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Thomas Moore - An Expostulation to Lord King
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How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all
The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn,
When you know, if one hasn`t a very high rental,
`Tis hardly worth while being very high born?

Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life,
On a question, my Lord, there`s so much to abhor in?
A question - like asking one, "How is your wife?" —
At once so confounded domestic and foreign.

As to weavers, no matter how poorly they feast;
But Peers, and such animals, fed up for show,
(Like the well-physick`d elephant, lately deceas`d,)
Take wonderful quantum of cramming, you know.

You might see, my dear Baron, how bor`d and distrest
Were their high noble hearts by your merciless tale,
When the force of the agony wrung even a jest
From the frugal Scotch wit of my Lord L-d-d-le!

Bright Peer! to whom Nature and Berwickshire gave
A humour, endow`d with effects so provoking,
That, when the whole House looks unusually grave,
You may always conclude that Lord L-d-d-le`s joking!

And then, those unfortunate weavers of Perth -
Not to know the vast difference Providence dooms
Between weavers of Perth and Peers of high birth,
`Twixt those who have heir-looms, and those who`ve but looms!

"To talk now of starving!" - as great Ath-l said —
(and nobles all cheer`d, and the bishops all wonder`d,)
"When, some years ago, he and others had fed
Of these same hungry devils about fifteen hundred!"

It follows from hence - and the Duke`s very words
Should be publish`d wherever poor rogues of this craft are —
That weavers,once rescued from starving by Lords,
Are bound to be starved by said Lords ever after.

When Rome was uproarious, her knowing patricians
Made "Bread and the Circus" a cure for each row;
But not so the plan of our noble physicians,
"No Bread and the Tread-mill" `s the regimen now.

So cease, my dear Baron of Ockham, your prose,
As I shall my poetry — neither convinces;
And all we have spoken and written but show,
When you tread on a nobleman`s corn, how he winces.
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