heir next advance removes the present king:
Persisting else his senates to dissolve,
In equal hazard shall his reign involve.
Our tribes, whom Pharaoh's power so much alarms,
Shall rise without their prince to oppose his arms;
Nor boots it on what cause at first they join,
Their troops, once up, are tools for our design.
At least such subtle covenants shall be made,
Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
Associations of mysterious sense, 270
Against, but seeming for, the king's defence:
Even on their courts of justice fetters draw,
And from our agents muzzle up their law.
By which a conquest if we fail to make,
'Tis a drawn game at worst, and we secure our stake.

He said, and for the dire success depends
On various sects, by common guilt made friends.
Whose heads, though ne'er so differing in their creed,
I' th' point of treason yet were well agreed.
'Mongst these, extorting Ishban first appears, 280
Pursued by a meagre troop of bankrupt heirs.
Blest times when Ishban, he whose occupation
So long has been to cheat, reforms the nation!
Ishban of conscience suited to his trade,
As good a saint as usurer ever made.
Yet Mammon has not so engross'd him quite,
But Belial lays as large a claim of spite;
Who, for those pardons from his prince he draws,
Returns reproaches, and cries up the cause.
That year in which the city he did sway, 290
He left rebellion in a hopeful way,
Yet his ambition once was found so bold,
To offer talents of extorted gold;
Could David's wants have so been bribed, to shame
And scandalize our peerage with his name;
For which, his dear sedition he'd forswear,
And e'en turn loyal to be made a peer.
Next him, let railing Rabsheka have place,
So full of zeal he has no need of grace;
A saint that can both flesh and spirit use, 300
Alike haunt conventicles and the stews:
Of whom the question difficult appears,
If most i' th' preacher's or the bawd's arrears.
What caution could appear too much in him
That keeps the treasure of Jerusalem!
Let David's brother but approach the town,
Double our guards, he cries, we are undone.
Protesting that he dares not sleep in 's bed
Lest he should rise next morn without his head.

Next[74] these, a troop of busy spirits press, 310
Of little