Volume Ii Part 30 (2/2)

So powerful are a banker's bills, Where creditors demand their due; They break up counters, doors, and tills, And leave the empty chests in view.

Thus when an earthquake lets in light Upon the G.o.d of gold and h.e.l.l, Unable to endure the sight, He hides within his darkest cell.

As when a conjurer takes a lease From Satan for a term of years, The tenant's in a dismal case, Whene'er the b.l.o.o.d.y bond appears.

A baited banker thus desponds, From his own hand foresees his fall, They have his soul, who have his bonds; 'Tis like the writing on the wall.[4]

How will the caitiff wretch be scared, When first he finds himself awake At the last trumpet, unprepared, And all his grand account to make!

For in that universal call, Few bankers will to heaven be mounters; They'll cry, ”Ye shops, upon us fall!

Conceal and cover us, ye counters!”

When other hands the scales shall hold, And they, in men's and angels' sight Produced with all their bills and gold, ”Weigh'd in the balance and found light!”

[Footnote 1: This poem was printed some years ago, and it should seem, by the late failure of two bankers, to be somewhat prophetic. It was therefore thought fit to be reprinted.--_Dublin Edition_, 1734.]

[Footnote 2: Solomon, Proverbs, ch. xxiii, v. 5.]

[Footnote 3: Who, in his early days of empire, having to sign the sentence of a condemned criminal, exclaimed: ”Quam vellem nescire litteras!” Suetonius, 10; and Seneca, ”De Clementia,”, cited by Montaigne, ”De l'inconstance de nos actions.”--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 4: Daniel, ch. v, verses 25, 26, 27, 28.--_W. E. B._]

UPON THE HORRID PLOT DISCOVERED BY HARLEQUIN, THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER'S FRENCH DOG,[1]

IN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A WHIG AND A TORY

I ask'd a Whig the other night, How came this wicked plot to light?

He answer'd, that a dog of late Inform'd a minister of state.

Said I, from thence I nothing know; For are not all informers so?

A villain who his friend betrays, We style him by no other phrase; And so a perjured dog denotes Porter, and Pendergast, and Oates, And forty others I could name.

WHIG. But you must know this dog was lame.

TORY. A weighty argument indeed!

Your evidence was lame:--proceed: Come, help your lame dog o'er the stile.

WHIG. Sir, you mistake me all this while: I mean a dog (without a joke) Can howl, and bark, but never spoke.

TORY. I'm still to seek, which dog you mean; Whether cur Plunkett, or whelp Skean,[2]

An English or an Irish hound; Or t'other puppy, that was drown'd; Or Mason, that abandon'd b.i.t.c.h: Then pray be free, and tell me which: For every stander-by was marking, That all the noise they made was barking.

You pay them well, the dogs have got Their dogs-head in a porridge-pot: And 'twas but just; for wise men say, That every dog must have his day.

Dog Walpole laid a quart of nog on't, He'd either make a hog or dog on't; And look'd, since he has got his wish, As if he had thrown down a dish, Yet this I dare foretell you from it, He'll soon return to his own vomit.

WHIG. Besides, this horrid plot was found By Neynoe, after he was drown'd.

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