Mark my address, and learn my style,
When to look scornful, when to smile;
Nor sputter out your oaths so fast,
But keep your swearing to the last.
Then at our leisure we'll be witty,
And in the streets divert the city;
The ladies from the windows gaping,
The children all our motions aping.
Your conversation to refine,
I'll take you to some friend of mine;
Choice spirits, who employ their parts
To mend the world by useful arts;
Some cleansing hollow tubes, to spy
Direct the zenith of the sky;
Some have the city in their care,
From noxious steams to purge the air:
Some teach us in these dangerous days
How to walk upright in our ways;
Some whose reforming hands engage
To lash the lewdness of the age;
Some for the publick service go
Perpetual envoys to and fro;
Whose able heads support the weight
Of twenty ministers of state.
We scorn, for want of talk, to jabber
Of parties o'er our bonnyclabber;
Nor are we studious to inquire,
Who votes for manors, who for hire:
Our care is, to improve the mind
With what concerns all human kind;
The various scenes of mortal life;
Who beats her husband, who his wife:
Or how the bully at a stroke
Knock'd down the boy, the lantern broke.
