On thy unwilling friends the long discourse:
What though thy thoughts be just, and these, it seems,
Are traitors’ projects, idiots’ empty schemes;
Yet minds, like bodies, cramm’d, reject their food,
Nor will be forced and tortured for their good!”
At length, a sharp, shrewd, sallow man arose,
And begg’d he briefly might his mind disclose;
“It was his duty, in these worst of times,
T’inform the govern’d of their rulers’ crimes:”
This pleasant subject to attend, they each