On a Printer's Being Sent to Newgate

Better we all were in our graves,
Than live in slavery to slaves;
Worse than the anarchy at sea,
Where fishes on each other prey;
Where every trout can make as high rants
O'er his inferiors, as our tyrants;
And swagger while the coast is clear:
But should a lordly pike appear,
Away you see the varlet scud,
Or hide his coward snout in mud.
Thus, if a gudgeon meet a roach,
He dares not venture to approach;
Yet still has impudence to rise,
And, like Domitian, leap at flies.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Faulkner, for printing the "Proposal for the better
Regulation and Improvement of Quadrille."]

[Footnote 2: "Inter initia principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum
sumere solebat, nec quicquam amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo
praeacuto configere; ut cuidam interroganti, essetne quis intus cum
Caesare, non absurde responsum sit a Vibio Crispo, ne muscam quidem"
(Suet. 3).—W. E. B.]