From truth unbounded deviation,
Which custom calls Imagination,
Yet can't they be supposed to lie
One half so fast as Fame can fly;
Therefore (to solve this Gordian knot,
A point we almost had forgot)

To courteous readers be it known,

That, fond of verse and falsehood grown,
Whilst we in sweet digression sung,

510

Fame check'd her flight, and held her tongue,
And now pursues, with double force

515

And double speed, her destined course,

Nor stops till she the place arrives

Where Genius starves and Dullness thrives,
Where riches virtue are esteem'd,

And craft is truest wisdom deem'd,
Where Commerce proudly rears her throne,
In state to other lands unknown;

Where, to be cheated and to cheat,
Strangers from every quarter meet;

520

place in the catalogue of Mallet's virtues, it would have induced him to suppress, instead of publicly exulting in, a testimony too extravagant for any poem ever to have deserved.

517 The Royal Exchange, a place where Churchill's ge nius was certainly not calculated to shine; his own failure in trade as a cider dealer seems to have tinctured him with a strong and unfounded prejudice against the most useful and liberal of men, the merchants of the city of London; whose unbounded donations, private as well as public, entitle them to the respect and gratitude of their country

men.

Where Christians, Jews, and Turks shake hands,

United in commercial bands;

All of one faith, and that to own

No god but Interest alone.

When gods and goddesses come down

To look about them here in Town,

(For change of air is understood

By sons of Physic to be good,

In due proportion, now and then,

For these same gods as well as men)
By custom ruled, and not a poet
So very dull but he must know it,
In order to remain incog.
They always travel in a fog;
For if we majesty expose

To vulgar eyes, too cheap it grows;
The force is lost, and, free from awe,
We spy and censure every flaw;
But well preserved from public view,
It always breaks forth fresh and new;
Fierce as the sun in all his pride
It shines, and not a spot's descried.
Was Jove to lay his thunder by,
And with his brethren of the sky
Descend to earth, and frisk about,
Like chattering N*** from rout to rout,
He would be found, with all his host,
A nine days' wonder at the most.
Would we in trim our honours wear,
We must preserve them from the air;

5.6

530

535

540

545

5/

What is familiar men neglect,
However worthy of respect.
Did they not find a certain friend
In novelty to recommend,

(Such we, by sad experience find
The wretched folly of mankind)
Venus might unattractive shine,
And Hunter fix no eyes but mine.

But Fame, who never cared a jot
Whether she was admired or not,

And never blush'd to shew her face

At

any time in any place,

In her own shape, without disguise,
And visible to mortal eyes,

On 'Change, exact at seven o'clock,

Alighted on the weathercock,

Which planted there time out of mind

To note the changes of the wind,

Might no improper emblem be

Of her own mutability.

Thrice did she sound her trump, (the same Which from the first belonged to Fame,

An old ill-favour'd instrument,

With which the goddess was content,
Though under a politer race
Bagpipes might well supply its place)
And thrice awaken'd by the sound,
A general din prevail'd around;
Confusion through the city pass'd,
And fear bestrode the dreadful blast.

558

560

565

570

560

Those fragrant currents which we meet,
Distilling soft through every street,
Affrighted from the usual course,

Ran murmuring upwards to their source:
Statues wept tears of blood, as fast

As when a Cæsar breathed his last:
Horses, which always used to go

A foot-pace in my Lord Mayor's show,
Impetuous from their stable broke,
And aldermen and oxen spoke,

Halls felt the force, towers shook around,
And steeples nodded to the ground;
St. Paul himself (strange sight!) was seen
To bow as humbly as the Dean :

585

690

596

585 The great and progressive improvements in the police and appearance of London had scarcely commenced so early as the publication of this poem. The kennels in the middle of the streets, the bad pavement and imperfect lighting, the sign posts and the water spouts having now been all removed or altered, Gay's admonitory cautions to walkers are become nearly obsolete:

"But when the swinging signs your ears offend
With creaking noise, then rainy floods impend,
Soon shall the kennels swell with rapid streams,
And rush in muddy torrents to the Thames.
On hosiers' poles depending stockings tied,
Flag with the slacken'd gale from side to side.
Ungrateful odours common sewers diffuse,
And dropping vaults distil unwholesome dews,
E'er the tiles rattle with the smoking shower,
And spouts on heedless men their torrents pour."
TRIVIA.

The Mansion House, for ever placed
A monument of City taste,
Trembled, and seem'd aloud to groan
Through all that hideous weight of stone.

To still the sound, or stop her ears,
Remove the cause or sense of fears,
Physic, in college seated high,

Would any thing but medicine try.

No more in Pewterers' Hall was heard

The proper force of every word;
Those seats were desolate become,
A hapless Elocution dumb.

Form, city-born and city-bred,

600

605

610

599 The following note occurs on the subject of the Mansion House in an ingenious pamphlet entitled "Critical Observations on the Buildings and Improvements of London," published in 1771: "The bad taste of the city is a trite subject, and any strictures upon their former public management in those matters are hardly applicable at present. At least one would hope the season is now over when the citizens, before they approve of a plan, require to know if the author is of the livery, or if his creed is according to law; but the following anecdote of what happened forty years ago is told, and may not be unacceptable to the reader. When it was first resolved in Common Council to build a Mansion House for the Lord Mayor, Lord Burlington, zealous in the cause of the arts, sent down an original design of Palladio, worthy of its author, for their approbation and adoption. The first question in court was not, whether the plan was proper, but whether this same Paliadio was a freeman of the city or no. On this great debates ensued, and it is hard to say how it might have gone, had not a worthy deputy risen up, and observed gravely, that it was of little consequence to discuss this point, when it was notorious that Palladio was a papist, and incapable of course.