Oh! happy infants, how supremely blest! To this parental care is but a jest. A tiger of her young, by death withdrawn, Supplied the loss by suckling a young fawn. Maternal love into her bosom crept, And for a time each wilder passion slept; But famine soon upon the savage grew; With sparkling eyes her foster cub she drew Close to her dugs, where lay the milky sup; And out of pure affection eat it up. Just so the Court each tender orphan treats; But ’tis the fortune, not the babe, it eats. When men run mad, the Court effectual pains Exerts, that none should e’er resume their brains; For picture one, who buried in the tomb Should wake again amid the charnel’s gloom, Find his cold corpse by winding sheets secur’d. And thus within a narrow vault immured; Say, would the light of his returning sense Do more, than once again expel it thence? E’en so the maniac, if, by chance, a beam Of wand’ring reason thro’ his head should gleam, What speechless horror would he feel to see Himself and substance wards of Chancery? That prospect all reviving sense would sever, And plunge his mind in darkest night for ever! Should partners quarrel in their mutual trade, What friend so ready as the Court to aid? View’d from afar it’s proffers kind may seem, But near acquaintance proves the whole a dream. Death at our call a visit oft will pay, Surprised to find we wish him far away;-- So Chancery suitors are compelled with grief To spurn the hand, from which they sought relief Whate’er the joint concern; for five per cent The court secures an able management; Keeps just account, but at a large expense, And claims great merit for it’s abstinence. Thus Eldon long of Opera House the warden, And erst ex-manager of Covent Garden,[56] Play’d many parts on the commercial stage;-- The most extensive chapman of the age. In iron now, and now in brass he dealt, But gold would never in his fingers melt; With careful hand he kept the precious ore, And every guinea made him wish for more. When stinted tenants do or threaten waste, Fly for injunctions to the court in haste; And weep at leisure o’er the wasted means, That e’en success from such procedure gleans.[57] Another’s faults are seldom pass’d unknown: How few will condescend to cure their own!