The Grumbling Hive : Or,

(H.) Parties directly opposite,
Assist each other, as if for spite;
And temperance with sobriety,
Serve drunkenness and gluttony.
(I.) THE root of evil, avarice,
That damned, ill-natured, baneful vice, vice
Was slave to prodigality, aid
((K.)) That noble sin, ((L.)) whilst luxury ing
Employed a million of the poor,
(M.) And odious pride a million more:
(N.) Envy itself, and vanity,
Were ministers of industry;
Their darling folly, fickleness,
In diet, furniture, and dress,
That strange ridiculous vice, was made
The very wheel that turned the trade.
Their laws and clothes were equally
Objects of mutability;
For, what was well done for a time,
In half a year became a crime;
Yet while they altered thus their laws,
Still finding and correcting flaws,
They mended by inconstancy
Faults, which no prudence could foresee.
THUS vice nursed ingenuity,
Which joined with time and industry,
Had carried life's conveniences,
(O) Its real pleasures, comforts, ease,
(P.) To such a height, the very poor
Lived better than the rich before,
And nothing could be added more.
How vain is mortal happiness!
Had they but known the bounds of bliss;
And that perfection here below
Is more than gods can well bestow;
citizens

The grumbling brutes had been content
With ministers and government.
But they, at every ill success,
Like creatures lost without redress,