The Political Works of Daniel Defoe - Including The True-Born Englishman, An Essay upon Projects, The Complete English Tradesman & The Biography of the Author

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 the less to fear.

Even 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,
It makes their wit as sparkling as their wine.

As for the general vices which we find,
They’re guilty of in common with mankind,
Satire forbear, and silently endure,
We must conceal the crimes we cannot cure;
Nor shall my verse the brighter sex defame,
For English beauty will preserve her name;
Beyond dispute agreeable and fair,
And...