A hundred fees last Easter term;
While others of the learned robe,
Would break the patience of a Job. 
No pleader at the bar could match
His diligence and quick dispatch;
Ne’er kept a cause, he well may boast,
Above a term or two at most. 
  The cringing knave, who seeks a place
Without success, thus tells his case: 
Why should he longer mince the matter? 
He fail’d, because he could not flatter;
He had not learn’d to turn his coat,
Nor for a party give his vote: 
His crime he quickly understood;
Too zealous for the nation’s good: 
He found the ministers resent it,
Yet could not for his heart repent it. 
  The Chaplain vows, he cannot fawn,
Though it would raise him to the lawn: 
He pass’d his hours among his books;
You find it in his meagre looks: 
He might, if he were worldly wise,
Preferment get, and spare his eyes;
But owns he had a stubborn spirit. 
That made him trust alone to merit;
Would rise by merit to promotion;
Alas! a mere chimeric notion. 
  The Doctor, if you will believe him,
Confess’d a sin; (and God forgive him!)
Call’d up at midnight, ran to save
A blind old beggar from the grave: 
But see how Satan spreads his snares;
He quite forgot to say his prayers. 
He cannot help it, for his heart,
Sometimes to act the parson’s part: 
Quotes from the Bible many a sentence,
That moves his patients to repentance;
And, when his medicines do no good,
Supports their minds with heavenly food: 
At which, however well intended,
He hears the clergy are offended;
And grown so bold behind his back,
To call him hypocrite and quack. 
In his own church he keeps a seat;
Says grace before and after meat;
And calls, without affecting airs,
His household twice a-day to prayers. 
He shuns apothecaries’ shops,
And hates to cram the sick with slops: 
He scorns to make his art a trade;
Nor bribes my lady’s favourite maid. 
Old nurse-keepers would never hire,
To recommend him to the squire;
Which others, whom he will not name,
Have often practised to their shame. 
  The Statesman tells you, with a sneer,
His fault is to be too sincere;
And having no sinister ends,
Is apt to disoblige his friends. 
The nation’s good, his master’s glory,
Without regard to Whig or Tory,
Were all the schemes he had in view,
Yet he was seconded by few: 
Though some had spread a thousand lies,
’Twas he defeated the excise.[3]
’Twas known, though he had borne aspersion,
That standing troops were his aversion: 
His practice was, in every station: 
To serve the king, and please the nation. 
Though hard to find in every case
The fittest man to fill a place: 
His promises he ne’er forgot,
But took memorials on the spot;
His enemies, for want of charity,
Said, he affected popularity: 
’Tis true, the people understood,