So powerful are a banker's bills, Where creditors demand their due; They break up counters, doors, and tills, And leave the empty chests in view. Thus when an earthquake lets in light Upon the god of gold and hell, Unable to endure the sight, He hides within his darkest cell. As when a conjurer takes a lease From Satan for a term of years, The tenant's in a dismal case, Whene'er the bloody bond appears. A baited banker thus desponds, From his own hand foresees his fall, They have his soul, who have his bonds; 'Tis like the writing on the wall.[4] How will the caitiff wretch be scared, When first he finds himself awake At the last trumpet, unprepared, And all his grand account to make! For in that universal call, Few bankers will to heaven be mounters; They'll cry, "Ye shops, upon us fall! Conceal and cover us, ye counters!" When other hands the scales shall hold, And they, in men's and angels' sight Produced with all their bills and gold, "Weigh'd in the balance and found light!" [Footnote 1: This poem was printed some years ago, and it should seem, by the late failure of two bankers, to be somewhat prophetic. It was therefore thought fit to be reprinted.--_Dublin Edition_, 1734.] [Footnote 2: Solomon, Proverbs, ch. xxiii, v. 5.] [Footnote 3: Who, in his early days of empire, having to sign the sentence of a condemned criminal, exclaimed: "Quam vellem nescire litteras!" Suetonius, 10; and Seneca, "De Clementia,", cited by Montaigne, "De l'inconstance de nos actions."--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 4: Daniel, ch. v, verses 25, 26, 27, 28.--_W. E. B._] UPON THE HORRID PLOT DISCOVERED BY HARLEQUIN, THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER'S FRENCH DOG,[1] IN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A WHIG AND A TORY