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THE COUNCIL OF APPOINTMENT AT
ALBANY.

here’s magic in the robe of power,
Ennobling every thing beneath it;
Its spell is like the Upas bower,
Whose air will puff up all that breathe it.
Alike it charms the horse-hair tress
That Turkey’s three-tailed Bashaws wear,
And hallows Clinton’s levee-dress
Cut by the classic shears of Baehr.⁵⁹

Before its witchery, of late,
Our proudest politicians trembled,
When the five Heads that rule the State
Around the Council-board assembled.
There, arbiter of fates and fortunes,
Of brains it well supplied the loss,
Gave Bates⁶⁰ and Rosencrantz importance,
And made a gentleman of Ross.

’Tis vain to win a great man’s name
Without some proof of having been one;