They cannot mourn like you, but they can cry. } Call for a fire, their winter clothes they take; Begin but you to shiver, and they shake; In frost and snow, if you complain of heat, They rub the unsweating brow, and swear they sweat. We live not on the square with such as these; Such are our betters who can better please; Who day and night are like a looking-glass, Still ready to reflect their patron's face; The panegyric hand, and lifted eye, Prepared for some new piece of flattery. Even nastiness occasions will afford; They praise a belching, or well-pissing lord. Besides, there's nothing sacred, nothing free From bold attempts of their rank lechery. Through the whole family their labours run; } The daughter is debauched, the wife is won; } Nor 'scapes the bridegroom, or the blooming son. } If none they find for their lewd purpose fit, They with the walls and very floors commit. They search the secrets of the house, and so Are worshipped there, and feared for what they know. And, now we talk of Grecians, cast a view } On what, in schools, their men of morals do. } A rigid stoick his own pupil slew; } A friend, against a friend of his own cloth, Turned evidence, and murdered on his oath.[95] What room is left for Romans in a town Where Grecians rule, and cloaks controul the gown? Some Diphilus, or some Protogenes,[96] Look sharply out, our senators to seize; Engross them wholly, by their native art, And fear no rivals in their bubbles' heart: One drop of poison in my patron's ear, One slight suggestion of a senseless fear, Infused with cunning, serves to ruin me; Disgraced, and banished from the family. In vain forgotten services I boast; My long dependence in an hour is lost. Look round the world, what country will appear, Where friends are left with greater ease than here? At Rome (nor think me partial to the poor) All offices of ours are out of door: In vain we rise, and to the levees run; My lord himself is up before, and gone: The prætor bids his lictors mend their pace, Lest his colleague outstrip him in the race. The childless matrons are, long since, awake, And for affronts the tardy visits take. 'Tis frequent here to see a free-born son On the left hand of a rich hireling run; Because the wealthy rogue can throw away, For half a brace of bouts, a tribune's pay; But you, poor sinner, though you love the vice, And like the whore, demur upon the price; And, frighted with the wicked sum, forbear To lend a hand, and help her from the chair. Produce a witness of unblemished life, Holy as Numa, or as Numa's wife,