On Britain’s fond credulity they prey. 
No gainful trade their industry can ’scape,
[q]They sing, they dance, clean shoes, or cure a clap: 
All sciences a fasting Monsieur knows,
And, bid him go to hell, to hell he goes.
[r]Ah! what avails it, that, from slav’ry far,
I drew the breath of life in English air;
Was early taught a Briton’s right to prize,
And lisp the tale of Henry’s victories;
If the gull’d conqueror receives the chain,
And flattery prevails, when arms are vain![G]
[s]Studious to please, and ready to submit,
The supple Gaul was born a parasite: 
Still to his int’rest true, where’er he goes,
Wit, brav’ry, worth, his lavish tongue bestows;
In ev’ry face a thousand graces shine,
From ev’ry tongue flows harmony divine.
  [t]These arts in vain our rugged natives try,
Strain out, with fault’ring diffidence, a lie,
And get a kick[H] for awkward flattery. 
  Besides, with justice, this discerning age
Admires their wondrous talents for the stage: 
  [u]Well may they venture on the mimick’s art,
Who play from morn to night a borrow’d part;
Practis’d their master’s notions to embrace,
Repeat his maxims, and reflect his face;
With ev’ry wild absurdity comply,
And view each object with another’s eye;
To shake with laughter, ere the jest they hear,
To pour at will the counterfeited tear;
And, as their patron hints the cold or heat. 
To shake in dog-days, in December sweat.
  [x]How, when competitors, like these, contend,
Can surly virtue hope to fix a friend? 
Slaves that with serious impudence beguile,
And lie without a blush, without a smile;
Exalt each trifle, ev’ry vice adore,
Your taste in snuff, your judgment in a whore: 
Can Balbo’s eloquence applaud, and swear,
He gropes his breeches with a monarch’s air. 
  For arts, like these, preferr’d, admir’d, caress’d,
They first invade your table, then your breast;
[y]Explore your secrets with insidious art,
Watch the weak hour, and ransack all the heart;
Then soon your ill-placed confidence repay,
Commence your lords, and govern or betray.
  [z]By numbers here from shame or censure free,
All crimes are safe, but hated poverty. 
This, only this, the rigid law pursues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling muse. 
The sober trader at a tatter’d cloak
Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.
[aa]Of all the griefs, that harass the distress’d,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen’rous heart,
Than when a blockhead’s insult points the dart.
  [bb]Has heaven reserv’d, in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste, or undiscover’d shore? 
No secret island in the boundless main? 
No peaceful desert, yet unclaim’d by Spain?[I]
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore,