A nursery of novelties in Variety of Poetry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Is the worlds running Ulcer, an unfix't
Piece of mortality, begot betwixt
A Tinker and his Doxy in a Den
Of Filchers, which they call the bowzing ken:
Nurs'd by a maunding Mort, whose Mother tongue
Directs him first the way to Nipp a Bung,
And mill the lower from him whose gazing eyes
Are fix'd upon London's varieties,
That the sad Countrey man is forc'd to score
At's lodging, till he be suppli'd with more,
Whilst the impatient Lawyer makes a pause,
Pernicious enough to spoil his Cause:
Nor can the ablest Councel tell him when,
Or by what trick to gain his purse agen.
Thus is poor Colter poison'd with a drench,
Made of Law Latin, and low Pedlers French.
A Language which admits no derivation
But is intire and had its generation,
Without dispute, from Babel Tower's conclusion,
For it is us'd in nothing but confusion,
As Prigging Prancers, Tipping Nab's, and such
Phrases as make the slovenly Low Dutch
A polite Dialect; he is one whose bane
Doth much participate with that of Cain,
The Brother-killing President, whose fate
Gives him the title of a Runnagate;

His body is his land, and every louse
Upon't, are Cattle, the next hedge, his house;
He pretends Palmestry, and as he passes,
Through Villages, the gamesome Countrey Lasses
Do get about him, and do much importune
The Rogue with meat, to tell them a good fortune;
Or else they'l give him nothing, and (to ease 'em
In their desires) the Knave knows how to please 'em;
He and the Annabaptists were in season,
One canted Felony, and 'tother Treason:
And if his Mort with a French Coltstaff strike,
'Tis ten to one they snuffle both alike;
Both preach in Barns, and teach in the same tones,
One storms a Henroost, 'tother strikes at Thrones,
Both hate Authority, for they're often crost,
One with the Noose, tother the Whipping-poast.
In point of Baptisme, for ought I know,
The Rogue's the better Christian of the two:
The Annabaptist in his teaching tone
Defyes God-fathers, he'l have twelve or none;
In Marriages the Rogue and He accords,
For man and wife take one anothers words,
And very fruitful in their spawn they be,
Both deal in liberty and Leachery:
To conclude all, they are a brace of men
That are so like, they are the worse agen;
Whose dispositions could a Limner paint,
You'd not know which is Rogue, or which is Saint.