That Best, though mix’d with Bad, should reign,
Which kept you in your sky!”
Does he mean that the “Best” are restricted to the English nobility? If he does mean this, he is quite wrong; if he does not mean it, then the lines immediately following are meaningless:
“But, when the sordid Trader caught
The loose-held sceptre from your hands distraught,
And soon, to the Mechanic vain,
Sold the proud toy for naught,
Your charm was broke, your task was sped,
Your beauty, with your honor, dead.”
And so the ode goes on to hope that