What hoops of iron could my spleen contain! When pleading Matho, borne abroad for air,[62] With his fat paunch fills his new-fashioned chair, And after him the wretch in pomp conveyed, Whose evidence his lord and friend betrayed, And but the wished occasion does attend } From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend, } Whom even spies dread as their superior fiend, } And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail, They send their prostituted wives for bail: When night-performance holds the place of merit, And brawn and back the next of kin disherit; (For such good parts are in preferment's way,) The rich old madam never fails to pay Her legacies, by nature's standard given, One gains an ounce, another gains eleven: A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weighed, For which their thrice concocted blood is paid. With looks as wan, as he who in the brake At unawares has trod upon a snake; Or played at Lyons a declaiming prize, For which the vanquished rhetorician dies.[63] What indignation boils within my veins, } When perjured guardians, proud with impious gains, } Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains! } Whose wards, by want betrayed, to crimes are led Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read! When he who pilled his province 'scapes the laws, And keeps his money, though he lost his cause; His fine begged off, contemns his infamy, Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three; Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain, Leaves thee, prevailing province, to complain.[64] Such villanies roused Horace into wrath; And tis more noble to pursue his path,[65] Than an old tale of Diomede to repeat, } Or labouring after Hercules to sweat, } Or wandering in the winding maze of Crete; } Or with the winged smith aloft to fly, Or fluttering perish with his foolish boy. With what impatience must the muse behold The wife, by her procuring husband sold? For though the law makes null the adulterer's deed Of lands to her, the cuckold may succeed, Who his taught eyes up to the ceiling throws, And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose. When he dares hope a colonel's command, Whose coursers kept, ran out his father's land; Who yet a stripling, Nero's chariot drove, } Whirled o'er the streets, while his vain master strove } With boasted art to please his eunuch love[66] } Would it not make a modest author dare To draw his table-book within the square, And fill with notes, when, lolling at his ease, Mecænas-like,[67] the happy rogue he sees