French cooks, Scotch pedlars, and Italian whores, Were all made lords or lords' progenitors. Beggars and bastards by this new creation Much multiplied the peerage of the nation; Who will be all, ere one short age runs o'er, As true-born lords as those we had before. Then to recruit the commons he prepares, And heal the latent breaches of the wars; The pious purpose better to advance, He invites the banish'd Protestants of France; Hither for God's sake, and their own, they fled Some for religion came, and some for bread: Two hundred thousand pair of wooden shoes, Who, God be thank'd, had nothing left to lose; To heaven's great praise did for religion fly, To make us starve our poor in charity. In ev'ry port they plant their fruitful train, To get a race of true-born Englishmen; Whose children will, when riper years they see, Be as ill-natured, and as proud as we; Call themselves English, foreigners despise, Be surly like us all, and just as wise. Thus from a mixture of all kinds began, That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman: In eager rapes, and furious lust begot, Betwixt a painted Briton and a Scot: Whose gend'ring offspring quickly learn'd to bow, And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough; From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came, With neither name nor nation, speech or fame, In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran, Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane; While their rank daughters, to their parents just, Received all nations with promiscuous lust. This nauseous brood directly did contain The well-extracted blood of Englishmen. Which medley, canton'd in a heptarchy, A rhapsody of nations to supply, Among themselves maintain'd eternal wars, And still the ladies loved the conquerors. The Western Angles all the rest subdued, A bloody nation, barbarous and rude; Who by the tenure of the sword possess'd One part of Britain, and subdued the rest: And as great things denominate the small, The conquering part gave title to the whole; The Scot, Pict, Briton, Roman, Dane, submit, And with the English Saxon all unite: And these the mixture have so close pursued, The very name and memory's subdued; No Roman now, no Briton does remain; Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain: The silent nations undistinguish'd fall, And Englishman's the common name for all. Fate jumbled them together, God knows how; Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now. The wonder which remains is at our pride, To value that which all wise men deride; For Englishmen to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation, A true-born Englishman's a contradiction, In speech an irony, in fact a fiction: A banter made to be a test of fools, Which those that use it justly ridicules; A metaphor intended to express, A man a-kin to all the universe. For as the Scots, as learned men have said, Throughout the world their wand'ring seed have spread, So open-handed England, 'tis believed, Has all the gleanings of the world received.