And yet she boldly boasts of pedigree; Repines that foreigners are put upon her, And talks of her antiquity and honour; Her Sackvilles, Saviles, Capels, De la Meres, Mohuns, and Montagues, Darcys, and Veres, Not one have English names, yet all are English peers. Your Hermans, Papillons, and Lavalliers Pass now for true-born English knights and squires, And make good senate members or Lord Mayors. Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes Lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes: Antiquity and birth are needless here; ’Tis impudence and money makes a peer. Innumerable City knights, we know, From Bluecoat Hospital and Bridewell flow; Draymen and porters fill the city Chair And footboys magisterial purple wear. Fate has but very small distinction set Betwixt the counter and the coronet. Tarpaulin lords, pages of high renown, Rise up by poor men’s valour, not their own. Great families of yesterday we show, And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who. PART II The breed’s described: Now, Satire, if you can, Their temper show, for manners make the man. Fierce, as the Briton; as the Roman, brave; And less inclined to conquer than to save; Eager to fight, and lavish of their blood, And equally of fear and forecast void. The Pict has made ’em sour, the Dane morose; False from the Scot, and from the Norman worse. What honesty they have, the Saxons gave them, And that, now they grow old, begins to leave them. The climate makes them terrible and bold, And English beef their courage does uphold; No danger can their daring spirit pall, Always provided that their belly’s full. In close intrigues their faculty’s but weak, For generally what e’er they know they speak, And often their own counsels undermine By their infirmity, and not design; From whence the learned say it does proceed, That English treasons never can succeed; For they’re so open-hearted, you may know Their own most secret thoughts, and others too. The lab’ring poor, in spite of double pay, Are saucy, mutinous, and beggarly, So lavish of their money and their time, That want of forecast is the nation’s crime. Good drunken company is their delight, And what they get by day they spend by night. Dull thinking seldom does their heads engage, But drink their youth away, and hurry on old age. Empty of all good husbandry and sense, And void of manners most when void of pence, Their strong aversion to behaviour’s such, They always talk too little or too much; So dull, they never take the pains to think, And seldom are good-natured, but in drink. In English ale their dear enjoyment lies, For which they’ll starve themselves and families. An Englishman will fairly drink as much As will maintain two families of Dutch: Subjecting all their labour to their pots; The greatest artists are the greatest sots. The country poor do by example live; The gentry lead them, and the clergy drive: What may we not from such examples hope? The landlord is their god, the priest their pope.