With wit enliven fenfelefs rocks;
Draw repartee from wooden blocks;
Make buzzards fenators of note,

And rooks harangue, that geefe may vote.
These moral fictions, first design'd
To mend and mortify mankind,
Old fop, as our children know,
Taught twice ten hundred years ago.
His fly, upon the chariot-wheel,
Could all a ftatefman's merit feel;
And, to its own importance juft,
Exclaim, with Bufo, What a duft!
His horfe-dung, when the flood ran high,
In Colon's air and accent cry,

While tumbling down the turbid stream,
Lord love us, how we apples fwim!
But farther inftances to cite,

Would tire the hearers patience quite.
No what their numbers and their worth,
How these admire, while thofe hold forth,
From Hide-Park on to Clerkenwell,

Let clubs, let coffee-houses tell;

Where England, through the world renown'd,
In all its wisdom may be found:

While I, for ornament and use,
An orator of wood produce.

Why should the gentle reader ftare?
Are wooden orators fo rare
Saint Stephen's Chapel, Rufus' Hall,
That hears them in the pleader bawl,

That

That hears them in the patriot thunder,
Can tell if fuch things are a wonder.
So can Saint Dunstan's in the Weft,
When good Romaine harangues his beft,
And tells his ftaring congregation,
That fober fenfe is fure damnation ;
That Newton's guilt was worfe than treason,
For ufing, what God gave him, reafon.
A pox of all this prefacing!

Smart Balbus cries: come, name the things
That fuch there are we all agree:
What is this wood? Why-Tyburn-tree.
Hear then this reverend oak harangue;
Who makes men do fo, ere they hang.

Patibulum loquitur.

"Each thing whatever, when aggriev'd,
Of right complains, to be reliev'd.
When rogues fo rais'd the price of wheat,
That few folks could afford to eat,

(Juft as, when doctors' fees run high,
Few patients can afford to die)
The poor durft into murmurs break;
For lofers must have leave to speak :
Then, from reproaching, fell to mawling
Each neighbour-rogue they found foreftalling.
As thefe again, their knaves and fetters,
Durft vent complaints againt their betters;
Whofe only crime was in defeating

Their fchemes of growing rich by cheating:

So,

So, fhall not I my wrongs relate,
An injur'd Minister of state?

The finisher of care and pain

May, fure, with better grace complain,
For reafons no lefs ftrong and true,

Marine Society, of you!

Of you, as every carman knows,
My latest and most fatal foes.

My property you bafely steal,
Which ev'n a British oak can feel;
Feel and refent! what wonder then
It should be felt by British men,
When France, infulting, durft invade
Their cleareft property of trade?
For which both nations, at the bar
Of that fupreme tribunal, war,
To show their reafons have agreed,
And lawyers, by ten thousands, fee'd;
Who now, for legal quirks and puns,
Plead with the rhetoric of great guns;
And each his client's caufe maintains,
By knocking out th' opponent's brains:
While Europe all-but we adjourn
This wife digreffion, and return.

Your rules and ftatutes have undone me:
My fureft cards begin to fhun me.

My native fubjects dare rebel,

Those who were born for me and hell:
And, but for you, the fcoundrel-line
Had, every mother's fon, died mine.

A race unnumber'd as unknown,
Whom town or fuburb calls her own;
Of vagrant love the various spawn,
From rags and filth, from lace and lawn,
Sons of Fleet-ditch, of bulks, of benches,
Where peer and porter meet their wenches,
For neither health nor fhame can wean us,
From mixing with the midnight Venus.
Nor let my cits be here forgot:

They know to fin, as well as fot.
When Night demure walks forth, array'd
In her thin negligée of fhade,
Late-rifen from their long regale
Of beef and beer, and bawdy tale,
Abroad the common-council fally,
To poach for game in lane or alley;
This gets a fon, whose first essay
Will filch his father's till away;

A daughter that, who may retire,
Some few years hence, with her own fire:
And, while his hand is on her placket,
The filial virtue picks his pocket.
Change-alley, too, is grown fo nice,
A broker dares refine on vice :

With lord-like fcorn of marriage-vows,

In her own arms he cuckolds spouse ;

For young and fresh while he would with her,
His loofe thought glows with Kitty Fisher;
Or, after nobler quarry running,

Profanely paints her out a Gunning.

Now

Now thefe, of each degree and fort,
At Wapping dropp'd, perhaps at Court,
Bred up for me, to fwear and lie,
To laugh at hell, and heaven defy;
Thefe, Tyburn's regimented train,
Who risk their necks to fpread my reign,
From age to age, by right divine,
Hereditary rogues, were mine:
And each, by difcipline fevere,
Improv'd beyond all shame and fear,
From guilt to guilt advancing daily,
My conftant friend the good Old Bailey
To me made over, late or foon;
I think, at lateft, once a moon :
But, by your interloping care,
Not one in ten fhall be my fhare.

Ere 'tis too late your error fee,
You foes to Britain, and to me.
To me: agreed-But to the nation ?
I prove it thus by demonstation.

First, that there is much good in ill,
My great apoftle Mandevile

Has made most clear. Read, if you please,
His moral fable of the bees.

Our reverend clergy next will own,

Were all men good, their trade were gone;

That were it not for ufeful vice,

Their learned pains would bear no price:
Nay, we should quickly bid defiance

To their demonftrated alliance.