did old Galba Raign in Pupillage
Under the Tutorship of two or three
Who rob'd, built, spoil'd upon the publick stage,
Cloth'd with the vail of his authority:
Thus Claudius in his Empire liv'd a thrall,
Scorn'd by those slaves rais'd by him to do all.

Besides what Feavers then must raign, when these
Base idle fantosmes, Creatures of Grace,
Impossible to temper, hard to please,
Shall have the pow'r to raise up or deface?
Since mean born Natures, Artless fortune great,
Hate them that merit, scorn them that intreat.

Which blasting humours wound both Men and things,
Down go the Schools, the Pulpit and the Barr,
States fall where Power flies with feeble wings,
To make a man, such Kings of't Kingdoms marr,
Nothing and all alike are currant there,
Order springs up and dies, Change no shape bears.

Hence come contempt of Laws, and Bullions fall,
Riddles of State which get by doing harm;
Statutes for words, bondage unnatural,
Offices, Customes, Cittadels in farme,
Engaging Crowns, making pow'rs name a stile
To ruine worth, which it cannot beguile.

Yet mark how Vice (that it self only friends)
In her own web, still wears her own disease,
By disproportion compassing her ends,
And disproportion ruining her ways;
For those that rose by Providence, Care, Pain,
And over pow'r which wanted these, did raign

Grow fondly scornful, idle, imperious,
Despising form, and turning Law to Will,
Abridge our freedom to Lord over us,
Loosing the fruit of humors with the skill;
Till by degrees insensibly they fall
By leaving those Arts which they rose withal.

When instantly those undertaking pow'rs
Care, hazard, Wit, misplaced Industry
(Which helpt to build their oligarchal Tow'rs)
Fly from these downfals of prosperity;
As Spirits that to govern were created,
And cannot lower properly be rated.

The pride of such inferiors did constrain
The Swiss against the Austrians Cantonise;
So were the Belgians likewise forc't again
A new Republick finely to devise.
In which that Monarch was compel'd to Treat
As with States equal Free, not equal Great.

For Vices soon to heights and periods rise,
Have both their Childhood, state and declination,
Are sometimes currant, but at no time wise;
Like blazing Stars that burn their own foundation,
Or shadows which the shew of bodies have
And in self-darkness both a Life and Grave.

Whence it proceeds that all the works of Error
Live not in state of health, but sick and cured,
Change carrying out Excess, to bring in Terror,
Never securing, nor to be secured;
But Physick-like in new diseases bred,
Either substracts or adds till all be dead.

Thus rose all States, thus grew they, thus they fall
From good to ill, and so from ill to worse;
Time for her due vicissitudes doth call,
Error still carrying in it self her curse;
Yet let this Light out of these Clouds break forth,
That Pow'r hath no long Being but in Worth.