Like drunken Swiss he looked, and seemed connected

With ruffians low who hire themselves abroad

On festal days, before the Pope to bluster,

Breaking of arms and skull-caps in a fluster.

With Jove’s broad hat and spectacles arrived

The light-heeled Mercury; in his hand he bore

A sack, in which, of other means deprived,

He damned poor mortals’ prayers, some million score;

Those he disposed in vessels, well contrived,

Which graced his father’s cabinet of yore;