When crowding folks, with strange ill faces,
Were making legs, and begging places,
And some with patents, some with merit,
Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit:
Sneaking I stood amongst the crew,
Desiring much to speak with you.
I waited while the clock struck thrice,
And footman brought out fifty lies;
Till, patience vex'd, and legs grown weary,
I thought it was in vain to tarry!
But did opine it might be better,
By penny-post to send a letter;
Now, if you miss of this epistle,
I'm baulk'd again, and may go whistle.
My business, Sir, you'll quickly guess,
Is to desire some little place;
And fair pretensions I have for't,
Much need, and very small desert.
Whene'er I writ to you, I wanted;
I always begg'd, you always granted.
Now, as you took me up when little,
Gave me my learning and my vittle;
Ask'd for me, from my lord, things fitting,
Kind as I'd been your own begetting;
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen.
No family, that takes a whelp
When first he laps, and scarce can yelp,
Neglects or turns him out of gate
When he's grown up to dog's estate:
No parish, if they once adopt
The spurious brats by strollers dropp'd,
Leave them, when grown up lusty fellows,
To, the wide world, that is, the gallows:
No thank them for their love, that's worse,
Than if they'd throttled them at nurse.
My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cyder to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish.
So when for hock I drew prickt white-wine,
Swear't had the flavour, and was right wine.
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
val's Inn, to some good rogue attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds, and cheating,
I'd found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit, to follow
That sneaking whey-faced god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I'd never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who,
To add no more invectives to i,
You spoil'd the youth, to make a poet.
In common justice, Sir, there's no man
That makes the whore, but keeps the woman.
Amongst all honest Christian people,
Whoe'er breaks limbs, maintains the cripple.
The sum of all I have to say,
Is, that you'll put me in some way;
And your petitioner shall pray
There's one thing more I had almost slipt,
But that may do as well in postscript:
My friend Charles Montague's preferr'd;
Nor would I have it long observed,
That one mouse eats, while t'other starved.