Nor you, ye proud! impute to these the fault,
If Justice round their necks the halter fix;
If, from the gallows to their kindred vault,
They ride not pompous in a hearse and six.
Gives not the lordly axe as sure a fate?
Are Peers exempt from mouldering into dust?
Can all the gilded ’scutcheons of the Great
Stamp on polluted deeds the name of Just?
Beneath the gibbet’s self perhaps is laid
Some heart once pregnant with infernal fire;