Shirts be-wrought with different letters,
As belonging to their betters,
With their pretty tinfeld boxes,
Gotten from their dainty doxies,
And with rings fo very trim,
Lately taken out of lim
And with very little pence,.
And as very little fenfe,
With fome law, but little justice,
Having ftolen from my hotlefs,
From the barber and the cutler,
Like the foldier from the futler;
From the vintner and the taylor,
Like the felon from the jaylor;
Into this and t'other county,
Living on the public bounty;
Thorough town and thorough village,
All to plunder, all to pillage;
Thorough mountains, thorough vallics,
Thorough ftinking lanes and alleys,
Some to kifs with farmers fpouses,
And make merry in their houfes;
tumble country wenches
On their rufhy-beds and benches,
And, if they begin a fray,
Draw their fwords, and run away ;
All to murder equity,
And to take a double fee;
Till the people all are quiet,
And forget to broil and riot,
THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.
LOGICIANS have but ill defin'd,
As rational, the human-kind.
"Reafon,' they fay, "belongs to man;"
But let them prove it if they can.
Wife Ariftotle and Smiglefius,
By ratiocinations fpacious,
Have ftrove to prove with great precifion,
With definition and divifion,
Homo eft ratione præditum ;
But, for my foul, I cannot credit 'em,
And mutt, in fpite of them, maintain,
That man and all his ways are yain ;
And that this boafted lord of nature
Is both a week and erring creature;
That inftinct is a furer guide
Than reafon-boafting mortals pride;
And that brute beafts are far before 'em,
Deus eft anima brutorum.
Who ever knew an honeft brute
At law his neighbour profecute;
Bring action for affault and battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd,
No politicks disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport,
Nor know who 's in or out at court.
They never to the levee go,
To treat as dearest friend, a foe:
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place;
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for Bob;
Fraught with invective they ne'er go
To folks at Pater-nofter-row :
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-mafters,
No pick-pockets, or poctafters,
Are known to honeft quadrupeds :
No fingle brute his fellows leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each other's throats for pay.
Of beafts, it is confefs'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human fhape;
Like man, he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling paffion:
But, both in malice and grimaces,
A courtier any ape furpasses:
Behold him humbly cringing wait
Upon the minifter of state;
View him foon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of fuperiors:
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators;
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their mafters' manners ftill contract;
And footmen lords and dukes can act.
Thus, at the court, both great and small
Behave alike; for all ape all.
THE PUPPET SHOW.
THE life of man to represent,
And turn it all to ridicule,
Wit did a puppet-show invent,
Where the chief actor is a fool.
The gods of old were logs of wood,
And worship was to puppets paid;
In antic dress the idol stood,
And priest and people bow'd the head.
No wonder then, if art began
The fimple votaries to frame,
To fhape in timber foolish man,
And confecrate the block to fame.
From hence poetic fancy learn'd
That trees might rise from human forms,
The body to a trunk be turn'd,
And branches iffue from the arms.
Thus Dædalus and Ovid too,
That man's a blockhead, have confeft; Powel and Stretch the hint purfue; Life is a farce, the world a jeft.
*Two famous puppet-show men.
The fame great truth South Sea * hath prov'd
On that fam'd theatre, the alley;
Where thoufands, by directors mov'd,
Are now fad monuments of folly.
What Momus was of old to Jove,
The fame a Harlequin is now;
The former was buffoon above,
The latter is a Punch below.
This fleeting fcene is but a ftage,
Where various images appear;
In different parts of youth and age
Alike the prince and peafant fhare.
Some draw our eyes by being great,
Falfe pomp conceals mere wood within ;
And legiflators rang'd in ftate
Are oft' but wifdom in machine.
A ftock may chance to wear a crown,
And timber as a lord take place;
A ftatue may put on a frown,
And cheat us with a thinking face.
Others are blindly led away,
And made to act for ends unknown;
By the mere fpring of wires they play,
And speak in language not their own.
Too oft', alas! a fcolding wife
Ufurps a jolly fellow's throne;
And many drink the cup of life,
Mix'd and embitter'd by a Joan.
* See the poem on the South Sea, vol. I. p. 200.
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