And how I’ll do it, Miss shall inform ye. I keep the best seraglio in the nation, And hope in time to bring it into fashion. For this my praise is sung by every bard, For which Bridewell would be a just reward. In print my panegyrics fill the streets, And hired gaol-birds their huzzas repeat. Some charities contrived to make a show, Have taught the needy rabble to do so, Whose empty noise is a mechanic fame, Since for Sir Belzebub they’d do the same. The Conclusion Then let us boast of ancestors no more, Or deeds of heroes done in days of yore, In latent records of the ages past, Behind the rear of time, in long oblivion placed. For if our virtues must in lines descend, The merit with the families would end, And intermixtures would most fatal grow; For vice would be hereditary too; The tainted blood would of necessity Involuntary wickedness convey. Vice, like ill-nature, for an age or two May seem a generation to pursue; But virtue seldom does regard the breed; Fools do the wise, and wise men fools succeed. What is’t to us what ancestors we had? If good, what better? or what worse, if bad? Examples are for imitation set, Yet all men follow virtue with regret. Could but our ancestors retrieve the fate, And see their offspring thus degenerate; How we contend for birth and names unknown, And build on their past actions, not our own; They’d cancel records, and their tombs deface, And openly disown the vile degenerate race: For fame of families is all a cheat, ’Tis personal virtue only makes us great. THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS; OR, PROPOSALS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH THE SHORTEST WAY WITH THE DISSENTERS Sir Roger L’Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, “Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another.” There are some people in the world, who now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with Æsop’s cock, to preach up peace and union, and the Christian duties of moderation, for getting that, when they had the power in their hands, these graces were strangers in their gates. It is now near fourteen years[23] that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger.