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e so fine; So fair and so bright They'll give you delight; Observe how they glisten and shine! They'll sell to my grief As cheap as neck-beef, For counters at cards to your wife; And every day Your children may play Span-farthing or toss on the knife. Come hither and try, I'll teach you to buy A pot of good ale for a farthing; Come, threepence a score, I ask you no more, And a fig for the Drapier and Harding.[1] When tradesmen have gold, The thief will be bold, By day and by night for to rob him: My copper is such, No robber will touch, And so you may daintily bob him. The little blackguard Who gets very hard His halfpence for cleaning your shoes: When his pockets are cramm'd With mine, and be d--d, He may swear he has nothing to lose. Here's halfpence in plenty, For one you'll have twenty, Though thousands are not worth a pudden. Your neighbours will think, When your pocket cries chink. You are grown plaguy rich on a sudden. You will be my thankers, I'll make you my bankers, As good as Ben Burton or Fade;[2] For nothing shall pass But my pretty brass, And then you'll be all of a trade. I'm a son of a whore If I have a word more To say in this wretched condition. If my coin will not pass, I must die like an ass; And so I conclude my petition. [Footnote 1: The Drapier's printer.] [Footnote 2: Two famous bankers.] A NEW SONG ON WOOD'S HALFPENCE Ye people of Ireland, both country and city, Come listen with patience, and hear out my ditty: At this time I'll choose to be wiser than witty. Which nobody can deny. The halfpence are coming, the nation's undoing, There's an end of your ploughing, and baking, and brewing; In short, you must all go to wreck and to ruin. Which, &c. Both high men and low men, and thick men and tall men, And rich men and poor men, and free men and thrall men, Will suffer; and this man, and that man, and all men. Which, &c. The soldier is ruin'd, poor man! by his pay; His fivepence will prove but a farthing a-day, For meat, or for drink; or he must run away. Which, &c. When he pulls out his twopence, the tapster says not, That ten times as much he must pay for his shot; And thus the poor soldier must soon go to pot. Which, &c. If he goes to the baker, the baker wil
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