We bring you change, to humour your disease; 30 Change for the worse has ever used to please:  Then, ’tis the mode of France; without whose rules None must presume to set up here for fools.  In France, the oldest man is always young, Sees operas daily, learns the tunes so long, Till foot, hand, head keep time with every song:  Each sings his part, echoing from pit and box, With his hoarse voice, half harmony, half pox:  Le plus grand roi du monde is always ringing, They show themselves good subjects by their singing:  40 On that condition, set up every throat:  You Whigs may sing, for you have changed your note.  Cits and citesses raise a joyful strain, ’Tis a good omen to begin a reign:  Voices may help your charter to restoring, And get by singing what you lost by roaring.

* * * * *

XL.

EPILOGUE TO “ALBION AND ALBANIUS.”

  After our AEsop’s fable shown to-day,
  I come to give the moral of the play. 
  Feign’d Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace: 
  But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race: 
  Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
  But ne’er till now the jewel of a crown. 
  When Heaven made man, to show the work divine,
  Truth was His image stamp’d upon the coin: 
  And when a king is to a god refined,
  On all he says and does he stamps his mind:  10
  This proves a soul without alloy, and pure;
  Kings, like their gold, should every touch endure. 
  To dare in fields is valour; but how few
  Dare be so thoroughly valiant,—­to be true! 
  The name of great let other kings affect: 
  He’s great indeed, the prince that is direct. 
  His subjects know him now, and trust him more
  Than all their kings, and all their laws before. 
  What safety could their public acts afford? 
  Those he can break; but cannot break his word. 20
  So great a trust to him alone was due;
  Well have they trusted whom so well they knew. 
  The saint, who walk’d on waves, securely trod,
  While he believed the beckoning of his God: 
  But when his faith no longer bore him out,
  Began to sink, as he began to doubt. 
  Let us our native character maintain;
  ’Tis of our growth to be sincerely plain. 
  To excel in truth we loyally may strive,
  Set privilege against prerogative:  30
  He plights his faith, and we believe him just;
  His honour is to promise, ours to trust. 
  Thus Britain’s basis on a word is laid,
  As by a word the world itself was made.

* * * * *

XLI.

PROLOGUE TO “ARVIRGUS AND PHILICIA REVIVED.”