At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
England in 1819
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
(See page [272])
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow