Page:Poetical Works of the Right Hon. Geo. Granville.djvu/71

Diſmiſs that plea, and what ſhall blood avail?
If Beauty is deny’d, ſhall Birth prevail?
Blood and high deeds in diſtant ages done
Are our forefathers’ merit, not our own.
Might none a juſt poſſeſſion be allow’d135
But who could bring deſert, or boaſt of blood,
What numbers, ev’n here, might be condemn’d,
Stripp’d and deſpoil’d of all, revil’d, contemn’d!
Take a juſt view, how many may remark
Who now ’s a peer his grandſire was a clerk.140
Some few remain ennobled by the ſword
In Gothic times; but now, to be My Lord,
Study the law, nor do theſe robes deſpiſe;
Honour the gown, from whence your honours riſe.
Those fam’d Dictators who ſubdu’d the globe145
Gave the precedence to the peaceful robe.
The mighty Julius pleading at the bar
Was greater than when, thund’ring in the war,
He conquer’d nations. ’Tis of more renown
To ſave a client than to ſtorm a town.150
“How dear to Britain are her darling laws!
What blood has ſhe not laviſh’d in their cauſe!
Kings are like common ſlaves to ſlaughter led,
Or wander thro’ the world to beg their bread.
When regal pow’r aſpires above the laws,155
A private wrong becomes a public cauſe.”
He ſpoke. The nobles differ, and divide;
Some join with Law, and ſome with Beauty ſide.