The herd of fops the frantick humour take,
Each keeps a capon, loves its mincing gate,
Its flowing hair, and striving all it can,
In changing mode and dress, t' appear a man.
Behold the wilder luxury of Rome,
From Africk furniture, slaves, tables come,
And purple carpets made in Africk loom.
Thus their estates run out, while all around
The sot-companions in their wine are drown'd;
The souldier loads, neglected is his sword,
With all his spoils the dearly noble board:
Rome's appetite grows witty, and what's caught
In Sicily, to their boards are living brought:
But stomachs gorg'd, (a dearer luxury)
Must with expensive sauce new hunger buy.
The Phasian banks, the birds all eaten, gone,
With their forsaken trees in silence moan,
And have no musick but the winds alone.
In Mars's Field no less a frenzie reigns,
Where brib'd assemblies make a prey of gains.
Their servile votes obey the chink of gold,
A people and a senate to be sold!
The senate's self, which should our rights maintain,
From their free spirits, stoop to sordid gain,
The power of right by gold corrupted dies,
And trampled majesty beneath it lies:
Cato's pretence the giddy rout neglect,
Yet did not him, but him they rais'd deject:
Who, tho' he won, with conscious blushes stands,
Asham'd o' th' Power he took from worthier hands.
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