Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/150

144 upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicitlymultiplicity [sic] of agents. This poem therefore, since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor perhaps generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very skilfully delineated and strongly coloured:

Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence, The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence, And malice reconcil'd him to his prince. Him, in the anguish of his soul, he serv'd; Rewarded faster still than he deserv'd: Behold him now exalted into trust; His counsels oft convenient, seldom just; Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave, He had a grudging still to be a knave. The frauds, he learnt in his fanatic years, Made him uneasy in his lawful gears, Rh