These demoniacks let me dub
With the name of Legion club.
Such assemblies, you might swear,
Meet when butchers bait a bear;
Such a noise, and such haranguing,
When a brother thief is hanging;
Such a rout and such a rabble
Run to hear Jackpudding gabble:
Such a crowd their ordure throws
On a far less villain's nose.
Could I from the building's top
Hear the rattling thunder drop,
While the devil upon the roof
(If the devil be thunder-proof)
Should with poker fiery red
Crack the stones, and melt the lead;
Drive them down on every scull,
When the den of thieves is full;
Quite destroy the harpies' nest;
How might then our isle be blest!
For divines allow, that God
Sometimes makes the devil his rod;
And the Gospel will inform us,
He can punish sins enormous.
Yet should Swift endow the schools,
For his lunaticks and fools,
With a rood or two of land;
I allow the pile may stand.
You perhaps will ask me, Why so?
But it is with this proviso:
Since the house is like to last,
Let the royal grant be pass'd,
That the club have right to dwell
Each within his proper cell,
