This upstart _thing_ some useful trade to learn, By far more suited to his shallow head, False pride forbade, nor suffer’d him to earn, By _honest_ industry his daily bread! Far from the _worthy_ members of the law, A rogue in grain, he ever kept aloof; By low _Jew Bailiffs_ taught his brief to draw, And where he couldn’t find, he coin’d a proof. Yet doth this wretch, illiterate as proud, With low-life-homage, low-life business meet, And pick the pockets of th’ unhappy crowd ’Mur’d in the Bench, the Counters, and the Fleet. Bound by the creditors, in durance fast, In plaintive murmurs, they bewail their fate, And many an eager, wistful eye they cast, Whene’er the turnkey 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――from children――dragg’d away, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind; For you, who traverse to and fro this shrine, And lounge, and saunter, at your wonted rate, If in some future chat, with arch design, Some wag should ask――the Pettifogger’s fate In sneering mood, some brother quill, will say, “I’ve seen him oft at tavern table sit; “Brushing with dirty hands, the crumbs away, “And eye the joint, just taken from the spit, “One morn I miss’d him in this ’custom’d hall, “And at the room, where he was wont to be, “His boy I saw, who register’d my call; “But by yon steps――nor at his desk was he. “The next I learnt (O melancholy tale), “On the profession, what a foul reproach! “That his deserts had sent him to a jail, “Where he was dragg’d (O shame!) without a coach! HIS CHARACTER. “Vulture! the arrant’st cormorant on earth, “At length is caught, and into Newgate thrown; “Fair honesty disclaim’d him at his birth, “And villainy confess’d him for her own! “Grown old in sin, at no one crime dismay’d, “’Gainst nature’s cries, he arm’d his harden’d breast; “For when his parents were to earth convey’d, “He smil’d and spurned compassion, as a jest. “Now press’d with guilt, he’ll feel its sharpest sting; “Great his transgressions, and but small his hope; “He’ll give the Sheriff (all he’ll have) a ring, “And gain from Justice, all he fear’d――a rope! “No farther seek his vices to disclose, “But leave the wretch unpitied to deplore “His ill-spent life, till breaking his repose, “The turnkey leads him to _the Debtors’ Door_.” J. B. FISHER.