Ne’er was that Hall so throng’d in days of yore, Ne’er were there seen such numerous crowds before. From end to end the warm Electors thrust, And move like ants in heaps of straw and dust. Each busy mortal does his forces rally, And from one nook to t’other quarter sally. So close they prest, with such inhuman twitches; The _Civit Hogo_ did arise from breeches, Which thro’ the air increas’d into a breeze Made e’en the mighty Giants cough and sneeze. Here a fat spark could scarce his tallow save, And there a fool was jostled by a knave. Came to sweat out their venom ’gainst the State, Old feuds revive, and mischiefs new create.” The bard describes the “City Godmother,” an obsolete mistress, whose traditions were with the Tories of the past:-- “She saw the temper of the noisy Hall, And wept the Churches’ stars that downwards fall.” In vain does the antique beldame recall the “bad old times” of fanaticism and oppression (when in a former reign the civic charters were taken away perforce), and exhort the sympathies of the crowd to turn from Whiggism and embrace the abuses of the Stuarts:-- “Poor I, the city Sybil of renown, Am disrespected by the nauseous Town: Of Innovations daily I complain, But, like Cassandra, prophesy in vain.” Next comes the hustings:-- “When on the _Rostra_, as upon a stage, The Candidates their partizans engage; You’d think the Hall an Amphitheatre And these the furious Gladiators were.” The author first introduces the candidates who were obnoxious to him, and he certainly roasts them royally, and serves with a right pungent sauce. Priso, the first candidate to appear before the freeholders, had degraded himself as a tool of the late Court, and when in possession of the chair had basely surrendered the liberties of the city corporation. “First Priso mounts the stage, and shows himself; The crowd unanimous did hiss the elf, And vow’d no Representative they’d have, Who to a Tyrant their old Charter gave.” Candidate number two, Child, was, it is hinted, in the interests of the “prince over the water,” whom he was hopeful of converting from popery.