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Our state-artificer forefaw

Which way the world began to draw:
For as old finners have all points

O' th' compass in their bones and joints,
Can by their pangs and aches find
All turns and changes of the wind,

And better than by Napier's bones,
Feel in their own the

age of So guilty finners, in a state,

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moons;

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Can by their crimes prognosticate,
And in their confciences feel pain
Some days before a fhow'r of rain :
He therefore wifely caft about

All ways he could t' enfure his throat,
And hither came, t' obferve and smoke
What courses other riskers took,

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And to the utmost do his best

To fave himself, and hang the rest.

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To match this faint there was another,

As bufy and perverse a brother,

An haberdasher of small wares

In politics and state-affairs;

More Jew than Rabbi Achithophel,

And better gifted to rebel;

For when h' had taught his tribe to 'spouse

The cause, aloft upon one house,

He fcorn'd to fet his own in order,

But try'd another, and went further;
So fuddenly addicted still

To's only principle, his will,

That, whatsoe'er it chanc'd to prove,
No force of argument could move,

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Nor law, nor cavalcade of Ho'burn,

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Cou'd render half a ‍grain less stubborn ;

For he at any time would hang,

For th' opportunity ť' harangue ;

And rather on a gibbet dangle,

Than miss his dear delight, to wrangle;

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In which his parts were fo accomplish'd,
That, right or wrong, he ne'er was non-plust :
But ftill his tongue ran on, the less

Of weight it bore, with greater eafe;

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Not by the force of carnal reason,
But indefatigable teafing;
With vollies of eternal babble,
And clamour, more unanswerable:
For tho' his topics, frail and weak,
Cou'd ne'er amount above a freak,

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He still maintain'd 'em, like his faults,
Against the desp’ratest assaults ;
And back'd their feeble want of fenfe,
With greater heat and confidence:
As bones of Hectors, when they differ,

The more they're cudgel'd, grow the stiffer.
Yet when this profit moderated,

The fury of his heat abated;

For nothing but his intereft

Could lay his devil of contest:

It was his choice, or chance, or curse,
T'espouse the cause for better or worse,
And with his worldly goods and wit,
And foul and body worshipp'd it:
But when he found the fullen trapes

Poffefs'd with th' devil, worms, and claps ;

The Trojan mare, in foal with Greeks,

Not half fo full of jadish tricks,

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Tho' fqueamish in her outward woman,
As loose and rampant as Doll Common;
He still refolv'd to mend the matter,
T'adhere and cleave the obftinater;
And ftill the fkittisher and loofer

Her freaks appear'd, to fit the closer :
For fools are ftubborn in their way,
As coins are harden'd by th' allay:
And obftinacy's ne'er so stiff,

As when 'tis in a wrong belief.

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