A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Pregnant with thousands flits the scrap unseen, And silent sells a king, or buys a queen. Oh! that such bulky bribes as all might see, Still, as of old, encumbered villainy! Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, With all their brandies or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound, Or water all the Quorum ten miles round? A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar." Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind. Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed, Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed. Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs, Could he himself have sent it to the dogs? His Grace will game: to White's a bull be led, With spurning heels and with a butting head. To White's be carried, as to ancient games, Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames. Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep, Bear home six w****s, and make his lady weep? Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine, Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine? Oh, filthy cheek on all industrious skill, To spoil the nation's last great trade, Quadrille! Since then, my lord, on such a world we fall, What say you? B. Say? Why, take it, gold and all. P. What Riches give us let us then inquire: Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, clothes, and fire. Is this too little? would you more than live? Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give. Alas! 'tis more than (all his visions past) Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last! What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs; To Chartres, vigour; Japhet, nose and ears? Can they in gems bid pallid Hippia glow, In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below; Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail, With all th' embroid'ry plastered at thy tail? They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend) Give Harpax' self the blessing of a friend; Or find some doctor that would save the life Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's wife: But thousands die, without or this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat. To some, indeed, Heaven grants the happier fate, T' enrich a bastard, or a son they hate. Perhaps you think the poor might have their part? Bond damns the poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule, That "every man in want is knave or fool:" "God cannot love," says Blunt, with tearless eyes, "The wretch He starves"--and piously denies: But the good bishop, with a meeker air, Admits, and leaves them--Providence's care. Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, Each does but hate his neighbour as himself: Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.