"Pray, be patient; you shall find
Half the best are still behind!
You have hardly seen a score ;
I can show two hundred more."
Keeper, I have seen enough.
Taking then a pinch of snuff,
I concluded, looking round them,
"May their god, the devil, confound them!"
ON A PRINTER'S' BEING SENT TO NEWGATE.
BETTER We all were in our graves,
Than live in slavery to slaves;
Worse than the anarchy at sea,
Where fishes on each other prey;
Where every trout can make as high rants
O'er his inferiors as our tyrants;
And swagger while the coast is clear;
But should a lordly pike appear,
Away you see the varlet scud,
Or hide his coward snout in mud.
Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach,
He dares not venture to approach;
Yet still has impudence to rise,
And, like Domitian, leap at flies.
A VINDICATION OF THE LIBEL;
Written by a shocooy, on an attorney who was formerly a shoeboy.
"Qui color ater erat, nunc est contrarius atro."
WITH singing of ballads and crying of news,
With whitening of buckles and blacking of shoes,
Did Hartley set out, both shoeless and shirtless,
And moneyless too, but not very dirtless;
Two pence he had gotten by begging, that's all;
One bought him a brush, and one a black ball;
For clouts at a loss he could not be much,
The clothes on his back as being but such;
Thus vamp'd and accoutred, with clouts, ball, and brush,
He gallantly ventured his fortune to push;
Vespasian thus, being bespatter'd with dirt,
Was omen'd to be Rome's emperor for't.
But as a wise fiddler is noted, you know,
To have a good couple of strings to one bow;
Mr. Faulkner, for printing "A Proposal for the better Regulation of Quadrille."
So Hartley judiciously thought it too little
To live by the sweat of his hands and his spittle:
Ile finds out another profession as fit,
And straight he becomes a retailer of wit.
One day he cried-"Murders, and songs, and great news!"
Another as loudly - "Here blacken your shoes!"
At Domvile's full often he fed upon bits,
For winding of jacks up and turning of spits;
Lick'd all the plates round, had many a grubbing,
And now and then got from the cook-maid a drubbing.
Such bastings effect upon him could have none;
The dog will be patient that's struck with a bone.
Sir Thomas, observing this Hartley withal
So expert and so active at brushes and ball,
Was moved with compassion, and thought it a pity
A youth should be lost that had been so witty:
Without more ado he vamps up my spark,
And now we'll suppose him an eminent clerk !
Suppose him an adept in all the degrees
Of scribbling cum dasho, and hooking of fees;
Suppose him a miser, attorney per bill,
Suppose him a courtier
- suppose what you will
Yet, would you believe, though I swore by the bible,
That he took up two news-boys for crying the libel? 2
A FRIENDLY APOLOGY FOR A CERTAIN JUSTICE OF
BY WAY OF DEFENCE OF HARTLEY HUTCHINSON, ESQ.
BY JAMES BLACKWELL, OPERATOR FOR THE FEET.
"But he, by bawling news about,
And aptly using brush and clout,
A justice of the peace became,
To punish rogues who do the same."
I SING the man of courage tried,
O'errun with ignorance and pride,
Who boldly hunted out disgrace
With canker'd mind and hideous face;
The first who made (let none deny it)
The libel-vending rogues be quiet.
The fact was glorious, we must own,
For Hartley was before unknown,—
Contemn'd I mean;- for who would choose
So vile a subject for the Muse?
'Twas once the noblest of his wishes
To fill his paunch with scraps from dishes,
For which he'd parch before the grate,
Or wind the jack's slow-rising weight,
Sir T. Domvile, patentee of the Hanaper office.
2 The Proposal for Regulation of Quadrille.
(Such toils as best his talents fit,)
Or polish shoes, or turn the spit;
But unexpectedly grown rich in
Squire Domvile's family and kitchen,
He pants to eternise his name,
And takes the dirty road to fame;
Believes that persecuting wit
Will prove the surest way to it;
So with a colonel at his back,
The libel feels his first attack;
He calls it a seditious paper,
Writ by another patriot drapier;
Then raves and blunders nonsense thicker
Than alderman o'ercharged with liquor;
And all this with design, no doubt,
To hear his praises hawk'd about;
To send his name through every street,
Which erst he roam'd with dirty feet;
Well pleased to live in future times,
Though but in keen satiric rhymes.
So Ajax, who, for aught we know,
Was justice many years ago,
And minding then no earthly things,
But killing libellers of kings;
Or, if he wanted work to do,
To run a bawling news-boy through;
Yet he, when wrapp'd up in a cloud,
Entreated father Jove aloud,
Only in light to show his face,
Though it might tend to his disgrace.
And so the Ephesian villain fired
The temple which the world admired,
Contemning death, despising shame,
To gain an ever-odious name.
AT Dublin's high feast sat primate and dean, Both dress'd like divines, with band and face clean: Quoth Hugh of Armagh, The mob is grown bold." "Ay, ay," quoth the dean, "the cause old gold." "No, no," quoth the primate, "if causes we sift, This mischief arises from witty dean Swift."
The smart one replied, "There's no wit in the case; And nothing of that ever troubled your grace.
Though with your state-sieve your own notions you split,
A Boulter by name is no bolter of wit.
It's matter of weight, and a mere money job;
Go tell your friend Bob and the other great folk
That sinking the coin is a dangerous joke.
The Irish dear joys have enough common sense
To treat gold reduced like Wood's copper pence.
It is pity a prelate should die without law;
But if I say the word - take care of Armagh !"
A WICKED TREASONABLE LIBEL.
WHILE the king and his ministers keep such a pother,
And all about changing one whore for another,
Think I to myself, what need all this strife,
His majesty first had a whore of a wife,
And surely the difference mounts to no more
Than now he has gotten a wife of a whore.
Now give me your judgment a very nice case on;
Each queen has a son, say which is the base one?
Say which of the two is the right prince of Wales,
To succeed when (God bless him!) his majesty fails;
Perhaps it may puzzle our loyal divines
To unite these two protestant parallel lines,
From a left-handed wife, and one turn'd out of doors,
Two reputed king's sons, both true sons of whores;
No law can determine it, which is first oars.
But alas! poor old England, how wilt thou be master'd;
For take which you please, it must needs be a bastard.
POETICAL EPISTLE TO DR. SHERIDAN.
SOME ancient authors wisely write
That he who drinks will wake at night,
Will never fail to lose his rest,
And feel a streightness in his chest;
A streightness in a double sense,
A streightness both of breath and pence:
Physicians say, it is but reasonable,
Ile that comes home at hour unseasonable,
(Besides a fall and broken shins,
Those smaller judgments for his sins,)
If, when he goes to bed, he meets
A teazing wife between the sheets,
'Tis six to five he'll never sleep,
But rave and toss till morning peep.
Yet harmless Betty must be blamed
Because you feel your lungs inflamed;
But if you would not get a fever,
You never must one moment leave her.
This comes of all your drunken tricks,
Your Parrys and your brace of Dicks;
Your hunting Helsham in his laboratory
Too, was the time you saw that Drab lae a Pery.'
But like the prelate who lives yonder-a,
And always cries he is like Cassandra;
I always told you, Mr. Sheridan,
If once this company you were rid on,
Frequented honest folk, and very few,
You'd live till all your friends were weary of you.
But if rack punch you still would swallow,
I then forewarn'd you what would follow.
Are the Deanery sober hours?
Be witness for me all ye powers.
The cloth is laid at eight, and then
We sit till half an hour past ten;
One bottle well might serve for three
If Mrs. Robinson drank like me.
Ask how I fret when she has beckon'd
To Robert to bring up a second;
I hate to have it in my sight,
And drink my share in perfect spite.
If Robin brings the ladies word
The coach is come, I 'scape a third;
If not, why then I fall a talking
How sweet a night it is for walking;
For in all conscience, were my treasure able,
I'd think a quart a-piece unreasonable;
It strikes eleven, get out of doors.
This is my constant farewell.
Uctober 18, 1724, nine in the morning.
You had best hap yourself up in a chair, and dine with me than with the provost.
LINES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW IN THE EPISCOPAL
PALACE AT KILMORE.
RESOLVE me this, ye happy dead,
Who've lain some hundred years in bed,
From every persecution free
That in this wretched life we see;
Would ye resume a second birth,
And choose once more to live on earth?
The character of haughty, presuming, tyrannising upstarts always kindled the lignation of the dean. A person of this description resided in the parish cf racor. The following lines were written by the dean upon this man.
The rascal! that's too mild a name;
Does he forget from whence he came ?
Has he forgot from whence he sprung?
A mushroom in a bed of dung;
A maggot in a cake of fat,
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