THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS TO GOVERN WRONG!
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Dedicated to the Holy Alliance
By The Author Of The Political House That Jack Built.
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Dedication.
TO
THE VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE MEMBERS OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE.
May it please your Holinesses,
When a gang of desperate ruffians disguise themselves, and take the road armed, it is a sure sign of robbery and murder; and it becomes the duty of an honest man to raise a hue and cry, and describe the villains.
With that view, I dedicate to you this little book; in the hope, that some who understand the dead lan-guage of Despotism, may be induced to translate it into the living tongues of the good people of the Continent.
I pray God to take your Royalty into his immediate keeping.
O! Dulness, if thy sons can learn one thing, Teach but that one, sufficient for a King; That which thy Priests, and thine alone, maintain, Which, as It dies, or lives, They fall, or reign: May ye, O Cam and Isis, preach it long, 'The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong!' Pope.
It was a maxim of the Constitution of this country that the King could do no wrong. He had high authority for stating that the King could not commit Folly, much less Crime. —Report of a Bishop's Speech.
If a King can do no wrong, why was King James II. banished? and if a King can do wrong, why the plague are we constantly affirming that he cannot? Either way we should stand self-condemned, and if we are not set down as a nation of scoundrels, we must think ourselves pretty easy under the appellation of fools.—Swift,
—————We love The King, who loves the law, respects his bounds, And reigns content within them: him we serve Freely and with delight, who leaves us free: But recollecting still that he is man, We trust him not too far. King though he be, And King in England too, he may be weak. And vain enough to be ambitious still; May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs, Or covet more than freemen choose to grant: Beyond that mark is TREASON. —Cowper