The pikes went on stealing,
The eels went on eeling.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.
The crabs are backsliders,
The stock-fish thick-siders,
The carps are sharp-set —
All the sermon forget.
Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way.
Abraham á Sancta-Clara.
INTRODUCTION TO THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN
SPEAK, satire; for there’s none can tell like thee
Whether ’tis folly, pride, or knavery
That makes this discontented land appear
Less happy now in times of peace than war?
Why civil feuds disturb the nation more
Than all our bloody wars have done before?
Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place,
And men are always honest in disgrace;
The court preferments make men knaves in course,
But they which would be in them would be worse.
’Tis not at foreigners that we repine,
Would foreigners their perquisites resign;
The grand contention’s plainly to be seen,
To get some men put out, and some put in.
For this our senators make long harangues,
And florid members whet their polished tongues.
Statesmen are always sick of one disease,
And a good pension gives them present ease;
That’s the specific makes them all content
With any king and any government.
Good patriots at court abuses rail,
And all the nation’s grievances bewail;
But when the sovereign’s balsam’s once applied,
The zealot never fails to change his side;
And when he must the golden key resign,
The railing spirit comes about again.
Who shall this bubbled nation disabuse,
While they their own felicities refuse,
Who the wars have made such mighty pother,
And now are falling out with one another:
With needless fears the jealous nation fill,
And always have been saved against their will:
Who fifty millions sterling have disbursed,
To be with peace and too much plenty cursed:
Who their old monarch eagerly undo,
And yet uneasily obey the new?
Search, satire, search; a deep incision make;
The poison’s strong, the antidote’s too weak.
’Tis pointed truth must manage this dispute,
And downright English, Englishmen confute.
Whet thy just anger at the nation’s pride,
And with keen phrase repel the vicious tide;
To Englishmen their own beginnings show,
And ask them why they slight their neighbours so.
Go back to elder times and ages past,
And nations into long oblivion cast;
To old Britannia’s youthful days retire,
And there for true-born Englishmen inquire.
Britannia freely will disown the name,
And hardly knows herself from whence they came;
Wonders that they of all men should pretend
To birth and blood, and for a name contend.
Go back to causes where our follies dwell,
And fetch the dark original from hell.
Speak, satire, for there’s none like thee can tell.
Daniel Defoe.
AN EPITAPH
INTERRED beneath this marble stone
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run.
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple just the same.
They walked and ate, good folks. What then?
Why, then they walked and ate again;
They soundly slept the night away;
They did just nothing all the day,
Nor sister either had, nor brother;
They seemed just tallied for each other.
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree;
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trespassed on the other’s ground.
Nor fame nor censure they regarded;
They neither punished nor rewarded.
He cared not what the footman did;
Her maids she neither praised nor chid;
So every servant took his course,
And, bad at first, they all grew worse;