An Epigram

ADDRESSED TO THE GENTLEMEN REFLECTED ON IN THE ROSCIAD, A POEM, BY THE AUTHOR

Worried with debts and past all hopes of bail, His pen he prostitutes t’ avoid a gaol.

ROSCOM.

LET not the hungry Bavius’ angry stroke Awake resentment, or your rage provoke; But pitying his distress, let virtue shine, And giving each your bounty, let him dine; For thus retain’d, as learned counsel can, Each case, however bad, he’ll new japan; And by a quick transition, plainly show ’Twas no defect of yours, but pocket low, That caused his putrid kennel to o’erflow.

TO G. C. AND R. L.

’TWAS you, or I, or he, or all together, ’Twas one, both, three of them, they know not whether; This, I believe, between us great or small, You, I, he, wrote it not—’twas Churchill’s all.