Thus fast unto destruction hasting, Their health consuming, money wasting; They drink, and ne’er for home declare, Until they’re pockets are quite bare. Here mangy Scots from banks of Tay, With scarce a plaid to bear away; Half-starv’d, they from the frozen North, Like swarms of locusts, sally forth, Worse than before, on Pharaoh’s land, Were sent by the Almighty hand; Such hardness of their hearts to purge, And for their wickedness them scourge: This mugletonian blackguard breed, Upon our very vitals feed; And, like the whelps of Juno’s pack, Of Scots infection bring a smack; When hither come, they seldom fail To scrape the scabs from off their tail; By artful tricks, and well form’d lies, To skippers or such like, they rise: And thus get breeches warm to wear, To hide their a--e that then was bare; And then set up their crops and talk, As if they sprung from noble stalk. At midnight these, and such like sots, With noddles full, from stinking pots Of rank geneva, and of rum, They raise a scent where’er they come; Reel, cursing, in a grumbling tone, In some dark lane, where sun ne’er shone, But darkness dire, surrounds the place, An emblem of their foul disgrace: Oft in a house decay’d with age, Which scarce will bear the winter’s rage; Whose crazy outshots threat’ning hing About their ears, a peal to ring; They tumble in one common bed, Where all are there promiscuous laid; And ten to one, but as they fall, They break their heads against the wall; Nor do they mind to choose their wives, With whom they’re bound to lead their lives; But to the first they come do keep, Where, if they’re drunk, they fall asleep. If not, there’s oft a general horning Takes place before the next day morning.-- Gomorrah ne’er could fuller be Than _Sandgate_ with impiety, So cramm’d with immorality Is every one, that if there be A place on earth resembling hell, That lot on _Sandgate_ surely fell:-- Each soul’s as bad as ---- I’ll prove it. This is _Sandgate_,--can you love it? THE CROW’S NEST, _Built on the Top of the Exchange Steeple[7]; with a Prophecy, by One of the Crows, of what is to happen the Nation, and particularly the Town of Newcastle._ When war’s destructive rage did cease, In fatal, humbling, _eighty-three_,[8] And men were blest again with peace, We wond’rous prodigies did see. The Thirteen (once prescribed) States, Doom’d by the hangman’s cord to die; Great kings (so th’ will’d all pow’rful fates) Before them almost prostrate lie. Then fair Italia’s classic ground, And rich Sicilia’s beauteous shore, With palaces and temples crown’d, Alas! alas! are now no more[9]. But stranger prodigies than these Appear in Britain’s happy land, (They say, “that wonders never cease,”) For North and Fox go hand in hand.