On the waves of the Styx had he rode quarantine,
He could not have look'd more infernally lean
Than the day, when returning dismay'd and distrest,
Like the doves to their windows, he flew to his nest.[260]
The part that he[261] acted, by some men of sense
Was wrongfully held to be malice propense,
When to all the world it was perfectly plain,
One principle rul'd him[262]—a passion for gain.
You pretend I have suffer'd no loss in the cause,
And have, therefore, no right to partake of your laws:
Some people love talking—I find to my cost,
I too am a loser—my character's lost![263]
Nay, did not your printers repeatedly stoop
To descant and reflect on my Portable Soup?
At me have your porcupines darted the quill,
You have plunder'd my Office,[C] and publish'd my Will.[264]
Resolv'd upon mischief, you held it no crime
To steal my Reflections,[265] and print them in rhyme,
When all the world knew, or at least they might guess,
That the time to reflect was no time to confess;[266]
You never consider'd my children and wife,[267]
That my lot was to toil and to struggle[268] through life;
My windows you broke—they are all on a jar,
And my house you have made a mere old man of war.
And still you insist I've no right to complain!—
Indeed if I do, I'm afraid it's in vain—
Yet am willing to hope you're too learnedly read
To hang up a printer for being misled.
If this be your aim, I must think of a flight—
In less than a month I must bid you good-night,
And hurry away to that whelp ridden shore
Where Clinton and Carleton retreated before.
From signs in the sky, and from tokens on land
I'm inclin'd to suspect my departure's at hand:
The man in the moon is unusually big,
And Inglis, they tell me, has grown a good Whig.[269]
For many days past, as the town can attest,
The tail of the weather-cock hung to the west—[270]
My shop, the last evening, seem'd all in a blaze,
And a hen crow'd at midnight, my waiting man says;