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