Let not droll Peter[7] look with eyes askew, Nor envy them the profits of the hall; Let him not think that with a spiteful view, They mean to draw the custom from his stall. The cinder-wench in dust-cart seated high, With arms begrim’d, and dirty as her sieve, The ragged trulls, who, sprats and herrings cry, The meanest trollops, have a right to live. Nor you, ye belles! impute the fault to these, If at the glittering ball they not appear, Where music has a thousand charms to please, And with its sweetness almost wounds the ear. Will Almack, or the goddess of Soho, Inlist these misses in their brilliant train, Admit them e’en to see the puppet-show, To take one peep and light them out again? Perhaps in their neglected minds were sown The seeds of worth from Nature’s large supply; The seeds of worth, which might in time have grown, And flourish’d lovely to the ravish’d eye. But the calm sun-shine of a parent’s care, With one warm ray their bosom’s ne’er imprest; Ill-usage drove the wretches to despair, And check’d each growing virtue of the breast. Full many a rural lass in Britain’s land The vile unwarrantable brothels hold; Full many a town-bred damsel walks the Strand, And trucks her beauty for a piece of gold. Some ghost of Jefferies will this floor parade, Some daring Pettifogger, stern of brow, Who might have done due honour to the spade, Whirl’d the tough flail, or grasp’d the peaceful plough. This upstart thing some useful trade to learn, By far more suited to his shallow head, Some trade, by which he might have known to earn With honest industry, his daily bread, False pride forbade; nor to himself alone, Confines his views, but to his son extends; Forbade the youth, to quirks already prone, To mind the means, so he could gain the ends. Forbade to bind him ’prentice to a trade, Behind the compter all the day to stand, His birth by work mechanic to degrade, Or wait on customers with cap in hand, Far from the worthy members of the law, A rogue in grain, he ever kept aloof; From learn’d bum-bailiffs learn’d his briefs to draw, And where he could not find, he coin’d a proof. Yet doth this wretch, illiterate as proud, With low-lif’d homage low-lif’d business meet, And pick the pockets of th’ unhappy crowd, Moor’d in th’ Compter, Newgate, and The Fleet. Bound by their creditors in durance fast! In plaintive murmurs they bewail their fate, And many an eager, wishful eye they cast, Whene’er the turn-key opes and shuts the gate. For who to dull imprisonment a prey, The pleasing thoughts of freedom e’er resign’d, From home, from wife and children dragg’d away, “Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind!”