Page 86 - Graveyard

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time who could cheat without the mask of honesty: retain his primeval
meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year; and having daily
deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at last condemned to it for
what he could not do. Oh! indignant reader, think not his life useless to
mankind. Providence connived at his execrable designs, to give to after
ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small estimation is
exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by His bestowing it on the most
unworthy of all mortals.

237. On Jack and Joan, by Matthew Prior:—

Interr’d beneath this marble stone
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan;
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run;
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple just the same.
They walked and ate, good folks: what then?
Why, then they walked and ate again;
They soundly slept the night away,
They did just nothing all the day;
Nor sister either had nor brother,
They seem’d just tallied for each other.
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree;
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trespass’d on the other’s ground.
Nor fame nor censure they regarded,
They neither punished nor rewarded;
He cared not what the footman did;
Her maids she never prais’d nor chid:
So every servant took his course,
And bad at first, they all grew worse.
Slothful disorder filled his stable,
And sluttish plenty deck’d her table.