If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to show their wit,
Praise classicks more than holy writ:
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the senate house can run,
And sell their votes at such a rate,
As will retrieve a lost estate:
If law be such a partial whore,
To spare the rich, and plague the poor:
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curst?
THE DOG AND THIEF. 1726.
QUOTH the thief to the dog, let me into your door,
And I'll give you these delicate bits.
Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're,
And besides must be out of my wits.
Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,
But my master each day gives me bread;
You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal,
And I must be hang'd in your stead.
The stockjobber thus from 'Change alley goes down,
And tips you the freeman a wink;
Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,
And here is a guinea to drink.
Says the freeman, your guinea tonight would be spent!
Your offers of bribery cease:
I'll vote for my landlord, to whom I pay rent,
Or else I may forfeit my lease.
