Next, kingdoms are compos'd, we know,
Of individuals, Jack and Joe.
Now these, our fovereign lords the rabble,
For ever prone to growl and squabble,
The monstrous many-headed beast,
Whom we must not offend, but feast,
Like Cerberus, should have their sop:
And what is that, but truffing up?
How happy were their hearts, and gay,
At each return of hanging-day!
To fee * Page swinging they admire,
Beyond ev'n * Madox on his wire!
No baiting of a bull or bear,
To * Perry dangling in the air!
And then, the being drunk a week,
For joy, fome * Sheppard would not squeak!
But now that those good times are o'er,
How will they mutiny and roar!
Your scheme abfurd of fober rules,
Will fink the race of men to mules;
For ever drudging, sweating, broiling,
For ever for the public toiling:
Hard masters! who, just when they need 'ems,
With a few thistles deign to feed 'em.
Yet more for it is feldom known
That fault or folly stands alone
** As these are all persons of note, and well known to our readers, we think any more particular mention of them unneceffary. MALLET.
You next debauch their infant-mind
With fumes of honourable wind;
Which must beget, in heads untry'd,
That worst of human vices, pride.
All who my humble paths forsake,
Will reckon, each, to be a Blake!
There, on the deck, with arms a-kimbo,
Already ftruts the future Bembow!
By you bred up to take delight in
No earthly thing but oaths and fighting.
These sturdy fons of blood and blows,
By pulling Monfieur by the nose,
By making kicks and cuffs the fashion,
Will put all Europe in a paffion.
The grand alliance, now quadruple,
Will pay us home, jusqu' au centuple:"
So the French King was heard to cry-
And can a king of Frenchmen lie?
These, and more mischiefs I forefee
From fondling brats of base degree.
As mushrooms that on dunghills rise,
The kindred-weeds beneath despise;
So these their fellows will contemn,
Who, in revenge, will rage at them :
For, through each rank, what more offends,
Than to behold the rife of friends?
Still when our equals grow too great,
We may applaud, but we must hate.
Then, will it be endur'd, when John
Has put my hempen ribbon on,
To fee his ancient mess-mate Cloud,
By you made turbulent and proud,
And early taught my tree to bilk,
Pafs in another all of filk?
Yet, one more mournful cafe to put :
A hundred mouths at once you shut!
Half Grub-ftreet, filenc'd in an hour,
Must curse your interpofing power !
If my loft fons no longer steal,
What fon of hers can earn a meal?
You ruin many a gentle bard,
Who liv'd by heroes that die hard!
Their brother-hawkers too! that fung
How great from world to world they swung;
And by fad fonnets, quaver'd loud,
Drew tears and half-pence from the crowd!
Blind Fielding too-a mischief on him! I with my fons would meet and stone him! Sends his black squadrons up and down, Who drive my best boys back to town. They find that travelling now abroad, To ease rich rascals on the road, Is grown a calling much unfase; That there are furer ways by half, To which they have their equal claim, Of earning daily food and fame : So down, at home, they fit, and think How beft to rob, with pen and ink.
Hence, red-hot letters and essays, By the John Lilburn of these days;
Who guards his want of shame and sense,
With shield of sevenfold impudence.
Hence cards on Pelham, cards on Pitt,
With much abuse and little wit.
Hence libels against Hardwicke penn'd,
That only hurt when they commend :
Hence oft afcrib'd to Fox, at least
All that defames his name-fake-beast.
Hence Cloacina hourly views
Unnumber'd labours of the Muse,
That fink, where myriads went before,
And fleep within the chaos hoar :
While her brown daughters, under ground,
Are fed with politics profound.
Each eager hand a fragment snaps,
More excrement than what it wraps.
These, singly, contributions raise,
Of cafual pudding and of praisfe.
Others again, who form a gang,
Yet take due measures not to hang,
In Magazines their forces join,
By legal methods to purloin :
Whose weekly, or whose monthly, feat is
First to decry, then steal, your treatise.
So rogues in France perform their job;
Affaffinating, ere they rob.
But, this long narrative to close :
They who would grievances expose,
In all good policy, no less,
Should shew the methods to redress.
If commerce, sinking in one scale,
By fraud or hazard comes to fail;
The task is next, all statefinen know it,
To find another where to throw it,
That, rifing there in due degree,
The public may no lofer be.
Thus having heard how you invade,
And, in one way, destroy my trade;
That we at laft may part good friends,
Hear how you ftill may make amends.
O fearch this finful town with care:
What numbers, duly mine, are there!
The full-fed herb of money-jobbers,
Jews, Christians, rogues alike and robbers!
Who riot on the poor man's toils,
And fatten by a nation's spoils !
The crowd of little knaves in place,
Our age's envy and difgrace.
Secret and foug, by daily stealth,
The bufy vermin pick up wealth;
Then, without birth, control the great!
Then, without talents, rule the state!
Some ladies too-for some there are,
With shame and decency at war;
Who, on a ground of pale threefcore,
Still spread the rose of twenty-four,
And bid a nut-brown bosom glow
With purer white than lilies know:
Who into vice intrepid rusm;
Put modest whoring to the blush;
|