THE RUN UPON THE BANKERS[1]
The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one general sweep,
Turns all again to barren strand.
The multitude's capricious pranks
Are said to represent the seas,
Breaking the bankers and the banks,
Resume their own whene'er they please.
Money, the life-blood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and its heat maintains.
Because 'tis lordly not to pay,
Quakers and aldermen in state,
Like peers, have levees every day
Of duns attending at their gate.
We want our money on the nail;
The banker's ruin'd if he pays:
They seem to act an ancient tale;
The birds are met to strip the jays.
"Riches," the wisest monarch sings,
"Make pinions for themselves to fly;"[2]
They fly like bats on parchment wings,
And geese their silver plumes supply.
No money left for squandering heirs!
Bills turn the lenders into debtors:
The wish of Nero[3] now is theirs,
"That they had never known their letters."
Conceive the works of midnight hags,
Tormenting fools behind their backs:
Thus bankers, o'er their bills and bags,
Sit squeezing images of wax.
Conceive the whole enchantment broke;
The witches left in open air,
With power no more than other folk,
Exposed with all their magic ware.
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 god of gold and hell,
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 bloody 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 bitch:
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.
TORY. Why then the proverb is not right,
Since you can teach dead dogs to bite.
WHIG. I proved my proposition full:
But Jacobites are strangely dull.
Now, let me tell you plainly, sir,
Our witness is a real cur,
A dog of spirit for his years;
Has twice two legs, two hanging ears;
His name is Harlequin, I wot,
And that's a name in every plot:
Resolved to save the British nation,
Though French by birth and education;
His correspondence plainly dated,
Was all decipher'd and translated:
His answers were exceeding pretty,
Before the secret wise committee;
Confest as plain as he could bark:
Then with his fore-foot set his mark.
TORY. Then all this while have I been bubbled,
I thought it was a dog in doublet:
The matter now no longer sticks:
For statesmen never want dog-tricks.
But since it was a real cur,
And not a dog in metaphor,
I give you joy of the report,
That he's to have a place at court.
WHIG. Yes, and a place he will grow rich in;
A turnspit in the royal kitchen.
Sir, to be plain, I tell you what,
We had occasion for a plot;
And when we found the dog begin it,
We guess'd the bishop's foot was in it.
TORY. I own it was a dangerous project,
And you have proved it by dog-logic.
Sure such intelligence between
A dog and bishop ne'er was seen,
Till you began to change the breed;
Your bishops are all dogs indeed!
[Footnote 1: In Atterbury's trial a good deal of stress was laid upon the
circumstance of a "spotted little dog" called Harlequin being mentioned
in the intercepted correspondence. The dog was sent in a present to the
bishop from Paris, and its leg was broken by the way. See "State Trials,"
xvi, 320 and 376-7.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: John Kelly, and Skin, or Skinner, were persons engaged in
the plot. Neynoe, whose declaration was taken before the lords of
council, and used in evidence against the bishop, is "t'other puppy that
was drown'd," which was his fate in attempting to escape from the
messengers.]