On Lord LOVAT's Execution
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"Pity'd by gentle minds KILMARNOCK died;
The brave, BALMERINO, were on thy side;
RADCLIFFE, unhappy in his crimes of youth,
Steady in what he still mistook for truth,
Beheld his death so decently unmov'd,
The soft lamented, and the brave approv'd.
But LOVAT'S fate indifferently we view,
True to no King, to no religion true:
No fair forgets the ruin he has done;
No child laments the tyrant of his son;
No tory pities, thinking what he was;
No whig compassions, for he left the cause;
The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave!"



From:

James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D
(R.W.Chapman's 1904 Oxford Edition)