Nor Sunday shines a sabbath on the press! 
   Then lo! the sainted Monitor is born,
Whose pious face some sacred texts adorn: 
As artful sinners cloak the secret sin,
To veil with seeming grace the guile within;
So moral Essays on his front appear,
But all is carnal business in the rear;
The fresh-coin’d lie, the secret whisper’d last,
And all the gleanings of the six days past. 
   With these retired through half the Sabbath-day,
The London lounger yawns his hours away: 
Not so, my little flock! your preacher fly,
Nor waste the time no worldly wealth can buy;
But let the decent maid and sober clown
Pray for these idlers of the sinful town: 
This day, at least, on nobler themes bestow,
Nor give to WOODFALL, or the world below. 
   But, Sunday past, what numbers flourish then,
What wondrous labours of the press and pen;
Diurnal most, some thrice each week affords,
Some only once,—­O avarice of words! 
When thousand starving minds such manna seek,
To drop the precious food but once a week. 
   Endless it were to sing the powers of all,
Their names, their numbers; how they rise and fall: 
Like baneful herbs the gazer’s eye they seize,
Rush to the head, and poison where they please: 
Like idle flies, a busy, buzzing train,
They drop their maggots in the trifler’s brain: 
That genia soil receives the fruitful store,
And there they grow, and breed a thousand more. 
   Now be their arts display’d, how first they choose
A cause and party, as the bard his Muse;
Inspired by these, with clamorous zeal they cry,
And through the town their dreams and omens fly;
So the Sibylline leaves were blown about,
Disjointed scraps of fate involved in doubt;
So idle dreams, the journals of the night,
Are right and wrong by turns, and mingle wrong with right.-
Some champions for the rights that prop the crown,
Some sturdy patriots, sworn to pull them down;
Some neutral powers, with secret forces fraught,
Wishing for war, but willing to be bought: 
While some to every side and party go,
Shift every friend, and join with every foe;
Like sturdy rogues in privateers, they strike
This side and that, the foes of both alike;
A traitor-crew, who thrive in troubled times,
Fear’d for their force, and courted for their crimes. 
   Chief to the prosperous side the numbers sail,
Fickle and false, they veer with every gale;
As birds that migrate from a freezing shore
In search of warmer climes, come skimming o’er,
Some bold adventurers first prepare to try
The doubtful sunshine of the distant sky;
But soon the growing Summer’s certain sun
Wins more and more, till all at last are won: 
So, on the early prospect of disgrace,
Fly in vast troops this apprehensive race;
Instinctive tribes! their failing food they dread,
And buy, with timely change, their future bread.