From morning tasks of mending soals
The cobler hastes away;
At three returns, and tells to Kate
The business of the day.
The debtor, vext with early duns,
Avoids his hated home;
And here and there dejected roves
'Till hours of Congress come.
The barber, at the well-known time,
Forsakes his bearded man,
And leaves him with his lathered jaws,
To trim them as he can.
The tailor, plagued with suits on suits,
Neglects Sir Fopling's call,
Throws by his goose—slips from his board,
And trots to Congress Hall.
[26] Daily Advertiser, March 12, 1790. The title of the poem as given in the index of the 1809 edition, the text of which I have followed, is "On the Immense Concourse at Federal Hall, in 1790, while the Funding System was in agitation." The title in the 1795 edition was "Federal Hall." The seat of the national government was at this time in New York City.
EPISTLE TO PETER PINDAR, ESQ.[27]
Peter, methinks you are the happiest wight
That ever dealt in ink, or sharpen'd quill.
'Tis yours on every rank of fools to write—
Some prompt with pity, some with laughter kill;
On scullions or on dukes you run your rigs,
And value George no more than Whitbread's pigs.
From morn to night, thro' London's busy streets,
New subjects for your pen in crowds are seen,
At church, in taverns, balls, or birth-day treats,
Sir Joseph Banks, or England's breeding queen;
How happy you, whom fortune has decreed
Each character to hit—where all will read.