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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395914" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Borough. Letter V: The Election</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">YES, our Election's past, and we've been free,<br>Somewhat as madmen without keepers be;<br>And such desire of Freedom has been shown,<br>That both the parties wish'd her all their own:<br>All our free smiths and cobblers in the town<br>Were loth to lay such pleasant freedom down;<br>To put the bludgeon and cockade aside,<br>And let us pass unhurt and undefied.<br>True! you might then your party's sign produce,<br>And so escape with only half th' abuse:<br>With half the danger as you walk'd along,<br>With rage and threat'ning but from half the throng.<br>This you might do, and not your fortune mend,<br>For where you lost a foe you gain'd a friend;<br>And to distress you, vex you, and expose,<br>Election-friends are worse than any foes;<br>The party-curse is with the canvass past,<br>But party-friendship, for jour grief, will last.<br>Friends of all kinds; the civil and the rude,<br>Who humbly wish, or boldly dare t'intrude:<br>These beg or take a liberty to come<br>(Friends should be free), and make your house their home;<br>They know that warmly you their cause espouse,<br>And come to make their boastings and their bows;<br>You scorn their manners, you their words mistrust,<br>But you must hear them, and they know you must.<br>One plainly sees a friendship firm and true,<br>Between the noble candidate and you;<br>So humbly begs (and states at large the case),<br>'You'll think of Bobby and the little place.'<br>Stifling his shame by drink, a wretch will come,<br>And prate your wife and daughter from the room:<br>In pain you hear him, and at heart despise,<br>Yet with heroic mind your pangs disguise;<br>And still in patience to the sot attend,<br>To show what man can bear to serve a friend.<br>One enters hungry--not to be denied,<br>And takes his place and jokes--'We're of a side.'<br>Yet worse, the proser who, upon the strength<br>Of his one vote, has tales of three hours' length;<br>This sorry rogue you bear, yet with surprise<br>Start at his oaths, and sicken at his lies.<br>Then comes there one, and tells in friendly way<br>What the opponents in their anger say;<br>All that through life has vex'd you, all abuse,<br>Will this kind friend in pure regard produce;<br>And having through your own offences run,<br>Adds (as appendage) what your friends have done,<br>Has any female cousin made a trip<br>To Gretna Green, or more vexatious slip?<br>Has your wife's brother, or your uncle's son,<br>Done aught amiss, or is he thought t'have done?<br>Is there of all your kindred some who lack<br>Vision direct, or have a gibbous back?<br>From your unlucky name may quips and puns<br>Be made by these upbraiding Goths and Huns?<br>To some great public character have you<br>Assigned the fame to worth and talents due,<br>Proud of your praise?--In this, in any case,<br>Where the brute-spirit may affix disgrace,<br>These friends will smiling bring it, and the while<br>You silent sit, and practise for a smile.<br>Vain of their power, and of their value sure,<br>They nearly guess the tortures you endure;<br>Nor spare one pang--for they perceive your heart<br>Goes with the cause; you'd die before you'd start;<br>Do what they may, they're sure you'll not offend<br>Men who have pledged their honours to your friend.<br>Those friends indeed, who start as in a race,<br>May love the sport, and laugh at this disgrace;<br>They have in view the glory and the prize,<br>Nor heed the dirty steps by which they rise:<br>But we their poor associates lose the fame,<br>Though more than partners in the toil and shame.<br>Were this the whole; and did the time produce<br>But shame and toil, but riot and abuse;<br>We might be then from serious griefs exempt,<br>And view the whole with pity and contempt.<br>Alas! but here the vilest passions rule;<br>It is Seduction's, is Temptation's school;<br>Where vices mingle in the oddest ways,<br>The grossest slander and the dirtiest praise;<br>Flattery enough to make the vainest sick,<br>And clumsy stratagem, and scoundrel trick:<br>Nay more, your anger and contempt to cause,<br>These, while they fish for profit, claim applause;<br>Bribed, bought, and bound, they banish shame and fear;<br>Tell you they're staunch, and have a soul sincere;<br>Then talk of honour, and, if doubt's express'd,<br>Show where it lies, and smite upon the breast.<br>Among these worthies, some at first declare<br>For whom they vote: he then has most to spare;<br>Others hang off--when coming to the post<br>Is spurring time, and then he'll spare the most:<br>While some demurring, wait, and find at last<br>The bidding languish, and the market past;<br>These will affect all bribery to condemn,<br>And be it Satan laughs, he laughs at them.<br>Some too are pious--One desired the Lord<br>To teach him where 'to drop his little word;<br>To lend his vote where it will profit best;<br>Promotion came not from the east or west;<br>But as their freedom had promoted some,<br>He should be glad to know which way 'twould come.<br>It was a naughty world, and where to sell<br>His precious charge, was more than he could tell.'<br>'But you succeeded?'--True, at mighty cost,<br>And our good friend, I fear, will think he's lost:<br>Inns, horses, chaises, dinners, balls, and notes;<br>What fill'd their purses, and what drench'd their throats;<br>The private pension, and indulgent lease, -<br>Have all been granted to these friends who fleece;<br>Friends who will hang like burs upon his coat,<br>And boundless judge the value of a vote.<br>And though the terrors of the time be pass'd,<br>There still remain the scatterings of the blast;<br>The boughs are parted that entwined before,<br>And ancient harmony exists no more;<br>The gusts of wrath our peaceful seats deform,<br>And sadly flows the sighing of the storm:<br>Those who have gain'd are sorry for the gloom,<br>But they who lost, unwilling peace should come;<br>There open envy, here suppress'd delight,<br>Yet live till time shall better thoughts excite,<br>And so prepare us, by a six-years' truce,<br>Again for riot, insult, and abuse.<br>Our worthy Mayor, on the victorious part,<br>Cries out for peace, and cries with all his heart;<br>He, civil creature! ever does his best<br>To banish wrath from every voter's breast;<br>'For where,' says he, with reason strong and plain,<br>'Where is the profit? what will anger gain?'<br>His short stout person he is wont to brace<br>In good brown broad-cloth, edg'd with two-inch lace,<br>When in his seat; and still the coat seems new,<br>Preserved by common use of seaman's blue.<br>He was a fisher from his earliest day,<br>And placed his nets within the Borough's bay;<br>Where, by his skates, his herrings, and his soles,<br>He lived, nor dream'd of Corporation-Doles;<br>But toiling saved, and saving, never ceased<br>Till he had box'd up twelvescore pounds at least:<br>He knew not money's power, but judged it best<br>Safe in his trunk to let his treasure rest;<br>Yet to a friend complain'd: 'Sad charge, to keep<br>So many pounds; and then I cannot sleep:'<br>'Then put it out,' replied the friend: --'What, give<br>My money up? why then I could not live:'<br>'Nay, but for interest place it in his hands<br>Who'll give you mortgage on his house or lands.'<br>'Oh but,' said Daniel, 'that's a dangerous plan;<br>He may be robb'd like any other man:'<br>'Still he is bound, and you may be at rest,<br>More safe the money than within your chest;<br>And you'll receive, from all deductions clear,<br>Five pounds for every hundred, every year.'<br>'What good in that?' quoth Daniel, 'for 'tis plain,<br>If part I take, there can but part remain:'<br>'What! you, my friend, so skill'd in gainful things,<br>Have you to learn what Interest money brings?'<br>'Not so,' said Daniel, 'perfectly I know,<br>He's the most interest who has most to show.'<br>'True! and he'll show the more the more he lends;<br>Thus he his weight and consequence extends;<br>For they who borrow must restore each sum,<br>And pay for use. What, Daniel, art thou dumb?'<br>For much amazed was that good man.--'Indeed!'<br>Said he with gladd'ning eye, 'will money breed?<br>How have I lived ? I grieve, with all my heart,<br>For my late knowledge in this precious art: -<br>Five pounds for every hundred will he give?<br>And then the hundred?--I begin to live.' -<br>So he began, and other means he found,<br>As he went on, to multiply a pound:<br>Though blind so long to Interest, all allow<br>That no man better understands it now:<br>Him in our Body-Corporate we chose,<br>And once among us, he above us rose;<br>Stepping from post to post, he reach'd the Chair,<br>And there he now reposes--that's the Mayor.<br>But 'tis not he, 'tis not the kinder few,<br>The mild, the good, who can our peace renew;<br>A peevish humour swells in every eye,<br>The warm are angry, and the cool are shy;<br>There is no more the social board at whist,<br>The good old partners are with scorn dismiss'd;<br>No more with dog and lantern comes the maid,<br>To guide the mistress when the rubber's play'd;<br>Sad shifts are made lest ribands blue and green<br>Should at one table, at one time, be seen:<br>On care and merit none will now rely,<br>'Tis Party sells what party-friends must buy;<br>The warmest burgess wears a bodger's coat,<br>And fashion gains less int'rest than a vote;<br>Uncheck'd the vintner still his poison vends,<br>For he too votes, and can command his friends.<br>But this admitted; be it still agreed,<br>These ill effects from noble cause proceed;<br>Though like some vile excrescences they be,<br>The tree they spring from is a sacred tree,<br>And its true produce, Strength and Liberty.<br>Yet if we could th' attendant ills suppress,<br>If we could make the sum of mischief less;<br>If we could warm and angry men persuade<br>No more man's common comforts to invade;<br>And that old ease and harmony re-seat,<br>In all our meetings, so in joy to meet;<br>Much would of glory to the Muse ensue,<br>And our good Vicar would have less to do.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395914" data-title="The Borough. Letter V: The Election de George Crabbe" data-description="YES, our Election's past, and we've been free,
Somewhat as madmen without keepers be;
And such desire of Freedom has been shown,
That both the parties wish'd her all their own:
All our free smiths and cobblers in the town
Were loth to lay such ple..."></div>
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