Another (Epigram On The Busts)

    "Sic siti laetantur docti."


With honour thus by Carolina placed,
How are these venerable bustoes graced!
O queen, with more than regal title crown'd,
For love of arts and piety renown'd!
How do the friends of virtue joy to see
Her darling sons exalted thus by thee!
Nought to their fame can now be added more,
Revered by her whom all mankind adore.[2]

Since Anna, whose bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted thy head:
And since our good queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads for such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Prithee go, and be dead, and be doubly exalted.

Her majesty never shall be my exalter;
And yet she would raise me, I know, by a halter!

The scriptures affirm (as I heard in my youth,
For indeed I ne'er read them, to speak for once truth)
That death is the wages of sin, but the just
Shall die not, although they be laid in the dust.
They say so; so be it, I care not a straw,
Although I be dead both in gospel and law;
In verse I shall live, and be read in each climate;
What more can be said of prime sergeant or primate?
While Carter and Prendergast both may be rotten,
And damn'd to the bargain, and yet be forgotten.

My landlord is civil,
But dear as the d - l:
Your pockets grow empty
With nothing to tempt ye;
The wine is so sour,
'Twill give you a scour,
The beer and the ale
Are mingled with stale.
The veal is such carrion,
A dog would be weary on.
All this I have felt,
For I live on a smelt.

Great folks are of a finer mould;
Lord! how politely they can scold!
While a coarse English tongue will itch,
For whore and rogue, and dog and bitch.