Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/229

Thence the vast herd of earls and barons came,
For virtue each brought nothing but a name;
Soon after, man, fruitful in vanities,
Did blazoning and armory devise,
Pounded a college for the herald's art,
And made a language of their terms apart,
Composed of frightful words, of Chief, and Base,
Of Chevron, Saltier, Canton, Bend, and Fesse,
And whatsoe'er of hideous jargon else
Mad Guilliam and his barbarous volume fills.
Then, farther the wild folly to pursue,
Plain downright honour out of fashion grew;
But to keep up its dignity and birth,
Expense and luxury must set it forth:
It must inhabit stately palaces,
Distinguish servants by their liveries,
And, carrying vast retinues up and down,
The duke and earl be by their pages known.
Thus honour to support itself is brought
To its last shifts, and thence the art has got
Of borrowing everywhere, and paying nought.
'Tis now thought mean, and much beneath a lord,
To be an honest man, and keep his word,
Who, by his peerage and protection safe,
Can plead the privilege to be a knave;
While daily crowds of starving creditors
Are forced to dance attendance at his doors;
Till he, at length, with all his mortgaged lands
Are forfeited into the banker's hands.
Then, to redress his wants, the bankrupt peer
To some rich trading sot turns pensioner;
And the next news you're sure to hear, that he
Is nobly wed into the company,
Where for a portion of ill gotten gold,
Himself and all his ancestors are sold;
And thus repairs his broken family,
At the expense of his own infamy.