University of Virginia Library


485

ODE IV. TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER.

Pray, Mister Addington, go out
Your change on madness seems to border.
You're a good school-mistress, no doubt,
To keep the noisy brats in order.
But to be minister!—God bless ye!
Why, what the devil could possess ye?
Pray, Mister Addington, go out,
And let some abler man come in—
Such child's play!—What are ye about?
The nation's really in a grin!
And yet it ought to cry, Heav'n knows!
So nearly going to the crows!
Good Mister Addington, go out
Go calmly out, nor make a pudder;
And don't, like Grenville, push your snout
Beneath the good old state-cow's udder.
Poor beast! she can't thy thirst supply!
Pitt's famish'd calves have suck'd her dry.
And hear me, sir—learn some small wit—
Don't be the dirty tool of Pitt:
Think on a tale—the monkey and the cat.
Chesnuts were roasting in the fire:
Jack's jaws both water'd with desire;
He begs Miss Puss to lend her pretty pat;
Then handy, as the handiest stoker,
He makes her velvet paw a poker
And stirs away at such a rate!

486

Puss squalls—but what is that to Pug?
He holds poor Miss Grimalkin snug,
And gets the chesnuts from the grate:
Jack grins—indulges his rogue jaws—
Puss goes in mourning for her claws.
Now Mister Chancellor will say I squint;
That as to my surmise there's nothing in't:
Now, Mister Chancellor, I call no names;
But lo! the father of reform
Will take you by persuasion, or by storm,
And put your pretty fingers in the flames.
He wants that organ in your mouth call'd tongue;
And, like an organ in the house of God,
With deep-ton'd energy, divinely strong,
That fills with holy awe the dread abode:
He wishes yours to stun Saint Stephen's sphere,
And get him some ten thousand pounds a year!
Yes, you must thunder for a pension!
For services of high pretension;
For him who, lab'ring with the happiest pains,
Sav'd England's life by dashing out her brains!