Ennobling every act and air,
With just, and generous, and sincere.
Accomplish’d thus, his next resort
Is to the council and the court,
Where Virtue is in least repute,
And interest the one pursuit;
Where right and wrong are bought and sold,
Barter’d for beauty, and for gold;
Here Manly Virtue, even here,
Pleas'd in the person of a peer,
A peer; a scarcely bearded youth,
Who talk'd of justice and of truth,
Of innocence the surest guard,
Tales here forgot, or yet unheard;
That he alone deserv’d esteem,
Who was the man he wish'd to seem;
Call'd it unmanly and unwise,
To lurk behind a mean disguise;
(Give fraudful Vice the mask and screen,
'Tis Virtue's interest to be seen;)
Call'd want of shame a want of sense,
And found, in blushes, eloquence.
Thus, acting what he taught so well,
He drew dumb Merit from her cell,
Led with amazing art along
The bashful dame, and loos'd her tongue;
And, while he made her value known,
Yet more display'd and rais'd his own.
Thus young, thus proof to all temptations,
He rises to the highest stations;
For where high honour is the prize,
True Virtue has a right to rise:
Let courtly slaves low bend the knee
To Wealth and Vice in high degree:
Exalted
