With greater outrages to others done,
Which daily happen, and alarm the town.
Compare the villains who cut throats for bread,
Or houses fire, of late a gainful trade,
By which our city was in ashes laid;
Compare the sacrilegious burglary,
From which no place can sanctuary be,
That rifles churches of communion-plate,
Which good King Edward's days did dedicate;
Think, who durst steal St. Alban's font of brass,
That christened half the royal Scottish race;
Who stole the chalices at Chichester,
In which themselves received the day before;
Or that bold daring hand, of fresh renown,
Who, scorning common booty, stole a crown,
Compare too, if you please, the horrid plot,
With all the perjuries to make it out,
Or make it nothing, for these last three years;
Add to it Thynne's[1] and Godfrey's murderers;
And if these seem but slight and trivial things,
Add those, that have, and would have murdered kings.
And yet how little's this of villany
To what our judges oft in one day try?
This to convince you, do but travel down,
When the next Circuit comes, with Pemberton,
Or any of the Twelve, and there but mind,
How many rogues there are of human kind,
And let me hear you, when you're back again,
Say you are wronged, and, if you dare, complain.
None wonder, who in Essex hundreds live,
Or Sheppy Island, to have agues rife;
- ↑ Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, in Wiltshire, murdered in his coach, close to Pall Mall, at the bottom of the Haymarket, by assassins hired by Count Koningsmark, on the night of the 12th February, 1681-2. Thynne was engaged in marriage to the Lady Elizabeth Percy, and Koningsmark was instigated to this atrocious act either by jealousy, or his desire to possess himself of the lady's wealth. He was tried for the murder, and acquitted; but the assassins he employed were executed on the spot where it took place.
