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And there to tempt his eye, sir,
Was fish, and flesh, and fowl;
And when he was a-dry, sir,
There stood the brimming bowl.
Nor did the king forbid him

From drinking all he could,
The monarch never chid him,
But fill'd him with his food,
O then, to see the pleasure

Squire Damocles exprest!
'Twas joy beyond all measure,
Was ever man so blest?
With greedy eyes the squire
Devour'd each costly dainty;
You'd think he did aspire

To eat as much as twenty.
But just as he prepar'd, sir,

Of bliss to take his swing;
O, how the man was scar'd, sir,
By this so cruel king!
When he to eat intended,
Lo! just above his head,
He spied a sword suspended
All by a single thread.
How did it change the feasting
To wormwood and to gall,
To think, while he was tasting,
The pointed sword might fall.
Then in a moment's time, sir,

He loath'd the luscious feast;
And dreaded as a crime, sir,

The brimming bowl to taste.
Now, if you're for applying
The story I have told,
I think there's no denying

"Tis worth its weight in gold. Ye gay, who view this stranger, And pity his sad case ;

And think there was great danger
In such a fearful place;
Come, let this awful truth, sir,

In all your minds be stor'd;
To each intemp'rate youth, sir,
Death is that pointed sword.
And though you see no reason
To check your mirth at all,
In some licentious season

The sword on you may fall. So learn, while at your ease, sir,

You drink down draughts delicious; To think of Damocles, sir, And old king Dionysius.

THE HACKNEY COACHMAN:

OR, THE WAY TO GET A GOOD FARE, To the tune of 'I wish I was a fisherman.'

I AM a bold coachman, and drive a good hack

With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back;

And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles

From the narrowest alley in all broad St. Giles.

Though poor, we are honest and very con

tent,

[rent; We pay as we go, for meat, drink, and for To work all the week I am able and willing, I never get drunk, and I waste not a shilling, And while at a tavern my gentleman tarries, The coachman grows richer than he whom he carries, [sin, And I'd rather (said I) since it saves me from Be the driver without, than the toper within. Yet though dram-shops I hate, and the dram-drinking friend,

I'm not quite so good but I wish I may mend;

I repent of my sins, since we all are deprav'd,

[sav'd. For a coachman, I hold, has a soul to be When a riotous multitude fills up a street, And the greater part know not, boys, where

fore they meet;

If I see there is mischief, I never go there,
Let others get tipsy so I get my fare.
Now to church, if I take some good lady to

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VILLAGE POLITICS.

1

ADDRESSED TO

ALL THE MECHANICS, JOURNEYMEN, AND LABOURERS, IN GREAT BRITAIN.

BY WILL CHIP, A COUNTRY CARPENTER,

[Written early in the French Revolution.]

It is a privilege to be prescribed to in things about which our minds would otherwise be lost with various apprehensions. And for pleasure, I shall profess myself so far from doting on that popular idol, Liberty, that I hardly think it possible for any kind of obedience to be more painful than an unrestrained liberty. Were there not true bounds, of magistrates, of laws, of piety, of reason in the heart, every man would have a fool, nay, a mad tyrant to his master, that would multiply him more sorrows than the briars and thorns did to Adam, when he was freed from the bliss at once, and the restraint of Paradise, and became a greater slave in the wilderness than in the enclosure-Dr. Hammond's Sermon.

A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN JACK ANVIL, THE BLACKSMITH, AND TOM HOD, THE MASON.

Jack. WHAT's the mater, Tom? Why drst look so dismal !

Tom. Dismal, indeed! Well enough I

may.

Jack. What is the old mare dead? or work scarce?

Tom. No, no, work's plenty enough, if a
man had but the heart to go to it.
Jack. What book art reading? Why dost
Fok so like a hang dog?

Tom. But I want a general reform.
Jack. Then let every one mend one.
Tom. Pooh! I want freedom and happi-·
Hess, the same as they have got in France.

Jack. What, Tom, we imitate them? We follow the French! Why they only began all this mischief at first in order to be just what we are already; and what a blessed land must this be, to be in actual possession of all they ever hoped to gain by all Tom. (Looking on his book.) Cause their hurly-burly. Imitate them indeed! eaugh. Why I find here that I'm very-Why I'd sooner go to the negroes to get unhappy, and very miserable; which I learning, or to the Turks to get religion, should never have known if I had not had than to the French for freedom and happithe good luck to meet with this book. is a precious book!

Jack. A good sign though; that you can't find out you're unhappy without looking into a book for it! What is the matter?

Tom. Matter? Why I want liberty. Jack. Liberty! That's bad indeed! What! has any one fetched a warrant for thee? Come, man, cheer up, I'll be bound for thee. Thou art an honest fellow in the main, though thou dost tipple and prate a little too much at the Rose and Crown.

Tom, No, no, I want a new constitution. Jack. Indeed! Why I thought thou hadst been a desperate healthy fellow. Send for the doctor directly.

ness.

Tom. What do you mean by that? ar'n't the French free?

Jack. Free, Tom! ay free with a witness. They are all so free that there's nobody sate. They make free to rob whom they will, and kill whom they will. If they don't like a man's looks, they make free to hang him without judge or jury, and the next lamppost serves for the gallows; so then they call themselves free, because you see they have no law left to condemn them, and no king to take them up and hang them for it.

Tom. Ah, but Jack, did'nt their king formerly hang people for nothing too? and besides, were they not all papists before the revolution?

Tom. I'm not sick; I want liberty and equality, and the rights of man. Jack. Why, true enough, they had but a Jack. O, now I understand thee. What! poor sort of religion; but bad is better than thou art a leveller and a republican, I war-none, Tom. And so was the government bad enough too; for they could clap an inTom. I'm a friend to the people. I want nocent man into prison, and keep him there too as long as they would, and never say with Jack. Then the shortest way is to mend your leave or by your leave, gentlemen of the jury. But what's all that to us?

rant!

a reform.

tay seit.

Tom. To us! Why don't many of our governors put many of our poor folks in prison against their will? What are all the jails for? Down with the jails, I say; all men should be free.

Jack. Harkee, Tom, a few rogues in prison keep the rest in order, and then honest men go about their business in safety, afraid of nobody; that's the way to be free. And let me tell thee, Tom, thou and I are tried by our peers as much as a lord is. Why the king can't send me to prison if I do no harm; and if I do, there's reason good why I should go there. I may go to law with sir John at the great castle yonder; and he no more dares lift his little finger against me than if I were his equal. A lord is hanged for hanging matter, as thou or I should be; and if it will be any comfort to thee, I myself remember a peer of the realm being hanged for killing his man, just the same as the man would have been for killing him.*

Tom. A lord! Well, that is some comfort to be sure. But have you read the Rights of Man?

Jack. No, not I: I had rather by half read the Whole Duty of Man. I have but little time for reading, and such as I should therefore only read a bit of the best.

Tom. Don't tell me of those old-fashioned notions. Why should not we have the same fine things they have got in France? I'm for a constitution, and organization, and equalization, and fraternization.

Jack. Do be quiet. Now, Tom, only suppose this nonsensical equality was to take place; why it would not last while one could say Jack Robinson; or suppose it could-suppose in the general division, our new rulers were to give us half an acre of ground a-piece; we could to be sure raise potatoes on it for the use of our families; but as every other man would be equally busy in raising potatoes for his family, why then you see if thou wast to break thy spade, I, whose trade it is, should no longer be able to mend it. Neighbour Snip would have no time to make us a suit of clothes, nor the clothier to weave the cloth; for all the world would be gone a digging. And as to boots and shoes, the want of some one to make them for us, would be a still greater grievance than the tax on leather. If we should be sick, there would be no doctor's stuff for us; for doctors would be digging too. And if necessity did not compel, and if inequality subsisted, we could not get a chimney swept, or a load of coal from pit, for love or money.

Tom. But still I should have no one over my head.

Jack. That's a mistake: I'm stronger than thou; and Standish, the exciseman, is a better scholar; so that we should not re

Load Ferrers was hanged in 1760, for killing his

steward.

main equal a minute. I should out-fight thee, and he'd out-wit thee. And if such a sturdy fellow as I am, was to come and break down thy hedge for a little firing, or take away the crop from thy ground, I'm not so sure that these new-fangled laws would see thee righted. I tell thee, Tom, we have a fine constitution already, and our forefathers thought so.

Tom. They were a pack of fools, and had never read the Rights of Man.

Jack. I'll tell thee a story. When sir John married, my lady, who is a little fantastical, and likes to do every thing like the French, begged him to pull down yonder fine old castle, and build it up in her frippery way. No, says sir John, what shall I pull down this noble building, raised by the wisdom of my brave ancestors; which outstood the civil wars, and only underwent a little needful repair at the revolution; a castle which all my neighbours come to take a pattern by-shall I pull it all down, I say, only because there may be a dark closet, or an awkward passage, or an inconvenient room or two in it? Our ancestors took time for what they did. They understood foundation work; no running up your little slight lath and plaster buildings, which are up in a day, and down in a night. My lady mumpt and grumbled; but the castle was let stand, and a glorious building it is; though there may be a trifling fault or two, and though a few decays want stopping; so now and then they mend a little thing, and they'll go on mending, I dare say, as they have leisure, to the end of the chapter, if they are let alone. But no pull-me-down works. What is it you are crying out for, Tom?

Tom. Why for a perfect government. Jack. You might as well cry for the moon. There's nothing perfect in this world, take my word for it: though sir John says, we come nearer to it than any country in the world ever did.

Tom. I don't see why we are to work like slaves, while others roll about in their coaches, feed on the fat of the land, and do nothing.

Jack. My little maid brought home a story-book from the charity school t'other day, in which was a bit of a fable about the belly and the limbs. The hands said, I won't work any longer to feed this lazy belly, who sits in state like a lord and does nothing. Said the feet, I won't walk and tire myself to carry him about; let him shift for himself; so said all the members; just as your levellers and republicans do now. And what was the consequence? Why the belly was pinched to be sure, and grew this upon it; but the hands and the feet, and the rest of the members, suffered so much for want of their old nourishment, which the belly had been all the time administering, while they accused him of sitting in idle state, that they all fell sick, pined away, and would have died, if they had not conie

to their senses just in time to save their lives,
as I hope all you will do.
Tom. But the times-but the taxes,
Jack.

Jack. Things are dear to be sure, but riot and murder is not the way to make them cheap. And taxes are high; but I'm told there's a deal of old scores paying off, and paying off by them who did not contract the debt neither, Tom. Besides things are mending, I hope; and what little is done, is rus poor people; our candles are somewhat cheaper, and I dare say, if the honest gentleman who has the management of tings, is not disturbed by you levellers, bangs will mend every day. But bear one thing in mind: the more we riot, the more we shall have to pay the more mischief is Cone, the more will the repairs cost: the more time we waste in meeting to redress pic wrongs, the more we shall increase our private wants. And mind too, that 'tis viking, and not murmuring, which puts bread in our children's mouths, and a new Cat on our backs. Mind another thing too, we have not the same ground of complaint; in France the poor paid all the taxes, as I have heard 'em say, and the quality paid nothing.

whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.' Thou say'st, thou wilt pay no taxes to any of them.— Dost thou know who it was that worked a miracle, that he might have money to pay tribute with, rather than set you and me an example of disobedience to government? an example, let me tell thee, worth an hundred precepts, and of which all the wit of man can never lessen the value. Then there's another thing worth minding, when St. Paul was giving all those directions, in the epistle to the Romans, for obedience and submission; what sort of a king now dost think they had? Dost think 'twas a saint which he ordered them to obey?

Tom, Well, I know what's what, as well as another; and I'm as fit to govern-Jack. No, Tom, no. You are indeed as good as another man, seeing you have hands to work, and a soul to be saved. But are all men fit for all kind of things? Solomon says; How can he be wise whose talk is of Oxen? Every one in his way. I am a better judge of a horse-shoe than Sir John; but he has a deal better notion of state affairs than I; and I can no more do without his employ than he can do without my farriery. Besides, few are so poor but they may get a vote for a parliament-man; and so you see the poor have as much share in the government as they well know how to manage.

Tom. Why it was a kind, merciful, charitable king to be sure; one who put nobody to death or to prison.

Jack. You was never more out in your life. Our parson says he was a monsterthat he robbed the rich, and murdered the poor-set fire to his own town, as fine a place as London-fiddled to the flames, and then hanged and burnt the Christians, who were all poor, as if they had burnt the town. Yet there's not a word about rising.-Duties are fixed, Tom.-Laws are settled; a Christian can't pick and chuse, whether he will obey or let it alone. But we have no such trials. We have a king the very reverse.

Tom. I say we shall never be happy, till we do as the French have done.

Jack. The French and we contending for liberty, Tom, is just as if thou and I were to pretend to run a race; thou to set out from the starting-post when I am in already; thou to have all the ground to travel when I have reached the end. Why we've got it man! we've no race to run! we're there already! Our constitution is no more like what the French one was, than a mug of our Taunton beer is like a platter of their soup-maigre.

Tom. I know we shall be undone, if we don't get a new constitution-that's all. Tom. But I say all men are equal. Why Jack. And I know we shall be undone, if

should one be above another?

we do. I don't know much about politics, Jack. If that's thy talk, Tom, thou dost but I can see by a little, what a great deal quarrel with Providence, and not with go-means. Now only to show thee the state of vernment. For the woman is below her hus-public credit, as I think Tim Standish calls band, and the children are below their mo- it. There's farmer Furrow, a few years ther, and the servant is below his master. ago he had an odd fifty pounds by him; so Tom. But the subject is not below the to keep it out of harm's way, he put it out to king: all kings are crown'd ruffians:' and use, on government security, I think he all governments are wicked. For my part, calls it; well, t'other day he married one of I'm resolv'd I'll pay no more taxes to any of his daughters, so he thought he'd give her that fifty pounds for a bit of a portion. Tom, Juck. Tom, Tom, if thou didst go oft'ner as I'm a living man, when he went to take to church, thou wouldst know where it is it out, if his fifty pounds was not almost said, 'Render unto Cæsar the things that grown to an hundred ! and would have been are Cæsar's;' and also, Fear God, honour a full hundred, they say, by this time, if the the king. Your book tells you that we need gentlemen had been let alone.*

them.

abey no government but that of the people;|

and that we may fashion and alter the go- should like to do as they do in France.
vernment according to our whimsies: but
ne tells me, 'Let every one be subject to |
the higher powers, for all power is of God,
the

Tom. Well, still as the old saying is-I

Jack. What, shouldest like to be murder

VOL. I.

9

*This was written before the war, when the funds

were at the highest.

ed with as little ceremony as Hackabout, the| butcher, knocks down a calf? or shouldest like to get rid of thy wife for every little bit of tiff? And as for liberty of conscience, which they brag so much about, why they have driven away their parsons (ay, and murdered many of 'em) because they would not swear as they would have them. And then they talk of liberty of the press; why, Tom, only t'other day they hang'd a man for printing a book against this pretty government of theirs.

Tom. But you said yourself it was sad times in France, before they pulled down the old government.

Jack. The more's the pity. But there's other help. 'Twas but last year you broke your leg, and was nine weeks in the Bristol Infirmary, where you was taken as much care of as a lord, and your family was maintained all the while by the parish. No poorrates in France, Tom, and here there's a matter of two million and a half paid for the poor every year, if 'twas but a little better managed.

Tom. Two million and a half!

Jack. Ay, indeed. Not translated into ten-pences, as your French millions are, but twenty good shillings to the pound. But when this levelling comes about, there will Jack. Well, and suppose the French were be no infirmaries, no hospitals, no charityas much in the right as I know them to be in schools, no Sunday-schools, where so many the wrong; what does that argue for us?-hundred thousand poor souls learn to read Because my neighbour Furrow, t'other day the word of God for nothing.-For who is pulled down a crazy old barn, is that a rea- to pay for them? Equality can't afford it; son why I must set fire to my tight cottage? and those that may be willing won't be Tom. I don't see for all that why one man able. is to ride in his coach and six, while another mends the highway for him.

Tom. But we shall be one as good as another for all that.

(for envy is at the bottom of your equality works) Í read my Bible, go to church, and look forward to a treasure in Heaven.

Tom. Ay, but the French have got it in this world.

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Jack. I don't see why the man in the coach Jack. Ay, and bad will be the best. But is to drive over the man on foot, or hurt a we must work as we do now, and with this hair of his head, any more than you. And difference, that no one will be able to pay us. as to our great folks, that you levellers have Tom! I have got the use of my limbs, of my such a spite against, I don't pretend to say liberty, of the laws, and of my Bible. The they are a bit better than they should be; two first I take to be my natural rights; the but that's no affair of mine; let them look to two last my civil and religious rights: these, that; they'll answer for that in another place. I take it, are the true Rights of Man, and To be sure, I wish they'd set us a better ex-all the rest is nothing but nonsense and madample about going to church, and those ness and wickedness. My cottage is my things; but still hoarding's not the sin of the castle; I sit down in it at night in peace and age; they don't lock up their money-away thankfulness, and 'no man maketh me it goes, and every body's the better for it. afraid.' Instead of indulging discontent, beThey do spend too much, to be sure, in feast-cause another is richer than I in this world ings and fandangoes; and so far from commending them for it, if I was a parson I'd go to work with 'em, but it should be in another kind of way; but as I am only a poor tradesman, why 'tis but bringing more grist to my mill. It all comes among the people. Their Jack. 'Tis all a lie, Tom. Sir John's butvery extravagance, for which, as I said be-ler says his master gets letters which say fore, their parsons should be at them, is a all a lie. 'Tis all murder, and nakedness, fault by which, as poor men, we are benefit- and hunger, many of the poor soldiers fight ed; so you cry out just in the wrong place. without victuals, and march without clothes. Their coaches and their furniture, and their These are your democrats! Tom. buildings, and their planting, employ a power of tradesmen and labourers. Now in this village, what should we do without the castle? Though my lady is too rantipolish, and flies about all summer to hot water and cold water, and fresh water and salt water, when she ought to stay at home with sir John: yet when she does come down, she brings such a deal of gentry that I have more horses than I can shoe, and my wife more linen than she can wash. Then all our grown children are servants in the family, and rare wages they have got. Our little boys get something every day by weeding their gardens, and the girls learn to sew and knit at Sir John's expense, who sends them all to school of a Sunday besides.

Tom. Ay, but there's not Sir Johns in every village.

Tom. What then, dost think all the men on our side wicked?

Jack. No-not so neither-If some of the leaders are knaves, more of the followers are fools. Sir John, who is wiser than I, says the whole system is the operation of fraud upon folly. They've made fools of most of you, as I believe. I judge no man, Tom; I hate no man. Even republicans and levellers, I hope, will always enjoy the protection of our laws; though I hope they will never be our law makers. There are many true dissenters, and there are some hollow churchmen; and a good man is a good man, whether his church has got a steeple to it or not.-The new fashion'd way of pioving one's religion is to hate somebody. Now, though some folks pretend that a man's hating a papist, or a presbyterian, proves him

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