To the Turn of “A COBLER THERE WAS,” &c.

Ye boobies of Britain, who lately thought fit
The care of the state to a child to commit,
Pray how do you like your young Minister’s budget?
Should he take your last farthing, you never can grudge it.
Deny down, &c

A tax on your heads! there’d be justice in that;
But he only proposes a tax on your hat;
So let every ENGLISHMAN throw up his beaver,
And hollo. Prerogative BILLY for ever!
Deny down, &c

Not being much favour’d with female applauses,
He takes his revenge on their ribands and gauzes;
Then should not each female, Wife, Widow, or Miss,
To Coventry send master BILLY for this?
Deny down, &c

How oft has he told us his views were upright!
That his actions would all bear the test of the light!
Yet he sure in the dark must have something to do,
Who shuts out both day-light and candle-light too.
Deny down, &c

JOHN BULL’s house is tax’d, so he plays him a trick,
By cunningly laying a duty on brick;
Thus JOHN for his dwelling is fore’d to pay twice,
But BILLY hopes JOHN will not smoke the device.
Deny down, &c

What little we may have by industry made,
We must pay for a licence to set up a trade;
So that ev’ry poor devil must now be tax’d more
For dealing in goods that paid taxes before.
Deny down, &c

The Callico-printers may beg if they please;
As dry as a sponge he their cotton will squeeze;
With their tears let them print their own linens, cries he,
But they never shall make an impression on me,
Deny down, &c

The crazy old hackney-coach, almost broke down,
Must now pay ten shillings instead of a crown;
And to break him down quite, if the first will not do’t,
Ten shillings a-piece on his horses to boot.
Deny down, &c

The tax upon horses may not be severe,
But his scheme for collecting it seems very queer;
Did a school-boy e’er dream of a project so idle?
A tax on a horse by a stamp on a bridle!
Deny down, &c

The tax upon sportsmen I hold to be right;
And only lament that the tax is so light;
But, alas! it is light for this palpable cause,
That sportsmen themselves are the makers of laws!
Deny down, &c

He fain would have meddled with coals, but I wot
For his fingers the Gentleman found them too hot;
The rich did not like it, and so to be sure,
In its place he must find out a tax on the poor.
Deny down, &c

Then last, that our murmurs may teaze him the less,
By a tax upon paper he’d silence the press;
So our sorrow by singing can ne’er be relax’d,
Since a song upon taxes itself must be tax’d.
Deny down, &c

But now it is time I should finish my song,
And I wish from my soul that it was not so long,
Since at length it evinces in trusting to PITT,
Good neighbours, we all have been cursedly bit.
Deny down, &c