Whether you 're paid by government in bribes,
To prove the public debt is not consuming us—
Or, roughly treading on the 'courtier's kibes'
With clownish heel, your popular circulation
Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation;—
O, ye great authors!—'Apropos des bottes,'-
I have forgotten what I meant to say,
As sometimes have been greater sages' lots;
'T was something calculated to allay
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:
Certes it would have been but thrown away,