OF

TRUE GREATNESS.

AN EPISTLE TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE DODINGTON, ESQ.

OF

TRUE GREATNESS.

AN EPISTLE ΤΟ

GEORGE DODINGTON, ESQ.

"TIS strange, while all to greatness homage pay, So few should know the goddess they obey.

That men should think a thousand things the same, And give contending images one name.

Not Greece, in all her temples' wide abodes,

Held a more wild democracy of Gods
Than various deities we serve, while all
Profess before one common shrine to fall.

Whether ourselves of greatness are possess'd, Or worship it within another's breast.

While a mean crowd of sycophants attend, And fawn and flatter, creep and cringe and bend; The fav'rite blesses his superior state,

Rises o'er all, and hails himself the great.

Vain man! can such as these to greatness raise? Can honour come from dirt? from baseness, praise? Then India's gem on Scotland's coast shall shine, And the Peruvian ore enrich the Cornish mine.

Behold, in blooming May, the May-pole stand,
Dress'd out in garlands by the peasant's hand;
Around it dance the youth, in mirthful mood;

And all admire the gaudy, dress'd up wood.
See, the next day, of all its pride bereft,
How soon the unreguarded post is left.
So thou, the wonder of a longer day,

Rais'd high on pow'r, and dressed in titles, gay,
Stripp'd of these summer garlands, soon would'st see
The mercenary slaves ador'd, not thee;

Would'st see them thronging thy successor's gate,
Shadows of power, and properties of state.
As the sun insects, pow'r court-friends begets,
Which wanton in its beams, and vanish as it sets.

Thy highest pomp the hermit dares despise,
Greatness (cries this) is to be good and wise.
To titles, treasures, luxury and show,
The gilded follies of mankind, a foe.
He flies society, to wilds resorts,

And rails at busy cities, splendid courts.
Great to himself, he in his cell appears,

As kings on thrones, or conquerors on cars.

O thou, that dar'st thus proudly scorn thy kind, Search, with impartial scrutiny, thy mind; Disdaining outward flatterers to win,

Dost thou not feed a flatterer within?
While other passions temperance may guide,
Feast not with too delicious meals thy pride.
On vice triumphant while thy censures fall,
Be sure no envy mixes with thy gall.
Ask thyself oft, to pow'r and grandeur born,
Had pow'r and grandeur then incurr'd thy scorn?

If no ill-nature in thy breast prevails,
Enjoying all the crimes at which it rails?
A peevish sour perverseness of the will,
Oft we miscall antipathy to ill.

Scorn and disdain the little cynic hurl'd At the exulting victor of the world. Greater than this what soul can be descried? His who contemns the cynic's snarling pride. Well might the haughty son of Philip see Ambition's second lot devolve on thee; Whose breast pride fires with scarce inferior joy, And bids thee hate and shun men, him destroy.

But had'st thou, Alexander, wish'd to prove Thyself the real progeny of Jove,

Virtue another path had bid thee find,

Taught thee to save, and not to slay, mankind.

Shall the lean wolf, by hunger fierce and bold, Bear off no honours from the bloody fold? Shall the dead flock his greatness not display; But shepherds hunt him as a beast of prey? While man, not drove by hunger from his den, To honour climbs o'er heaps of murder'd men. Shall ravag'd fields and burning towns proclaim The hero's glory, not the robber's shame? Shall thousands fall, and millions be undone, To glut the hungry cruelty of one?

Behold, the plain with human gore grow red, The swelling river heave along the dead. See, through the breach the hostile deluge flow, Along it bears the unresisting foe: