If she hath ... 1822.
III
CHARLES THE SECOND
Who comes—with rapture greeted, and caress'd
With frantic love—his kingdom to regain?[250]
Him Virtue's Nurse, Adversity, in vain
Received, and fostered in her iron breast:
For all she taught of hardiest and of best, 5
Or would have taught, by discipline of pain
And long privation, now dissolves amain,
Or is remembered only to give zest
To wantonness—Away, Circean revels![251]
But for what gain? if England soon must sink 10
Into a gulf which all distinction levels—
That bigotry may swallow the good name,[252][253]
And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery, shame,
By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!
FOOTNOTES:
[250] "No event ever marked a deeper or a more lasting change in the temper of the English people, than the entry of Charles the Second into Whitehall. With it modern England begins." (Green's Short History of the English People, chap. ix. sec. 1.)—Ed.
[251] "The Restoration brought Charles to Whitehall; and in an instant the whole face of England was changed. All that was noblest and best in Puritanism was whirled away." (Green, chap. ix. sec. I.) The excesses of every kind that came in with the Restoration were notorious.—Ed.
[252] 1837.
Already stands our Country on the brink
Of bigot rage, that all distinction levels
Of truth and falsehood, swallowing the good name, 1822.
[253] In 1672 the Duke of York was publicly received into the Church of Rome.—Ed.