Hence, should one order disproportion'd grow, O then how blind to all that truth requires, To call it freedom when themselves are free; Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force, And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose, Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call, Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd, E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays, With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, NOTE. In the Respublica Hungarica, there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, George and Luke Zeck. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red-hot iron crown. Boswell pointed out Goldsmith's mistake. E |