He is Vanity’s child, that can have no pretence,
To think himself clever or gifted with sense.
   I stated the clergy would half-a-crown grutch,
Except they were sure it was good for the church;
I mean there are some that to avarice give way,
And too much at times do her precepts obey.
Respect to the clergy at all times is due,
And many I know keep our welfare in view:
So good an example our lov’d Bishop maintain,
As induce his large flock many times to refrain
From committing an action unjust or severe,
Least an unwelcome tale should be told in his ear.
Where tithes are too heavy for farmers to pay,
It induce them from church to be often away,
Their sentiments these can I hear a man preach,
Who do not by his conduct this good sentence teach,
To do unto others as he would be done by.
When friendship is needful don’t that boon deny,
Many clergy are forc’d three time in a day,
To attend at three churches, short must be his stay;
When that is the case the sermon so short,
The gospel to others very badly is taught;
So hurried they are, that it force them to pray,
In a manner you cannot hear half what they say:
Many villages shew the truth I now state,
And too many witness the fact I relate

Our duty as men to religion we owe,
The strictest attention and not outward show;
Every clergyman ought to have Sir I declare,
At least to support him two hundred a year;
And every man much his duty neglect,
Who admits at all times to pay them due respect;
At the same time a duty they owe to the nation,
To act at all times as becometh their station;
By example and precept most strictly to prove,
They preach the true Gospel sent us from above;
Not only preach it but act in a way
As denote God’s commands they most strictly obey.
In my youthful days ’twas ne’er thought a treat,
When farmers most truly did each other meet;
’Twas the custom to drink till you could drink no more,
Ere you left your neighbour’s old fashion’d door;
And when to our market they weekly did roam,
Was sure to get tipsy ere they return’d home.
Now their manners are alter’d most steady come back,
With an ardent desire to peruse Mr. Mack;
On what he advances on the culture of land,
Most Yeomen can read and can well understand.
Refin’d are their manners, with judgment survey
Such books as by chance may fall in their way;
Book Clubs assist them the mind to refine,
Such proper support they do not decline.
The females well copy, it’s daily their rule
To get further improvement when taken from school.

Miss can chat with the curate or country squire,
Most ladies these gentlemen greatly admire.
No sooner the curate a living obtain,
Then his visits renew Sir, again and again.
Although he has taken a tenth from the land,
Miss seems not inclin’d to refuse him her hand;
No longer exclaims against exactions of tithe,
A shilling advance much her spirits revive.
I dare say care little if ruin’d the town,
So she fly to the ball room or buy a new gown;
If we wish the sweet creatures should us caress,
Is to feed them with money and let them have dress
A Piano Forte will lost love regain,
In return they will play in a beautiful strain.
Old as I am, when the dear creatures play,
I’m very unwilling to hasten away.
Music they say charms the beasts in the field,
No wonder then men to such pleasures must yield.
To take a gay lass and make her your wife,
To guard off the baliffs or ward off keen strife.
He ought to have more then five hundred a year,
As a dowry at least with the delicate fair,
Some