And he who'll leap over a stick for the king,
Is qualified best for a dog in a string.
EPIGRAM ON WOOD'S BRASS MONEY.
CARTERET was welcomed to the shore
First with the brazen cannon's roar;
To meet him next the soldier comes,
With brazen trumps and brazen drums ;
Approaching near the town he hears,
The brazen bells salute his ears:
But when Wood's brass began to sound,
Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd.
A SIMILE ON OUR WANT OF SILVER,
AND THE ONLY WAY TO REMEDY IT. 1725.
As when of old some sorceress threw
O'er the moon's face a sable hue,
To drive unseen her magic chair,
At midnight, through the darken'd air
Wise people, who believed with reason
That this eclipse was out of season,
Affirmed the moon was sick, and fell
To cure her by a counter spell.
Ten thousand cymbals now begin.
To rend the skies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling sounds dispel
The cloud, and drive the hag to hell.
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her silver face again.
Note here, that in the chemic style,
The moon is silver all this while.
So (if my simile you minded,
Which I confess is too long-winded)
When late a feminine magician,
Join'd with a brazen politician,†
Expos'd, to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment of prodigious size;
Conceal'd behind that ample screen,
There was no silver to be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his counter-charm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;
That sound will make the parchment shrivel,
And drive the conjurers to the Devil;
And when the sky is grown serene,
Our silver will appear again.
By long observation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood.
* The Duchess of Kendal, who was to have a share of Wood's profits.
+ Sir Robert Walpole, nick-named Sir Robert Brass.
The patent for coining halfpence.-F.
The first is an insect they call a wood-louse,
That folds up itself in itself for a house,
As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Enclos'd cap à pié, in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brass roll'd up to his ears;
And over these fillets he wisely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone."
The louse of the wood for a medicine is used,
Or swallow'd alive, or skilfully bruis'd.
And, let but our mother Hibernia contrive
To swallow Will Wood, either bruis'd or alive,
She need be no more with the jaundice possest,
Or sick of obstructions, and pains in her chest.
The next is an insect we call a wood-worm, That lies in old wood like a hare in her form; With teeth or with claws it will bite or will scratch, And chambermaids christen this worm a death
Because like a watch it always cries click ;
Then woe be to those in the house who are sick: For, as sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost, If the maggot cries click when it scratches the post,
But a kettle of scalding hot-water injected
Infallibly cures the timber affected;
The omen is broken, the danger is over;
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover. Such a worm was Will Wood, when he scratch'd at the door
Of a governing statesman or favourite whore; The death of our nation he seem'd to foretell, And the sound of his brass we took for our knell,
* He was in jail for debt.-F.
But now, since the Drapier has heartily maul'd him,
I think the best thing we can do is to scald him,
For which operation there's nothing more proper
Than the liquor he deals in, his own melted copper;
Unless, like the Dutch, you rather would boil
This coiner of raps in a cauldron of oil.
Then choose which you please, and let each bring a faggot,
For our fear's at an end with the death of the maggot.
ON WOOD† THE PATENTEE'S IRISH halfpence.
As when the squire and tinker Wood
Gravely consulting Ireland's good,
Together mingled in a mass
Smith's dust, and copper, lead, and brass ;
The mixture thus by chymic art
United close in ev'ry part,
In fillets roll'd, or cut in pieces,
Appear'd like one continued species;
And, by the forming engine struck,
On all the same impression stuck.
* Counterfeit halfpence.-F.
+ See an account of Wood's project in the Drapier's Letters.-N.
So, to confound this hated coin,
All parties and religions join;
Whigs, Tories, trimmers, Hanoverians,
Quakers, conformists, presbyterians,
Scotch, Irish, English, French unite,
With equal int'rest, equal spite;
Together mingled in a lump,
Do all in one opinion jump;
And ev'ry one begins to find
The same impression on his mind.
A strange event! whom gold incites
To blood and quarrels, brass unites;
So goldsmiths say, the coarsest stuff
Will serve for solder well enough:
So by the kettle's loud alarm
The bees are gather'd to a swarm:
So by the brazen trumpet's bluster
Troops of all tongues and nations muster;
And so the harp of Ireland brings
Whole crowds about its brazen strings.
There is a chain let down from Jove,
But fasten'd to his throne above,
So strong that from the lower end,
They say all human things depend.
This chain, as ancient poets hold,
When Jove was young, was made of gold,
Prometheus once this chain purloin'd,
Dissolved, and into money coin'd;
Then whips me on a chain of brass;
(Venus was bribed to let it pass.)
* Duchess of Kendal again alluded to.
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