[Footnote 1:  Who imitated lightning with burning torches and was hurled
into Tartarus by a thunderbolt from Jupiter.—­Hyginus, “Fab.” 
  “Vidi et crudelis dantem Salmonea poenas
  Dum flammas louis et sonitus imitatur Olympi.” 
VIRG., Aen., vi, 585. 
And see the Excursus of Heyne on the passage.—­W.  E. B.]

WILL WOOD’S PETITION TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND

BEING AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG,
SUPPOSED TO BE MADE, AND SUNG IN THE STREETS OF DUBLIN,
BY WILLIAM WOOD, IRONMONGER AND HALFPENNY-MONGER. 1725

    My dear Irish folks,
    Come leave off your jokes,
And buy up my halfpence so fine;
    So fair and so bright
    They’ll give you delight;
Observe how they glisten and shine!

    They’ll sell to my grief
    As cheap as neck-beef,
For counters at cards to your wife;
    And every day
    Your children may play
Span-farthing or toss on the knife.

    Come hither and try,
    I’ll teach you to buy
A pot of good ale for a farthing;
    Come, threepence a score,
    I ask you no more,
And a fig for the Drapier and Harding.[1]

    When tradesmen have gold,
    The thief will be bold,
By day and by night for to rob him: 
    My copper is such,
    No robber will touch,
And so you may daintily bob him.

    The little blackguard
    Who gets very hard
His halfpence for cleaning your shoes: 
    When his pockets are cramm’d
    With mine, and be d—­d,
He may swear he has nothing to lose.

    Here’s halfpence in plenty,
    For one you’ll have twenty,
Though thousands are not worth a pudden. 
    Your neighbours will think,
    When your pocket cries chink. 
You are grown plaguy rich on a sudden.

    You will be my thankers,
    I’ll make you my bankers,
As good as Ben Burton or Fade;[2]
    For nothing shall pass
    But my pretty brass,
And then you’ll be all of a trade.

    I’m a son of a whore
    If I have a word more
To say in this wretched condition. 
    If my coin will not pass,
    I must die like an ass;
And so I conclude my petition.

[Footnote 1:  The Drapier’s printer.]

[Footnote 2:  Two famous bankers.]

A NEW SONG ON WOOD’S HALFPENCE

Ye people of Ireland, both country and city,
Come listen with patience, and hear out my ditty: 
At this time I’ll choose to be wiser than witty. 
          Which nobody can deny.

The halfpence are coming, the nation’s undoing,
There’s an end of your ploughing, and baking, and brewing;
In short, you must all go to wreck and to ruin. 
          Which, &c.

Both high men and low men, and thick men and tall men,
And rich men and poor men, and free men and thrall men,
Will suffer; and this man, and that man, and all men. 
          Which, &c.