Then let renown to worth divine incite,
With all her beams, but throw those beams aright.
Then merit droops, and genius downward tends,
When godlike glory, like our land, descends.
Custom the garter long confin'd to few,
And gave to birth, exalted virtue's due:
Walpole has thrown the proud enclosure down;
And high desert embraces fair renown.
Though rival'd, let the peerage smiling see
(Smiling, in justice to their own degree)
This proud reward by majesty bestow'd
On worth like that whence first the peerage flow'd.
From frowns of fate Britannia's bliss'd to guard,
Let subjects merit, and let kings reward.
Gods are most gods by giving to excel,
And kings most like them, by rewarding well.
Though strong the twanging nerve, and drawn aright,
Short is the winged arrow's upward flight;
But if an eagle it transfix on high,
Lodg'd in the wound, it soars into the sky.
Thus while I sing thee with unequal lays,
And wound perhaps that worth I mean to praise;
Yet I transcend myself, I rise in fame,
Not lifted by my genius, but my theme.
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