That all he did was for their good;
Their kind affections he has tried;
No love is lost on either side. 
He came to court with fortune clear,
Which now he runs out every year;
Must, at the rate that he goes on,
Inevitably be undone: 
O! if his majesty would please
To give him but a writ of ease,
Would grant him license to retire,
As it has long been his desire,
By fair accounts it would be found,
He’s poorer by ten thousand pound. 
He owns, and hopes it is no sin,
He ne’er was partial to his kin;
He thought it base for men in stations,
To crowd the court with their relations: 
His country was his dearest mother,
And every virtuous man his brother;
Through modesty or awkward shame,
(For which he owns himself to blame,)
He found the wisest man he could,
Without respect to friends or blood;
Nor ever acts on private views,
When he has liberty to choose. 
  The Sharper swore he hated play,
Except to pass an hour away: 
And well he might; for, to his cost,
By want of skill, he always lost;
He heard there was a club of cheats,
Who had contrived a thousand feats;
Could change the stock, or cog a die,
And thus deceive the sharpest eye: 
Nor wonder how his fortune sunk,
His brothers fleece him when he’s drunk. 
  I own the moral not exact,
Besides, the tale is false, in fact;
And so absurd, that could I raise up,
From fields Elysian, fabling AEsop,
I would accuse him to his face,
For libelling the four-foot race. 
Creatures of every kind but ours
Well comprehend their natural powers,
While we, whom reason ought to sway,
Mistake our talents every day. 
The Ass was never known so stupid,
To act the part of Tray or Cupid;
Nor leaps upon his master’s lap,
There to be stroked, and fed with pap,
As AEsop would the world persuade;
He better understands his trade: 
Nor comes whene’er his lady whistles,
But carries loads, and feeds on thistles. 
Our author’s meaning, I presume, is
A creature bipes et implumis;
Wherein the moralist design’d
A compliment on human kind;
For here he owns, that now and then
Beasts may degenerate into men.[4]

[Footnote 1:  Wigs with long black tails, at that time very much in fashion.  It was very common also to call the wearers of them by the same name.—­F.]

[Footnote 2:  The priest, his confessor.—­F.]

[Footnote 3:  A bill was brought into the House of Commons of England, in March, 1733, for laying an excise on wines and tobacco, but so violent was the outcry against the measure, that when it came on for the second reading, 11th April, Walpole moved that it be postponed for two months, and thus it was dropped.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 4:  See Gulliver’s Travels; voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms, “Prose Works,” vol. viii.—­W.  E. B.]