THOUGHTS.
231
It wou'd have nothing left to do,
T'apply in Jest or Earnest to,
No Business of Importance, Play,
Or State, to pass its Time away.
The World would be more just, if Truth and Lies,
And Right and Wrong did bear an equal Price;
But since Impostures are so highly rais'd,
And Faith and Justice equally debas'd,
Few Men have Tempers for such paltry Gains
T'undo themselves with Drudgery and Pains.
The sottish World without Distinction looks
On all that passes on th' account of Books;
And, when there are two Scholars, that within
The Species only hardly are a-kin,
The World will pass for Men of equal Knowledge,
If equally th' have loiter'd in a College.
Critics are like a Kind of Flies, that breed,
In wild Fig-trees, and when th' are grown up feed
T'apply in Jest or Earnest to,
No Business of Importance, Play,
Or State, to pass its Time away.
The World would be more just, if Truth and Lies,
And Right and Wrong did bear an equal Price;
But since Impostures are so highly rais'd,
And Faith and Justice equally debas'd,
Few Men have Tempers for such paltry Gains
T'undo themselves with Drudgery and Pains.
The sottish World without Distinction looks
On all that passes on th' account of Books;
And, when there are two Scholars, that within
The Species only hardly are a-kin,
The World will pass for Men of equal Knowledge,
If equally th' have loiter'd in a College.
Critics are like a Kind of Flies, that breed,
In wild Fig-trees, and when th' are grown up feed
