A paultry wretch he had, half-starv'd, That him in place of Zany serv'd. Hight WHACHUM, bred to dash and draw, 325 Not wine, but more unwholesome law To make 'twixt words and lines huge gaps, Wide as meridians in maps; To squander paper, and spare ink, And cheat men of their words, some think. 330 From this, by merited degrees, He'd to more high advancement rise; To be an under-conjurer, A journeyman astrologer. His business was to pump and wheedle, 335 And men with their own keys unriddle; And make them to themselves give answers, For which they pay the necromancers; To fetch and carry intelligence, Of whom, and what, and where, and whence, 340 And all discoveries disperse Among th' whole pack of conjurers What cut-purses have left with them For the right owners to redeem; And what they dare not vent find out, 345 To gain themselves and th' art repute; Draw figures, schemes, and horoscopes, Of Newgate, Bridewell, brokers' shops, Of thieves ascendant in the cart; And find out all by rules of art; 350 Which way a serving-man, that's run With cloaths or money away, is gone: Who pick'd a fob at holding forth; And where a watch, for half the worth, May be redeem'd; or stolen plate 355 Restor'd at conscionable rate. Beside all this, he serv'd his master In quality of poetaster; And rhimes appropriate could make To ev'ry month i' th almanack 360 What terms begin and end could tell, With their returns, in doggerel; When the exchequer opes and shuts, And sowgelder with safety cuts When men may eat and drink their fill, 365 And when be temp'rate, if they will; When use and when abstain from vice, Figs, grapes, phlebotomy, and spice. And as in prison mean rogues beat Hemp for the service of the great, 370 So WHACHUM beats his dirty brains, T' advance his master's fame and gains And, like the Devil's oracles, Put into doggrel rhimes his spells, Which, over ev'ry month's blank page 375 I' th' almanack, strange bilks presage. He would an elegy compose On maggots squeez'd out of his nose; In lyrick numbers write an ode on His mistress, eating a black-pudden: 380 And when imprison'd air escap'd her, It puft him with poetic rapture. His sonnets charm'd th' attentive crowd, By wide-mouth'd mortal troll'd aloud, That 'circl'd with his long-ear'd guests, 385 Like ORPHEUS look'd among the beasts. A carman's horse could not pass by, But stood ty'd up to poetry: No porter's burthen pass'd along, But serv'd for burthen to his song: 390 Each window like a pill'ry appears, With heads thrust through, nail'd by the ears All trades run in as to the sight Of monsters, or their dear delight