At least fuch fubtle covenants fhall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Affociations of myfterious fenfe,

Againft, but feeming for, the king's defence:
Ev'n on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.
By which a conquest if we fail to make,

'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake. He faid, and for the dire fuccefs depends

On various fects, by common guilt made friends.
Whose heads, though ne'er fo differing in their creed,
I' th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
'Mongst these, extorting Ifhban first appears,
Pursued by' a meager troop of bankrupt heirs.
Bleft times when Ifhban, he whofe occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ifhban of confcience fuited to his trade,
As good a faint as usurer ever made.
Yet Mammon has not so engrost him quite,
But Belial lays as large a claim of spight;
Who, for those pardons from his prince he draws,
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did fway,
He left rebellion in a hopeful way.

Yet his ambition once was found fo bold,

To offer talents of extorted gold;

Could David's wants have fo been brib'd, to fhame
And scandalize our peerage with his name;

For which, his dear fedition he'd forfwear,
And ev'n turn loyal to be made a peer.

Next him, let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;
A faint that can both flesh and spirit ufe,
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews:
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i' th' preachers or the bawds arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him
That keeps the treasure of Jerulalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
Double our guards, he cries, we are undone.
Protesting that he dares not fleep in 's bed
Left he should rife next morn without his head.
"Next thefe, a troop of bufy spirits prefs,
Of little fortunes, and of confcience lefs;
With them the tribe, whofe luxury had drain'd
Their banks, in former fequeftrations gain'd;
Who rich and great by past rebellions grew,
And long to fish the troubled streams anew.
Some future hopes, fome prefent payment draws,
To fell their confcience and efpoule the caufe.
Such ftipends thofe vile hirelings beft befit,
Priefts without grace, and poets without wit.
Shall that falfe Hebronite efcape our curfe,
Judas that keeps the rebels penfion-purfe;
Judas that pays the treafon-writer's fee,
Judas that well deferves his namefake's tree;
Who at Jerufalem's own gates erects
His college for a nursery of fects.
Young prophets wit an early care fecures,
And with the dung of his own arts manures.

What

What have the men of Hebron here to do?
What part in Ifrael's promis'd land have you!
Here Phaleg the lay-Hebronite is come,
'Caufe like the rest he could not live at home;
Who from his own poffeffions could not drain
An omer even of Hebronitish grain,

Here ftruts it like a patriot, and talks high
Of injur'd fubjects, alter'd property :

An emblem of that buzzing insect just,

That mounts the wheel, and thinks fhe raises duft.
Can dry bones live? or skeletons produce
The vital warmth of cuckoldizing juice?
Slim Phaleg could, and at the table fed,
Return'd the grateful product to the bed.
A waiting-man to traveling nobles chofe,
He his own laws would faucily impofe,
'Till baftinadoed back again he went,
To learn thofe manners he to teach was fent.
Chaftiz'd he ought to have retreated home,
But he reads politicks to Abfalom.

For never Hebronite, though kick'd and scorn'd,
To his own country willingly return'd,
-But, leaving famifh'd Phaleg to be fed,
And to talk treafon for his daily bread,
Let Hebron, nay let hell produce a man
So made for mifchief as Ben-Jochanan,
A Jew of humble parentage was he,
By trade a Levite, though of low degree:
His pride no higher than the defk aspir'd,
But for the drudgery of priefts was hir'd

To

To read and pray in linen ephod brave,

And pick up fingle fhekels from the

grave.

Marry'd at last, but finding charge come fafter,
He could not live by God, but chang'd his mafter:
Infpir'd by want, was made a factious tool,
They got a villain, and we loft a fool.
Still violent, whatever caufe he took,
But most against the party he forfook.
For renegadoes, who ne'er turn by halves,
Are bound in confcience to be double knaves.
So this profe-prophet took most monstrous pains,
To let his masters fee he earn'd his gains.
But, as the devil owes all his imps a shame,
He chofe th' apoftate for his proper theme;
With little pains he made the picture true,
And from reflexion took the rogue he drew.
A wondrous work, to prove the Jewish nation
In every age a murmuring generation;

To trace them from their infancy of finning,
And fhew them factious from their first beginning.
Το prove they could rebel, and rail, and mock,
Much to the credit of the chofen flock;
A ftrong authority, which must convince,
That faints own no allegiance to their prince.
As 'tis a leading-card to make a whore,

Το
prove her mother had turn'd up before.
But, tell me, did the drunken patriarch bless
The fon that fhew'd his father's nakednefs?
Such thanks the prefent church thy pen will give,
Which proves rebellion was fo primitive.

Muft

Muft ancient failings be examples made?

Then murtherers from Cain may learn their trade.
As thou the heathen and the faint haft drawn,
Methinks th' apoftate was the better man :
And thy hot father, waving my respect,
Not of a mother-church, but of a fect.
And fuch he needs must be of thy inditing,
This comes of drinking affes milk and writing,
If Balack should be call'd to leave his place,
As profit is the loudest call of grace,

His temple, difpoffefs'd of one, would be
Replenish'd with seven devils more by thee.

Levi, thou art a load, I'll lay thee down,
And fhew rebellion bare, without a gown;
Poor flaves in metre, dull and addle-pated,
Who rhyme below ev'n David's Psalms translated,
Some in my speedy pace I must out-run,

As lame Mephibofheth the wifard's fon :

To make quick way, I'll leap o'er heavy blocks,
Shun rotten Uzza as I would the pox;

And haften Og and Doeg to rehearse,

Two fools that crutch their feeble sense on verse;
Who by my Muse to all fucceeding times,
Shall live in spight of their own doggrel rhymes.
Doeg, though without knowing how or why,
Made still a blundering kind of melody;

Spurr'd boldly on, and dash'd through thick and thin,
Through fenfe and nonfenfe, never out nor in ;

Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And in one word, heroically mad :

He