All the difference betwixt you and me, as I take it,
Is simply, that _you_ make the law and _I_ break it;
And never, of big-wigs and small, were there two
Played so well into each other's hands as we do;
Insomuch, that the laws you and yours manufacture,
Seem all made express for the Rock-boys to fracture.
Not Birmingham's self--to her shame be it spoken--
E'er made things more neatly contrived to be broken;
And hence, I confess, in this island religious,
The breakage of laws--and of heads _is_ prodigious.
And long may it thrive, my Ex-Bigwig, say I,--
Tho', of late, much I feared all our fun was gone by;
As, except when some tithe-hunting parson showed sport,
Some rector--a cool hand at pistols and port,
Who "keeps dry" his _powder_, but never _himself_--
One who, leaving his Bible to rust on the shelf,
Sends his pious texts home, in the shape of ball-cartridges,
Shooting his "dearly beloved," like partridges;
Except when some hero of this sort turned out,
Or, the Exchequer sent, flaming, its tithe-writs[1] about--
A contrivance more neat, I may say, without flattery,
Than e'er yet was thought of for bloodshed and battery;
So neat, that even _I_ might be proud, I allow,
To have bit off so rich a receipt for a _row_;--
Except for such rigs turning up, now and then,
I was actually growing the dullest of men;
And, had this blank fit been allowed to increase,
Might have snored myself down to a Justice of Peace.
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