This may serve for a Lesson to men in Power, that they Treasure up
Friends in their Prosperity, against a time of Need; for He that does
not Secure himself of a stock of Reputation in his Greatness, shall most
Certainly fall Unpity’d in his Adversity: And the Baser his Enemies are,
the more insupportable is the Insolence, and the forwarder will they be
to Trample upon him.
The Case of this Miserable _Old Lion_ may serve to put Great Men in
mind, that the Wheel of Time, and of Fortune is still Rolling, and that
they themselves are to lie down at last in the Grave with Common Dust;
And without anything to support them in their Age, but the Reputation,
Virtue and Conscience of a well-spent Youth. Nay Age it self, is
well-nigh sufficient to Deface every Letter and Action in the History of
a Meritorious Life. For Old Services are Bury’d under the Ruins of an
Old Carcass: but there are None yet that fall so Unpitied; so Just, so
Necessary, and so Grateful a Sacrifice to the Rage and Scorn of common
People, as those that have rais’d themselves upon the Spoils of the
Publick: Especially when that Oppression is Aggravated with a Wanton
Cruelty, and with Blood and Rapine, for the very love of Wickedness. It
is a kind of Arrogance, in such a case, to be Honest, where ’tis both a
Fashion, and a Credit to be the contrary.
The _Lion_ is here upon his Death Bead; Not a Friend left him, nor
so much as an Enemy, with either Fangs or Claws, that does not stand
Gaping and Waiting for a Collop of him. Here he lies, Faint, Poor,
and Defenceless, under the Judgment of Divine Vengeance, and the
Animadversion of Humane Justice, both at once; stung in his own Thoughts
with the guilty Remembrance of the Pride and Riot of his Youth, Abandon’d
and Despis’d, by the Righteous Retaliation of Heaven it self: All his
Sins, as well as all his Adversaries; his Frauds, and Cruelties; Broken
Vows, Promises and Contracts, his Tyranny and Hypocrisie, and the
Iniquity, in fine, of all his Councels, and Practices, for the Ruine of
the Guiltless flying in the Face of him.