Classic Poem

The London Sheriffs

Search all the Christian climes from pole to pole,
And match for sheriffs Sweetapple and Cole;
Equal in character and dignity,
This famed for justice, that for modesty:
By merit chosen for the chair of state,
This fit for Bridewell, that for Billingsgate;
That richly clad to grace the gaudy day
For which his father's creditors must pay:
This from the fluxing bagnio just dismissed,
Rides out to make himself the city jest.
From some lascivious dish-clout to the chair,
To punish lewdness and disorders there;
The brute he rides on would his crimes detest,
For that's the animal, and this the beast:
And yet some reformation he began;
For magistrates ne'er bear the sword in vain.
Expensive sinning always he declined,
To frugal whoring totally resigned:
His avarice his appetite oppressed,
Base like the man, and brutish like the lust:
Concise in sinning, nature's call supplied,
And in one act two vices gratified.