See from the Town-hall press the crowd, While rustic Butchers ring aloud! There, lo, their cap of liberty! Here t'other side in effigy! A notable device, to call The Courtier party blockheads all: Aloft True-Blue, their ensign, flies, And acclamations rend the skies. Reflect, my friend, and judge from thence. How idle this extreme expence; What mighty sums are thrown away, To be the pageant of the day! In vain Desert implores protections; The Rich are fonder of Elections. Th' ambitious Peer, the Knight, the 'Squire, Can buy the Borough they desire; Yet see, with unassisting eye, Arts fade away, and Genius die. Tir'd with the applauding, and the sneering, And all that's styl'd Electioneering, I think to take a little tour, And likely tow'rd the _Gallic_ shore; The Muse, to whom we bear no malice, Invites me to the Gate of _Calais_.[G] That gate to which a knight of worth, 'Yclep'd _Sir Loin_, of _British_ birth, Advanc'd, though not in hostile plight, And put their army in a fright. But more it fits not, here to tell, So, courteous Reader, fare thee well. [A] In _The European Magazine_ for the month of _Oct._ 1784, appears a letter on the subject of Painting, signed C. I. F. which contains the following extraordinary criticism on the circumstance here described. "Our own inimitable _Hogarth_ has, in some of his latter pieces, grossly violated this rule; and, for the sake of crowding his piece with incidents, has represented what could not happen at all. "In his representation of an Election Feast, he has placed a man at the end of the table with an oyster still upon his fork, and his fork in his hand, though his coat must have been stripped up from his arm after he took it up, by the surgeon, who has made an ineffectual attempt to let him blood. Supposing gluttony to have so far absorbed all the persons present, even at the end of a feast, as that none of them should pay the least attention to this incident, which is, if not impossible, improbable in the highest degree, they must necessarily have been alarmed at another incident that is represented as taking place at the same moment: a great stone has just broke through the window, and knocked down one of the company, who is exhibited in the act of falling; yet every one is represented as pursuing his purpose with the utmost tranquillity."