Some cleansing hollow tubes, to spy
Direct the zenith of the sky;
Some have the city in their care,
From noxious steams to purge the air:
Some teach us in these dangerous days
How to walk upright in our ways;
Some whose reforming hands engage
To lash the lewdness of the age;
Some for the publick service go
Perpetual envoys to and fro;
Whose able heads support the weight
Of twenty ministers of state.
We scorn, for want of talk, to jabber
Of parties o'er our bonnyclabber;
Nor are we studious to inquire,
Who votes for manors, who for hire:
Our care is, to improve the mind
With what concerns all human kind;
The various scenes of mortal life;
Who beats her husband, who his wife:
Or how the bully at a stroke
Knock'd down the boy, the lantern broke.
One tells the rise of cheese and oatmeal;
Another when he got a hot meal;
One gives advice in proverbs old,
Instructs us how to tame a scold;
One shows how bravely Audouin dy'd,
And at the gallows all deny'd ;
How by the almanack 'tis clear,
That herrings will be cheap this year.
T. Dear Mullinix, I now lament
My precious time so long misspent,
By nature meant for nobler ends:
O, introduce me to your friends!
For whom by birth I was design'd,
Till politicks debas'd my mind:
I give myself entire to you:
G-d d-n the whigs and tories too!
TIM * AND THE FABLES.
My meaning will be best unravell'd,
When I premise that Tim has travell'd.
In Lucas's by chance there lay
The Fables writ by Mr. Gay.
Tim set the volume on a table,
Read over here and there a fable;
And found, as he the pages twirl'd,
The monkey who had seen the world:
(For Tonson had, to help the sale,
Prefix'd a cut to every tale.)
The monkey was completely drest,
The beau in all his airs exprest.
Tim, with surprise and pleasure staring,
Ran to the glass, and then comparing
His own sweet figure with the print,
Distinguish'd every feature in't,
The twist, the squeeze, the rump, the fidge in all,
Just as they look'd in the original.
By," says Tim, and let a f-t,
This graver understood his art.
'Tis a true copy, I'll say that for't;
I well remember, when I sat for't.
My very face, at first I knew it;
Just in this dress the painter drew it."
Tim, with his likeness deeply smitten,
Would read what underneath was written.
The merry tale, with moral grave,
He now began to storm and rave: "The cursed villain! now I see
This was a libel meant at me:
* See an account of Tim in "The Intelligencer," No. X. F.
These scribblers grow so bold of late
Against us ministers of state!
Such jacobites as he deserve
D-n me! I say, they ought to starve."
TOM and Dick had equal fame,
And both had equal knowledge;
Tom could write and spell his name,
But Dick had seen the college.
Dick a coxcomb, Tom was mad,
And both alike diverting;
Tom was held the merrier lad,
But Dick the best at farting.
Dick would cock his nose in scorn,
But Tom was kind and loving;
Tom a footboy bred and born,
But Dick was from an oven.
Dick could neatly dance a jig,
But Tom was best at borees;
Tom would pray for every whig,
And Dick curse all the tories.
Dick would make a woeful noise,
And scold at an election;
Tom huzza'd the black-guard boys,
And held them in subjection.
Tom could move with lordly grace,
Dick nimbly skipt the gutter;
Tom could talk with solemn face,
But Dick could better sputter.
Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenc'd physician;
Tom was held by all the town
'The deeper politician.
Tom had the genteeler swing,
His hat could nicely put on;
Dick knew better how to swing
His cane upon a button.
Dick for repartee was fit,
And Tom for deep discerning;
Dick was thought the brighter wit,
But Tom had better learning.
Dick with zealous noes and ays.
Could roar as loud as Stentor,
In the house 'tis all he says;
But Tom is eloquenter..
DICK, A MAGGOT.
As when, from rooting in a bin,
All powder'd o'er from tail to chin,
A lively maggot sallies out,
You know him by his hazel snout:
So when the grandson of his grandsire
Forth issuing wriggling, Dick Drawcansir,
With powder'd rump and back and side,
You cannot blanch his tawny hide;
For 'tis beyond the power of meal
The gipsy visage to conceal :
For, as he shakes his wainscot chops,
Down every mealy atom drops,
And leaves the tartar phyz in show,
Like a fresh t--d just dropt on snow.
CLAD ALL IN BROWN. TO DICK.
FOULEST brute that stinks below,
Why in this brown dost thou appear? For would'st thou make a fouler show, Thou must go naked all the year. Fresh from the mud a wallowing sow Would then be not so brown as thou.
'Tis not the coat that looks so dun, His hide emits a foulness out: Not one jot better looks the sun
Seen from behind a dirty clout:
So t-ds within a glass enclose,
The glass will seem as brown as those.
Thou now one heap of foulness art,
All outward and within is foul;
Condensed filth in every part,
Thy body's clothed like thy soul;
Thy soul, which through thy hide of buff
Scarce glimmers like a dying snuff.
Old carted bawds such garments wear, When pelted all with dirt they shine; Such their exalted bodies are,
As shrivell'd and as black as thine.
If thou wert in a cart, I fear
Thou would'st be pelted worse than they're.
Yet, when we see thee thus array'd,
The neighbours think it is but just,
That thou should'st take an honest trade,
And weekly carry out the dust.
Of cleanly houses who will doubt,
When Dick cries, "Dust to carry out?"
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