A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country but his own.

In these lines, the speaker uses pointed irony to criticize a fashionable kind of “cosmopolitan” sentiment that professes love for humanity in general while withholding loyalty or practical concern from one’s own nation. The phrase “steady patriot of the world” sounds admirable, but the second line reverses it: such a person is “the friend of every country but his own.” The couplet thus targets performative universalism—principles that are expansive in rhetoric yet evasive when local duties, sacrifices, or accountability are required. Read politically, it can function as a rebuke to opponents portrayed as insufficiently national in outlook, suggesting that genuine public virtue must include concrete allegiance and responsibility at home.