You want a hand to clear a filthy sink;
No cleanly workman can endure the stink. 
A strong dilemma in a desperate case! 
To act with infamy, or quit the place. 
  A bungler thus, who scarce the nail can hit,
With driving wrong will make the panel split: 
Nor dares an abler workman undertake
To drive a second, lest the whole should break. 
  In every court the parallel will hold;
And kings, like private folks, are bought and sold. 
The ruling rogue, who dreads to be cashler’d,
Contrives, as he is hated, to be fear’d;
Confounds accounts, perplexes all affairs: 
For vengeance more embroils, than skill repairs. 
So robbers, (and their ends are just the same,)
To ’scape inquiries, leave the house in flame. 
  I knew a brazen minister of state,[12]
Who bore for twice ten years the public hate. 
In every mouth the question most in vogue
Was, when will they turn out this odious rogue? 
A juncture happen’d in his highest pride: 
While he went robbing on, his master died.[13]
We thought there now remain’d no room to doubt;
The work is done, the minister must out. 
The court invited more than one or two: 
Will you, Sir Spencer?[14] or will you, or you? 
But not a soul his office durst accept;
The subtle knave had all the plunder swept: 
And, such was then the temper of the times,
He owed his preservation to his crimes. 
The candidates observed his dirty paws;
Nor found it difficult to guess the cause: 
But, when they smelt such foul corruptions round him,
Away they fled, and left him as they found him. 
  Thus, when a greedy sloven once has thrown
His snot into the mess, ’tis all his own.

[Footnote 1:  The Dean having been told by an intimate friend that the Duke of Queensberry had employed Mr. Gay to inspect the accounts and management of his grace’s receivers and stewards (which, however, proved to be a mistake), wrote this Epistle to his friend.—­H.  Through the whole piece, under the pretext of instructing Gay in his duty as the duke’s auditor of accounts, he satirizes the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 2:  See the “Libel on Dr. Delany and Lord Carteret,” post.]

[Footnote 3:  The Countess of Suffolk.—­H.]

[Footnote 4:  Sir Robert Walpole.—­Faulkner.]

[Footnote 5:  The post of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa was offered to Gay, which he and his friends considered as a great indignity, her royal highness being a mere infant.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 6:  The Duke and Duchess of Queensberry.]

[Footnote 7:  A title given to every duke by the heralds.—­Faulkner.]

[Footnote 8:  Counting the numbers of a division.  A horse dealer’s term.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 9:  Alluding to the magnificence of Houghton, the seat of Sir
Robert Walpole, by which he greatly impaired his fortune. 
  “What brought Sir Visto’s ill-got wealth to waste? 
  Some Demon whispered, ‘Visto! have a Taste.’”
POPE, Moral Essays, Epist. iv.—­W.  E. B.]