You’ve money; if you’d manners too you’d shame
To boast your weakness or your baseness name. 
Appraise the things you have, but measure not
The things denied to your unhappy lot. 
He values manners lighter than a cork
Who combs his beard at table with a fork. 
Hare to seek sin and tortoise to forsake,
The laws of taste condemn you to the stake
To expiate, where all the world may see,
The crime of growing old disgracefully.

Religion, learning, birth and manners, too,
All that distinguishes a man from you,
Pray damn at will:  all shining virtues gain
An added luster from a rogue’s disdain. 
But spare the young that proselyting sin,
A toper’s apotheosis of gin. 
If not our young, at least our pigs may claim
Exemption from the spectacle of shame!

Are you not he who lately out of shape
Blew a brass trumpet to denounce the grape?—­
Who led the brave teetotalers afield
And slew your leader underneath your shield?—­
Swore that no man should drink unless he flung
Himself across your body at the bung? 
Who vowed if you’d the power you would fine
The Son of God for making water wine?

All trails to odium you tread and boast,
Yourself enamored of the dirtiest most. 
One day to be a miser you aspire,
The next to wallow drunken in the mire;
The third, lo! you’re a meritorious liar![C]
Pray, in the catalogue of all your graces,
Have theft and cowardice no honored places?

Yield thee, great Satan—­here’s a rival name
With all thy vices and but half thy shame! 
Quick to the letter of the precept, quick
To the example of the elder Nick;
With as great talent as was e’er applied
To fool a teacher and to fog a guide;
With slack allegiance and boundless greed,
To paunch the profit of a traitor deed,
He aims to make thy glory all his own,
And crowd his master from the infernal throne!

[Footnote A:  We are not writing this paragraph for any other purpose than to protest against this never ending cant, affectation, and hypocrisy about money.  It is one of the best things in this world—­better than religion, or good birth, or learning, or good manners.—­The Argonaut.]

[Footnote B:  Now, it just occurs to us that some of our temperance friends will take issue with us, and say that this is bad doctrine, and that it is ungentlemanly to get drunk under any circumstances or under any possible conditions.  We do not think so.—­The same.]

[Footnote C:  The man or woman who, for the sake of benefiting others, protecting them in their lives, property, or reputation, sparing their feelings, contributing to their enjoyment, or increasing their pleasures, will tell a lie, deserves to be rewarded.—­The same.]

AN ACTOR