He wanted beauty trembling with alarms:

His was no more a youthful dream of joy,

The wretch desired to ruin and destroy;

He bought indulgence with a boundless price,

Most pleased when decency bow’d down to vice,

When a fair dame her husband’s honour sold,

And a frail countess play’d for Blaney’s gold.

“But did not conscience in her anger rise?”

Yes! and he learn’d her terrors to despise;

When stung by thought, to soothing books he fled,