When Fortune favour'd, he was nice;
He never once would cog the dice;
But, if she turn'd against his play,
He knew to stop _a quatre trois_.
Now sound in mind, and sound in _corpus_,
(Says he) though swell'd like any porpoise,
He hies from hence at forty-four
(But by his leave he sinks a score)
To the East Indies, there to cheat,
Till he can purchase an estate;
Where, after he has fill'd his chest,
He'll mount his tub, and preach his best,
And plainly prove, by dint of text,
This world is his, and theirs the next.
Lest that the reader should not know
The bank where last he set his toe,
'Twas Greenwich. There he took a ship,
And gave his creditors the slip.
But lest chronology should vary,
Upon the ides of February,
In seventeen hundred eight-and-twenty,
To Fort St. George, a pedler went he.
Ye Fates, when all he gets is spent,
RETURN HIM BEGGAR AS HE WENT!
[Footnote 1: INSCRIPTION,
BY DEAN SMEDLEY, 1729.
[*text centered]
Reverendus Decanus, JONATHAN SMEDLEY,
Theologia instructus, in Poesi exercitatus,
Politioribus excultus literis;
Parce pius, impius minime;
Veritatis Indagator, Libertatis Assertor;
Subsannatus multis, fastiditus quibusdam,
Exoptatus plurimis, omnibus amicus,
Auctor hujus sententiae, PATRES SUNT VETULAE.
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