That justly belongs to another man's name,
This wonderful man with most wonderful pride,
Should look into Mason, who wrote the self guide:
To reading, when young, he'd no time to attend,
Like a cobler that's busied with old shoes to mend.
A stranger to ball rooms, a stranger to plays,
Was forc'd to work hard in his more youthful days
But now in amusements he mix with the crowd,
You might plainly discern him, the thing is so proud
He is Vanity's child, that can have no pretence,
To think himself clever or gifted with sense.
I stated the clergy would half-a-crown grutch,
Except they were sure it was good for the church;
I mean there are some that to avarice give way,
And too much at times do her precepts obey.
Respect to the clergy at all times is due,
And many I know keep our welfare in view:
So good an example our lov'd Bishop maintain,
As induce his large flock many times to refrain
From committing an action unjust or severe,
Least an unwelcome tale should be told in his ear.
Where tithes are too heavy for farmers to pay,
It induce them from church to be often away,
Their sentiments these can I hear a man preach,
Who do not by his conduct this good sentence teach,
To do unto others as he would be done by.
When friendship is needful don't that boon deny,
Many clergy are forc'd three time in a day,
To attend at three churches, short must be his stay;
When that is the case the sermon so short,
The gospel to others very badly is taught;
So hurried they are, that it force them to pray,
In a manner you cannot hear half what they say:
Many villages shew the truth I now state,
And too many witness the fact I relate
Our duty as men to religion we owe,
The strictest attention and not outward show;
Every clergyman ought to have Sir I declare,
At least to support him two hundred a year;
And every man much his duty neglect,
Who admits at all times to pay them due respect;
At the same time a duty they owe to the nation,
To act at all times as becometh their station;
By example and precept most strictly to prove,
They preach the true Gospel sent us from above;
Not only preach it but act in a way
As denote God's commands they most strictly obey.
In my youthful days 'twas ne'er thought a treat,
When farmers most truly did each other meet;
'Twas the custom to drink till you cou