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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the gods themselves, as mortals say,

       Were they on earth, would be as drunk as they:

       Nectar would be no more celestial drink,

       They’d all take wine, to teach them how to think.

       But English drunkards, gods and men outdo,

       Drink their estates away, and senses too.

       Colon’s in debt, and if his friend should fail

       To help him out, must die at last in jail:

       His wealthy uncle sent a hundred nobles,

       To pay his trifles off, and rid him of his troubles:

       But Colon, like a true-born Englishman,

       Drunk all the money out in bright champaign,

       And Colon does in custody remain.

       Drunk’ness has been the darling of the realm,

       E’er since a drunken pilot had the helm.

      In their religion, they’re so uneven,

       That each man goes his own byway to heaven.

       Tenacious of mistakes to that degree,

       That ev’ry man pursues it sep’rately,

       And fancies none can find the way but he:

       So shy of one another they are grown,

       As if they strove to get to heaven alone.

       Rigid and zealous, positive and grave,

       And ev’ry grace, but charity, they have;

       This makes them so ill-natured and uncivil,

       That all men think an Englishman the devil.

      Surly to strangers, froward to their friend,

       Submit to love with a reluctant mind,

       Resolved to be ungrateful and unkind.

       If, by necessity, reduced to ask,

       The giver has the difficultest task:

       For what’s bestow’d they awkwardly receive,

       And always take less freely than they give;

       The obligation is their highest grief,

       They never love where they accept relief;

       So sullen in their sorrows, that ’tis known

       They’ll rather die than their afflictions own;

       And if relieved, it is too often true,

       That they’ll abuse their benefactors too;

       For in distress their haughty stomach’s such,

       They hate to see themselves obliged too much;

       Seldom contented, often in the wrong,

       Hard to be pleased at all, and never long.

      If your mistakes there ill opinion gain,

       No merit can their favour re-obtain:

       And if they’re not vindictive in their fury,

       ’Tis their inconstant temper does secure ye:

       Their brain’s so cool, their passion seldom burns;

       For all’s condensed before the flame returns:

       The fermentation’s of so weak a matter,

       The humid damps the flame, and runs it all to water;

       So though the inclination may be strong,

       They’re pleased by fits, and never angry long:

      Then, if good-nature show some slender proof,

       They never think they have reward enough;

       But, like our modern Quakers of the town,

       Expect your manners, and return you none.

      Friendship, th’ abstracted union of the mind,

       Which all men seek, but very few can find;

       Of all the nations in the universe,

       None can talk on’t more, or understand it less;

       For if it does their property annoy,

       Their property their friendship will destroy.

       As you discourse them, you shall hear them tell

       All things in which they think they do excel:

       No panegyric needs their praise record,

       An Englishman ne’er wants his own good word.

       His first discourses gen’rally appear,

       Prologued with his own wond’rous character:

       When, to illustrate his own good name,

       He never fails his neighbour to defame.

       And yet he really designs no wrong,

       His malice goes no further than his tongue.

       But, pleased to tattle, he delights to rail,

       To satisfy the letch’ry of a tale.

       His own dear praises close the ample speech,

       Tells you how wise he is, that is, how rich:

       For wealth is wisdom; he that’s rich is wise;

       And all men learned poverty despise:

       His generosity comes next, and then

       Concludes, that he’s a true-born Englishman;

       And they, ’tis known, are generous and free,

       Forgetting, and forgiving injury:

       Which may be true, thus rightly understood,

       Forgiving ill turns, and forgetting good.

      Cheerful in labour when they’ve undertook it,

       But out of humour, when they’re out of pocket.

       But if their belly and their pocket’s full,

       They may be phlegmatic, but never dull:

       And if a bottle does their brains refine,

       СКАЧАТЬ