If not for safety, needful yet for state.[359]
Well might he deem each peer and prince his slave,
And lord it o'er the tribes which he could save:
Even vice in him was virtue—what sad fate,
But for his honesty, had seized our state?
And with what tyranny had we been curst,
Had Corah never proved a villain first?
To have told his knowledge of the intrigue in gross,
Had been, alas, to our deponent's loss:[360]
The travelled Levite had the experience got,