Thus Lamb, renown’d for cutting corns,
  An offer’d fee from Radcliff scorns,
  ’Not for the world—­we doctors, brother,
  Must take no fees of one another.’ 
  Thus to a dean some curate sloven
  Subscribes, ‘Dear sir, your brother loving.’ 
  Thus all the footmen, shoeboys, porters,
  About St James’s cry, ‘We courtiers.’ 
  Thus Horace in the house will prate,
  ‘Sir, we, the ministers of state.’ 
  Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth,
  Though half a crown o’erpays his sweat’s worth;
  Who knows in law nor text nor margent,
  Calls Singleton[1] his brother sergeant.[2]
  And thus fanatic saints, though neither in
  Doctrine nor discipline our brethren,
  Are brother Protestants and Christians,
  As much as Hebrews and Philistines: 
  But in no other sense, than nature
  Has made a rat our fellow-creature. 
  Lice from your body suck their food;
  But is a louse your flesh and blood? 
  Though born of human filth and sweat, it
  As well may say man did beget it. 
  And maggots in your nose and chin
  As well may claim you for their kin. 
    Yet critics may object, why not? 
  Since lice are brethren to a Scot: 
  Which made our swarm of sects determine
  Employments for their brother vermin. 
  But be they English, Irish, Scottish,
  What Protestant can be so sottish,
  While o’er the church these clouds are gathering,
  To call a swarm of lice his brethren? 
    “As Moses, by divine advice,
  In Egypt turn’d the dust to lice;
  And as our sects, by all descriptions,
  Have hearts more harden’d than Egyptians;
  As from the trodden dust they spring,
  And, turn’d to lice, infest the king: 
  For pity’s sake, it would be just,
  A rod should turn them back to dust. 
    Let folks in high or holy stations
  Be proud of owning such relations;
  Let courtiers hug them in their bosom,
  As if they were afraid to lose ’em: 
  While I, with humble Job, had rather
  Say to corruption—­’Thou ‘rt my father.’ 
  For he that has so little wit
  To nourish vermin, may be bit.”

[Footnote 1:  Henry Singleton, Esq., then prime sergeant, afterwards lord-chief-justice of the common pleas, which he resigned, and was some time after made master of the rolls. [F.]]

[Footnote 2:  These lines occasioned the personal attack upon the Dean. [T.S.]]

AN EPIGRAM.[1]

INSCRIBED TO THE HONOURABLE SERGEANT KITE.

  “In your indignation what mercy appears. 
  While Jonathan’s threaten’d with loss of his ears;
  For who would not think it a much better choice,
  By your knife to be mangled than rack’d with your voice. 
  If truly you [would] be revenged on the parson,
  Command his attendance while you act your farce on;
  Instead of your maiming, your shooting, or banging,
  Bid Povey[2] secure him while you are haranguing. 
  Had this been your method to torture him, long since,
  He had cut his own ears to be deaf to your nonsense.”