stroy.
As you discourse them, you shall hear them tell
All things in which they think they do excel:
No panegyric needs their praise record,
An Englishman ne'er wants his own good word.
His first discourses gen'rally appear,
Prologued with his own wond'rous character:
When, to illustrate his own good name,
He never fails his neighbour to defame.
And yet he really designs no wrong,
His malice goes no further than his tongue.
But, pleased to tattle, he delights to rail,
To satisfy the letch'ry of a tale.
His own dear praises close the ample speech,
Tells you how wise he is, that is, how rich:
For wealth is wisdom; he that's rich is wise;
And all men learned poverty despise:
His generosity comes next, and then
Concludes, that he's a true-born Englishman;
And they, 'tis known, are generous and free,
Forgetting, and forgiving injury:
Which may be true, thus rightly understood,
Forgiving ill turns, and forgetting good.

Cheerful in labour when they've undertook it,
But out of humour, when they're out of pocket.
But if their belly and their pocket's full,
They may be phlegmatic, but never dull:
And if a bottle does their brains refine,
It makes their wit as sparkling as their wine.

As for the general vices which we find,
They're guilty of in common with mankind,
Satire forbear, and silently endure,
We must conceal the crimes we cannot cure;
Nor shall my verse the brighter sex defame,
For English beauty will preserve her name;
Beyond dispute agreeable and fair,
And modester than other nations are;
For where the vice prevails, the great temptation
Is want of money more than inclination;
In general this only is allow'd,
They're something noisy, and a little proud.

An Englishman is gentlest in command,
Obedience is a stranger in the land:
Hardly subjected to the magistrate;
For Englishmen do all subjection hate.
Humblest when rich, but peevish when they're poor,
And think whate'er they have, they merit more.

The meanest English plowman studies law,
And keeps thereby the magistrates in awe,
Will boldly tell them what they ought to do,
And sometimes punish their omissions too.

Their liberty and property's so dear,
They scorn their laws or governors to fear;
So bugbear'd with the name of slavery,
They can't submit to their own liberty.
Restraint from ill is freedom to the wise!
But Englishmen do all restraint despise.
Slaves to the liquor, drudges to the pots;
The mob are statesmen, and their s