Daniel Defoe: Political Writings (Including The True-Born Englishman, An Essay upon Projects, The Complete English Tradesman & The Biography of the Author). Даниэль Дефо

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      Part II.

       Table of Contents

      The breed’s described: now, Satire, if you can,

       Their temper show, for manners make the man.

       Fierce as the Briton, as the Roman brave,

       And less inclined to conquer than to save;

       Eager to fight, and lavish of their blood,

       And equally of fear and forecast void.

       The Pict has made them sour, the Dane morose,

       False from the Scot, and from the Norman worse.

       What honesty they have, the Saxon gave them,

       And that, now they grow old, begins to leave them.

       The climate makes them terrible and bold:

       And English beef their courage does uphold:

       No danger can their daring spirit dull,

       Always provided when their belly’s full.

      In close intrigues, their faculty’s but weak;

       For, gen’rally, whate’er they know they speak.

       And often their own councils undermine

       By their infirmity, and not design.

       From whence, the learned say, it does proceed,

       That English treason never can succeed:

       For they’re so open-hearted, you may know

       Their own most secret thoughts, and others too.

      The lab’ring poor, in spite of double pay,

       Are saucy, mutinous, and beggarly;

       So lavish of their money and their time,

       That want of forecast is the nation’s crime.

       Good drunken company is their delight;

       And what they get by day they spend by night.

       Dull thinking seldom does their heads engage,

       But drink their youth away, and hurry on old age.

       Empty of all good husbandry and sense;

       And void of manners most when void of pence.

       Their strong aversion to behaviour’s such,

       They always talk too little or too much.

       So dull, they never take the pains to think;

       And seldom are good natured but in drink.

      In English ale their dear enjoyment lies,

       For which they starve themselves and families.

       An Englishman will fairly drink as much,

       As will maintain two families of Dutch:

       Subjecting all their labours to the pots;

       The greatest artists are the greatest sots.

       The country poor do by example live;

       The gentry lead them, and the clergy drive;

       What may we not from such examples hope?

       The landlord is their god, the priest their pope;

       A drunken clergy, and a swearing bench,

       Has given the reformation such a drench,

       As wise men think, there is some cause to doubt,

       Will purge good manners and religion out.

      Nor do the poor alone their liquor prize,

       The sages join in this great sacrifice;

       The learned men who study Aristotle,

       Correct him with an explanation bottle:

       Praise Epicurus rather than Lysander,

       And Aristippus more than Alexander;

       The doctors too their Galen here resign,

       And generally prescribe specific wine;

       The graduate’s study’s grown an easy task,

       While for the urinal they toss the flask;

       The surgeon’s art grows plainer every hour,

       And wine’s the balm which into wounds they pour.

      Poets long since Parnassus have forsaken,

       And say the ancient bards were all mistaken.

       Apollo’s lately abdicate and fled,

       And good king Bacchus reigneth in his stead:

       He does the chaos of the head refine,

       And atom thoughts jump into words by wine:

       The inspiration’s of a finer nature,

       As wine must needs excel Parnassus water.

      Statesmen their weighty politics refine,

       And soldiers raise their courages by wine.

       Cecilia gives her choristers their choice,

       And lets them all drink wine to clear the voice.

      Some think the clergy first found out the way,

       And wine’s the only spirit by which they pray.

       But others, less profane than so, agree,

       It clears the lungs, and helps the memory:

       And, therefore, all of them divinely think,

       Instead of study, ’tis as well to drink.

      And here I would be very glad to know,

       Whether our Asgilites may drink or no;

       The enlightening fumes of wine would certainly

       Assist them much when they begin to fly;

       Or if a fiery chariot should appear,

       Inflamed by wine, they’d have СКАЧАТЬ