’Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers; But there are many shallow politicians, Who take their bias from bewilder’d journals,-- Turn state physicians, And make themselves fools’-caps of the diurnals. One of this kind, not human, but a monkey, Had read himself at last to this sour creed-- That he was nothing but Oppression’s flunkey, And man a tyrant over all his breed. He could not read Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers, But he applied their wrongs to his own seed, And nourish’d thoughts that threw him into fevers; His very dreams were full of martial beavers, And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious, To sever chains vexatious: In fact, he thought that all his injur’d line Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop ’em Till they had cleared a road to Freedom’s shrine,-- Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop ’em. Full of this rancour, Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes, It came into his brains To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor; Where certain solemn sages of the nation Were at that moment in deliberation How to relieve the wide world of its chains, Pluck despots down, And thereby crown Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. Pug heard the speeches with great approbation, And gaz’d with pride upon the Liberators; To see mere coal-heavers Such perfect Bolivars-- Waiters of inns sublim’d to innovators, And slaters dignified as legislators-- Small publicans demanding (such their high sense Of liberty) an universal license-- And pattern-makers easing Freedom’s clogs-- The whole thing seem’d So fine, he deem’d The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!