Village books

What is not proud? The pimp is proud to see
So many like himself in high degree:
The whore is proud her beauties are the dread
Of peevish virtue, and the marriage-bed;
And the brib'd cuckold, like crown'd victims born
To slaughter, glories in his gilded horn.
Some go to church, proud humbly to repent,
And come back much more guilty than they went:
One way they look, another way they steer,
Pray to the gods, but would have mortals hear;
And when their sins they set sincerely down,
They'll find that their religion has been one.
Others with wishful eyes on glory look,
When they have got their picture tow'rds a book;
Or pompous title, like a gaudy sign,
Meant to betray dull sots to wretched wine.
If at his title T---- had dropt his quill,
T---- might have pass'd for a great genius still.
But T----, alas! (excuse him, if you can)
Is now a scribbler, who was once a man.
Imperious some a classic fame demand,
For heaping up, with a laborious hand,
A waggon-load of meanings for one word,
While A's deposed, and B with pomp restor'd.


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