In Chancery Lane a fabrick[48] rears its head, Whose vermin inmates, by foul plunder fed, In impious candour drown all mental qualms, And cringe for bribes, as beggars ask for alms. There registrar’s in form prepare decrees With long recitals, adding to their fees; While ill-paid clerks, unable else to live, From office copies equal spoil derive. Woe to the thrifty wretch, whoe’er he be, That asks from South[49] no copy of decree! In vain attention shall he claim; in vain To ideot Burrows of delay complain. Threats and entreaties meet the same neglect; But take a copy, and secure respect. Thus tam’d, no more the pug-nos’d monkey fear; For all your wants command the pliant ear! Your welcome face will haunt him in his dream, And every smile a copy-order seem. Nor less are ent’ring clerks by lucre sway’d, Tho’ shame invests their purpose with a shade. If orders press, they will not take a bribe:-- No, tempt not thus each conscientious scribe! They spurn all gold you would on them confer; But pray, be gen’rous to the stationer.[50] A name invented rapine to conceal,-- As tailors cabbage, but disdain to steal. Thro’ all the court it runs from right to left, By custom sanctified, tho’ still a theft. No outward form of words will vary crime;-- Who cribs an egg, may rob the house in time. Once pass the bounds of uprightness, and see How quick the transit into knavery! Of all this dunghill crew there triumphs one, Whom I must name Corruption’s favourite son! Abbott[51], stand forth! thou pious-looking elf, Cloak in that simple face thy love of pelf; Of pelf extorted from the suitor’s purse. Oh! may it prove to thee and thine a curse! Let all reports thy greedy hand hath fil’d Start from their shelves, and hearing thee revil’d, Make known each instance of thy golden lust, And own the muse is in its censure just. Before my sight another viper’s nest[52] Appears, as foul and loathsome as the rest; Where bad accountants shew no other tact, Than that which centres in the word “substract”-- That is, from others’ pocket to transfer (The price of peace) what none would else confer. For this objections, flimsy as the net A spider weaves each passing fly to get, They coin, and language turn from its intent To speak a purpose that was never meant. Some name mis-spelt--one letter less or more, A petty blunder ne’er observed before,-- A mode of diction not precisely plain, When fools attempt the grammar’s art to strain,-- Add to delay full many an iron bar, And every effort of progression mar. For, like the hydra, should you crush one head, Behold ten others rising in its stead!