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[Transcriber's Note: This satire in verse by Daniel Defoe (c.
1659-1731) was first published in 1701 under the title, _The True-Born
Englishman. A Satyr_, and went through numerous editions in Defoe's
lifetime. This e-book was prepared from _The Novels and Miscellaneous
Works of Daniel De Foe_, Volume 5 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855), in
which the spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have apparently
been modernized. Obvious printer errors have been corrected. A table
of contents has been added for the reader's convenience.]




THE

TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN:

A

SATIRE.


Statuimus pacem, et securitatem et concordiam judicum et justiciam
inter Anglos et Normannos, Francos et Britanes, Walliae, et Cornubiae,
Pictos et Scotos, Albaniae, similiter inter Francos et insulanos
provincias et patrias, quae pertinent ad coronam nostram, et inter
omnes nobis subjectos firmiter et inviolabiliter observare.

Charta Regis Gullielmi Conquisitoris de Pacis Publica, cap. i.




CONTENTS


AN EXPLANATORY PREFACE.

PREFACE.

THE INTRODUCTION.

THE TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN.

PART I.

PART II.

BRITANNIA.

HIS FINE SPEECH, &c.

THE CONCLUSION.




AN

EXPLANATORY PREFACE.


It is not that I see any reason to alter my opinion in any thing I
have writ, which occasions this epistle; but I find it necessary for
the satisfaction of some persons of honour, as well as wit, to pass a
short explication upon it; and tell the world what I mean, or rather,
what I do not mean, in some things wherein I find I am liable to be
misunderstood.

I confess myself something surpris'd to hear that I am taxed with
bewraying my own nest, and abusing our nation, by discovering the
meanness of our original, in order to make the English contemptible
abroad and at home; in which, I think, they are mistaken: for why
should not our neighbours be as good as we to derive from? And I must
add, that had we been an unmix'd nation, I am of opinion it had been
to our disadvantage: for to go no farther, we have three nations about
us as clear from mixtures of blood as any in the world, and I know not
which of them I could wish ourselves to be like; I mean the Scots, the
Welsh, and the Irish; and if I were to write a reverse to the Satire,
I would examine all the nations of Europe, and prove, that those
nations which are most mix'd, are the best, and have least of
barbarism and brutality among them; and abundance of reasons might be
given for it, too long to bring into a Preface.

But I give this hint, to let the world know, that I am far from
thinking, 'tis a Satire upon the English nation, to tell them, they
are derived from all the nations under heaven; that is, from several
nations. Nor is it meant to undervalue the original of the English,
for we see no reason to like them worse, being the relicts of Romans,
Danes, Saxons and Normans, than we should have done if they had
remain'd Britons, that is, than if they had been all Welshmen.

But the intent of the Satire is pointed at the vanity of those who
talk of their antiquity, and value themselves upon their pedigree,
their ancient families, and being true-born; whereas 'tis impossible
we should be true-born: and if we could, should have lost by the
bargain.

These sort of people, who call themselves true-born, and tell long
stories of their families, and like a nobleman of Venice, think a
foreigner ought not to walk on the same side of the street with them,
are own'd to be meant in this Satire. What they would infer from their
long original, I know not, nor is it easy to make out whether they are
the better or the worse for their ancestors: our English nation may
value themselves for their wit, wealth and courage, and I believe few
nations will dispute it with them; but for long originals, and ancient
true-born families of English, I would advise them to wave the
discourse. A true Englishman is one that deserves a character, and I
have nowhere lessened him, that I know of; but as for a true-born
Englishman, I confess I do not understand him.

From hence I only infer, that an Englishman, of all men, ought not to
despise foreigners as such, and I think the inference is just, since
what they are to-day, we were yesterday, and to-morrow they will be
like us. If foreigners misbehave in their several stations and
employments, I have nothing to do with that; the laws are open to
punish them equally with natives, and let them have no favour.

But when I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against
Dutchmen, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached
and insulted by insolent pedants, and ballad-making poets, for
employing foreigners, and for being a foreigner himself, I confess
myself moved by it to remind our nation of their own original, thereby
to let them see what a banter is put upon ourselves in it; since
speaking of Englishmen _ab origine_, we are really all foreigners
ourselves.

I could go on to prove it is also impolitic in us to discourage
foreigners; since it is easy to make it appear that the multitudes of
foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here, have been the greatest
additions to the wealth and strength of the nation; the essential
whereof is the number of its inhabitants; nor would this nation ever
have arrived to the degree of wealth and glory it now boasts of, if
the addition of foreign nations, both as to manufactures and arms,
had not been helpful to it. This is so plain, that he who is ignorant
of it, is too dull to be talked with.

The Satire therefore I must allow to be just, till I am otherwise
convinced; because nothing can be more ridiculous than to hear our
people boast of that antiquity, which if it had been true, would have
left us in so much worse a condition than we are in now: whereas we
ought rather to boast among our neighbours, that we are part of
themselves, of the same original as they, but bettered by our climate,
and like our language and manufactures, derived from them, and
improved by us to a perfection greater than they can pretend to.

This we might have valued ourselves upon without vanity; but to disown
our descent from them, talk big of our ancient families, and long
originals, and stand at a distance from foreigners, like the
enthusiast in religion, with a Stand off, I am more holy than thou:
this is a thing so ridiculous, in a nation derived from foreigners, as
we are, that I could not but attack them as I have done.

And whereas I am threatened to be called to a public account for this
freedom; and the publisher of this has been newspapered into gaol
already for it; tho' I see nothing in it for which the government can
be displeased; yet if at the same time those people who with an
unlimited arrogance in print, every day affront the king, prescribe
the parliament, and lampoon the government, may be either punished or
restrained, I am content to stand and fall by the public justice of my
native country, which I am not sensible I have anywhere injured.

Nor would I be misunderstood concerning the clergy; with whom, if I
have taken any license more than becomes a Satire, I question not but
those gentlemen, who are men of letters, are also men of so much
candor, as to allow me a loose at the crimes of the guilty, without
thinking the whole profession lashed who are innocent. I profess to
have very mean thoughts of those gentlemen who have deserted their own
principles, and exposed even their morals as well as loyality; but not
at all to think it affects any but such as are concerned in the fact.

Nor would I be misrepresented as to the ingratitude of the English to
the king and his friends; as if I meant the English as a nation, are
so. The contrary is so apparent, that I would hope it should not be
suggested of me: and, therefore when I have brought in Britannia
speaking of the king, I suppose her to be the representative or mouth
of the nation, as a body. But if I say we are full of such who daily
affront the king, and abuse his friends; who print scurrilous
pamphlets, virulent lampoons, and reproachful public banters, against
both the king's person and his government; I say nothing but what is
too true; and that the Satire is directed at such, I freely own; and
cannot say, but I should think it very hard to be censured for this
Satire, while such remain unquestioned and tacitly approved. That I
can mean none but such, is plain from these few lines, page 453.
[Transcriber's Note: This reference is to a page number in the 1855
reprint edition.]

     Ye heavens regard! Almighty Jove, look down,
     And view thy injured monarch on the throne.
     On their ungrateful heads due vengeance take,
     Who sought his aid, and then his part forsake.

If I have fallen rudely upon our vices, I hope none but the vicious
will be angry. As for writing for interest, I disown it; I have
neither place, nor pension, nor prospect; nor seek none, nor will have
none: if matter of fact justifies the truth of the crimes, the Satire
is just. As to the poetic liberties, I hope the crime is pardonable; I
am content to be stoned, provided none will attack me but the
innocent.

If my countrymen would take the hint, and grow better natured from my
ill-natured poem as some call it; I would say this of it, that though
it is far from the best Satire that ever was wrote, it would do the
most good that ever Satire did.

And yet I am ready to ask pardon of some gentlemen too; who though
they are Englishmen, have good nature enough to see themselves
reproved, and can hear it. These are gentlemen in a true sense, that
can bare to be told of their _faux pas_, and not abuse the reprover.
To such I must say, this is no Satire; they are exceptions to the
general rule; and I value my performance from their generous
approbation, more than I can from any opinion I have of its worth.

The hasty errors of my verse I made my excuse for before; and since
the time I have been upon it has been but little, and my leisure less,
I have all along strove rather to make the thoughts explicit, than the
poem correct. However, I have mended some faults in this edition, and
the rest must be placed to my account.

As to answers, banters, true English Billingsgate, I expect them till
nobody will buy, and then the shop will be shut. Had I wrote it for
the gain of the press, I should have been concerned at its being
printed again, and again, by pirates, as they call them, and
paragraph-men; but would they but do it justice, and print it true,
according to the copy, they are welcome to sell it for a penny, if
they please.

The pence, indeed, is the end of their works. I will engage if nobody
will buy, nobody will write: and not a patriot poet of them all, now
will in defence of his native country, which I have abused, they say,
print an answer to it, and give it about for God's sake.




PREFACE.


The end of satire is reformation: and the author, though he doubt the
work of conversion is at a general stop, has put his hand in the
plough. I expect a storm of ill language from the fury of the town.
And especially from those whose English talent it is to rail: and,
without being taken for a conjuror, I may venture to foretel, that I
shall be cavilled at about my mean style, rough verse, and incorrect
language, things I indeed might have taken more care in. But the book
is printed; and though I see some faults, it is too late to mend them.
And this is all I think needful to say to them.

Possibly somebody may take me for a Dutchman; in which they are
mistaken: but I am one that would be glad to see Englishmen behave
themselves better to strangers, and to governors also, that one might
not be reproached in foreign countries for belonging to a nation that
wants manners.

I assure you, gentlemen, strangers use us better abroad; and we can
give no reason but our ill-nature for the contrary here.

Methinks an Englishman who is so proud of being called a good fellow,
should be civil. And it cannot be denied, but we are, in many cases,
and particularly to strangers, the most churlish people alive.

As to vices, who can dispute our intemperance, while an honest drunken
fellow is a character in a man's praise? All our reformations are
banters, and will be so till our magistrates and gentry reform
themselves, by way of example; then, and not till then, they may be
expected to punish others without blushing.

As to our ingratitude, I desire to be understood of that particular
people, who pretending to be Protestants, have all along endeavoured
to reduce the liberties and religion of this nation into the hands of
King James and his Popish powers: together with such who enjoy the
peace and protection of the present government, and yet abuse and
affront the king who procured it, and openly profess their uneasiness
under him: these, by whatsoever names or titles they are dignified or
distinguished, are the people aimed at; nor do I disown, but that it
is so much the temper of an Englishman to abuse his benefactor, that I
could be glad to see it rectified.

They who think I have been guilty of any error, in exposing the crimes
of my own countrymen to themselves, may, among many honest instances
of the like nature, find the same thing in Mr. Cowley, in his
imitation of the second Olympic Ode of Pindar; his words are these:--

     But in this thankless world, the givers
     Are envied even by the receivers.
     'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion,
     Rather to hide than pay an obligation.
     Nay, 'tis much worse than so;
     It now an artifice doth grow,
     Wrongs and outrages they do,
     Lest men should think we owe.




THE INTRODUCTION.


Speak, Satire, for there's none can tell like thee,
Whether 'tis folly, pride, or knavery,
That makes this discontented land appear
Less happy now in times of peace, than war:
Why civil feuds disturb the nation more,
Than all our bloody wars have done before.

  Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place,
And men are always honest in disgrace:
The court preferments make men knaves in course:
But they which wou'd be in them wou'd be worse.
'Tis not at foreigners that we repine,
Wou'd foreigners their perquisites resign:
The grand contention's plainly to be seen,
To get some men put out, and some put in.
For this our Senators make long harangues.
And florid Ministers whet their polish'd tongues.
Statesmen are always sick of one disease;
And a good pension gives them present ease.
That's the specific makes them all content
With any King and any government.
Good patriots at court abuses rail,
And all the nation's grievances bewail:
But when the sov'reign balsam's once apply'd,
The zealot never fails to change his side;
And when he must the golden key resign,
The railing spirit comes about again.

  Who shall this bubbl'd nation disabuse,
While they their own felicities refuse?
Who at the wars have made such mighty pother,
And now are falling out with one another:
With needless fears the jealous nations fill,
And always have been sav'd against their will:
Who fifty millions sterling have disburs'd
To be with peace, and too much plenty, curs'd;
Who their old monarch eagerly undo,
And yet uneasily obey the new.
Search, Satire, search; a deep incision make:
The poison's strong, the antidote's too weak.
'Tis pointed truth must manage this dispute,
And down-right English, Englishmen confute.

  Whet thy just anger at the nation's pride;
And with keen phrase repel the vicious tide,
To Englishmen their own beginnings show,
And ask them, why they slight their neighbours so:
Go back to elder times, and ages past,
And nations into long oblivion cast;
To elder Britain's youthful days retire,
And there for true-born Englishmen inquire,
Britannia freely will disown the name,
And hardly knows herself from whence they came;
Wonders that they of all men should pretend
To birth, and blood, and for a name contend.
Go back to causes where our follies dwell,
And fetch the dark original from hell:
Speak, Satire, for there's none like thee can tell.




THE

TRUE-BORN ENGLISHMAN.


PART I.

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there:
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation:
For ever since he first debauch'd the mind,
He made a perfect conquest of mankind.
With uniformity of service, he
Reigns with general aristocracy.
No non-conforming sects disturb his reign,
For of his yoke, there's very few complain.
He knows the genius and the inclination,
And matches proper sins for ev'ry nation.
He needs no standing army government;
He always rules us by our own consent:
His laws are easy, and his gentle sway
Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey.
The list of his vicegerents and commanders,
Out-does your Caesars, or your Alexanders.
They never fail of his infernal aid,
And he's as certain ne'er to be betray'd.
Thro' all the world they spread his vast command,
And death's eternal empire is maintain'd.
They rule so politicly and so well,
As if they were Lords Justices of hell;
Duly divided to debauch mankind,
And plant infernal dictates in his mind.

  Pride, the first peer, and president of hell,
To his share, Spain, the largest province fell.
The subtle Prince thought fittest to bestow
On these the golden mines of Mexico,
With all the silver mountains of Peru;
Wealth which in wise hands would the world undo;
Because he knew their genius was such,
Too lazy and too haughty to be rich:
So proud a people, so above their fate,
That, if reduced to beg, they'll beg in state:
Lavish of money, to be counted brave,
And proudly starve, because they scorn to save;
Never was nation in the world before,
So very rich, and yet so very poor.

  Lust chose the torrid zone of Italy,
Where blood ferments in rapes and sodomy:
Where swelling veins o'erflow with living streams,
With heat impregnate from Vesuvian flames;
Whose flowing sulphur forms infernal lakes,
And human body of the soil partakes.
There nature ever burns with hot desires,
Fann'd with luxuriant air from subterranean fires:
Here undisturbed, in floods of scalding lust,
Th' infernal king reigns with infernal gust.

  Drunkenness, the darling favourite of hell,
Chose Germany to rule; and rules so well,
No subjects more obsequiously obey,
None please so well, or are so pleased as they;
The cunning artist manages so well,
He lets them bow to heav'n, and drink to hell.
If but to wine and him they homage pay,
He cares not to what deity they pray;
What god they worship most, or in what way.
Whether by Luther, Calvin, or by Rome,
They sail for heaven, by wine he steers them home.

  Ungovern'd passion settled first in France,
Where mankind lives in haste, and thrives by chance;
A dancing nation, fickle and untrue,
Have oft undone themselves, and others too;
Prompt the infernal dictates to obey,
And in hell's favour none more great than they.

  The pagan world he blindly leads away,
And personally rules with arbitrary sway:
The mask thrown off, plain devil, his title stands;
And what elsewhere he tempts, he there commands;
There, with full gust, th' ambition of his mind,
Governs, as he of old in heaven design'd:
Worshipp'd as God, his Paynim altars smoke,
Imbrued with blood of those that him invoke.

  The rest by deputies he rules so well,
And plants the distant colonies of hell;
By them his secret power he firm maintains,
And binds the world in his infernal chains.

  By zeal the Irish, and the Russ by folly,
Fury the Dane, the Swede by melancholy;
By stupid ignorance, the Muscovite;
The Chinese, by a child of hell, call'd wit;
Wealth makes the Persian too effeminate;
And poverty the Tartar desperate:
The Turks and Moors, by Mah'met he subdues;
And God has given him leave to rule the Jews:
Rage rules the Portuguese, and fraud the Scotch;
Revenge the Pole, and avarice the Dutch.

  Satire, be kind, and draw a silent veil,
Thy native England's vices to conceal:
Or, if that task's impossible to do,
At least be just, and show her virtues too;
Too great the first, alas! the last too few.

  England, unknown, as yet unpeopled lay,--
Happy, had she remain'd so to this day,
And still to ev'ry nation been a prey.
Her open harbours, and her fertile plains,
The merchant's glory these, and those the swain's,
To ev'ry barbarous nation have betray'd her;
Who conquer her as oft as they invade her,
So beauty, guarded out by Innocence,
That ruins her which should be her defence.

  Ingratitude, a devil of black renown,
Possess'd her very early for his own:
An ugly, surly, sullen, selfish spirit,
Who Satan's worst perfections does inherit;
Second to him in malice and in force,
All devil without, and all within him worse.

  He made her first-born race to be so rude,
And suffer'd her to be so oft subdued;
By sev'ral crowds of wandering thieves o'er-run,
Often unpeopled, and as oft undone;
While ev'ry nation that her powers reduced,
Their languages and manners introduced;
From whose mix'd relics our compounded breed,
By spurious generation does succeed;
Making a race uncertain and uneven,
Derived from all the nations under heaven.

  The Romans first with Julius Caesar came,
Including all the nations of that name,
Gauls, Greek, and Lombards; and, by computation,
Auxiliaries or slaves of ev'ry nation.
With Hengist, Saxons; Danes with Sweno came,
In search of plunder, not in search of fame.
Scots, Picts, and Irish from th' Hibernian shore;
And conq'ring William brought the Normans o'er.

  All these their barb'rous offspring left behind,
The dregs of armies, they of all mankind;
Blended with Britons, who before were here,
Of whom the Welch ha' blest the character.

  From this amphibious, ill-born mob began,
That vain ill-natured thing, an Englishman.
The customs, sirnames, languages, and manners,
Of all these nations, are their own explainers;
Whose relics are so lasting and so strong,
They've left a Shiboleth upon our tongue;
By which, with easy search, you may distinguish
Your Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman, English.

  The great invading Norman let us know
What conquerors in after-times might do.
To every musqueteer he brought to town,
He gave the lands which never were his own;
When first the English crown he did obtain,
He did not send his Dutchmen home again.
No re-assumptions in his reign were known,
Davenant might there ha' let his book alone.
No parliament his army could disband;
He raised no money, for he paid in land.
He gave his legions their eternal station,
And made them all freeholders of the nation.
He canton'd out the country to his men,
And every soldier was a denizen.
The rascals thus enrich'd, he called them lords,
To please their upstart pride with new-made words,
And doomsday book his tyranny records.

  And here begins the ancient pedigree
That so exalts our poor nobility.
'Tis that from some French trooper they derive,
Who with the Norman bastard did arrive:
The trophies of the families appear;
Some show the sword, the bow, and some the spear,
Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear.
These in the herald's register remain,
Their noble mean extraction to explain,
Yet who the hero was no man can tell,
Whether a drummer or a colonel:
The silent record blushes to reveal
Their undescended dark original.

  But grant the best. How came the change to pass;
A true-born Englishman of Norman race?
A Turkish horse can show more history,
To prove his well-descended family.
Conquest, as by the moderns 'tis express'd,
May give a title to the lands possess'd;
But that the longest sword should be so civil,
To make a Frenchman English, that's the devil.

  These are the heroes that despise the Dutch,
And rail at new-come foreigners so much;
Forgetting that themselves are all derived
From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;
A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones
Who ransack'd kingdoms, and dispeopled towns;
The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,
By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought;
Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
Whose red-hair'd offspring everywhere remains;
Who, join'd with Norman French, compound the breed
From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.

  And lest, by length of time, it be pretended,
The climate may this modern breed have mended;
Wise Providence, to keep us where we are,
Mixes us daily with exceeding care;
We have been Europe's sink, the jakes, where she
Voids all her offal out-cast progeny;
From our fifth Henry's time the strolling bands,
Of banish'd fugitives from neighb'ring lands,
Have here a certain sanctuary found:
The eternal refuge of the vagabond,
Where in but half a common age of time,
Borrowing new blood and manners from the clime,
Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn,
And all their race are true-born Englishmen.

  Dutch Walloons, Flemmings, Irishmen, and Scots,
Vaudois, and Valtolins, and Hugonots,
In good Queen Bess's charitable reign,
Supplied us with three hundred thousand men:
Religion--God, we thank thee!--sent them hither,
Priests, Protestants, the devil, and all together;
Of all professions, and of ev'ry trade,
All that were persecuted or afraid:
Whether for debt, or other crimes, they fled,
David at Hackelah was still their head.

  The offspring of this miscellaneous crowd,
Had not their new plantations long enjoy'd,
But they grew Englishmen, and raised their votes,
At foreign shoals of interloping Scots;
The royal branch from Pict-land did succeed,
With troops of Scots and scabs from north of Tweed;
The seven first years of his pacific reign,
Made him and half his nation Englishmen.
Scots from the northern frozen banks of Tay,
With packs and plods came whigging all away,
Thick as the locusts which in Egypt swarm'd,
With pride and hungry hopes completely arm'd;
With native truth, diseases, and no money,
Plunder'd our Canaan of the milk and honey;
Here they grew quickly lords and gentlemen,
And all their race are true-born Englishmen.

  The civil wars, the common purgative,
Which always use to make the nation thrive,
Made way for all that strolling congregation,
Which throng'd in pious Charles's restoration.
The royal refugee our breed restores,
With foreign courtiers, and with foreign whores:
And carefully re-peopled us again,
Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign,
With such a blest and true-born English fry,
As much illustrates our nobility.
A gratitude which will so black appear,
As future ages must abhor to bear:
When they look back on all that crimson flood,
Which stream'd in Lindsey's, and Caernarvon's blood;
Bold Strafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle,
Who crown'd in death his father's fun'ral pile.
The loss of whom, in order to supply
With true-born English nobility,
Six bastard dukes survive his luscious reign,
The labours of Italian Castlemain,
French Portsmouth, Tabby Scott, and Cambrian;
Besides the num'rous bright and virgin throng,
Whose female glories shade them from my song.
This offspring if our age they multiply,
May half the house with English peers supply:
There with true English pride they may contemn
Schomberg and Portland, new-made noblemen.

  French cooks, Scotch pedlars, and Italian whores,
Were all made lords or lords' progenitors.
Beggars and bastards by this new creation
Much multiplied the peerage of the nation;
Who will be all, ere one short age runs o'er,
As true-born lords as those we had before.

  Then to recruit the commons he prepares,
And heal the latent breaches of the wars;
The pious purpose better to advance,
He invites the banish'd Protestants of France;
Hither for God's sake, and their own, they fled
Some for religion came, and some for bread:
Two hundred thousand pair of wooden shoes,
Who, God be thank'd, had nothing left to lose;
To heaven's great praise did for religion fly,
To make us starve our poor in charity.
In ev'ry port they plant their fruitful train,
To get a race of true-born Englishmen;
Whose children will, when riper years they see,
Be as ill-natured, and as proud as we;
Call themselves English, foreigners despise,
Be surly like us all, and just as wise.

  Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman:
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot,
Betwixt a painted Briton and a Scot:
Whose gend'ring offspring quickly learn'd to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough;
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name nor nation, speech or fame,
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane;
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Received all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

  Which medley, canton'd in a heptarchy,
A rhapsody of nations to supply,
Among themselves maintain'd eternal wars,
And still the ladies loved the conquerors.

  The Western Angles all the rest subdued,
A bloody nation, barbarous and rude;
Who by the tenure of the sword possess'd
One part of Britain, and subdued the rest:
And as great things denominate the small,
The conquering part gave title to the whole;
The Scot, Pict, Briton, Roman, Dane, submit,
And with the English Saxon all unite:
And these the mixture have so close pursued,
The very name and memory's subdued;
No Roman now, no Briton does remain;
Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain:
The silent nations undistinguish'd fall,
And Englishman's the common name for all.
Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now.

  The wonder which remains is at our pride,
To value that which all wise men deride;
For Englishmen to boast of generation
Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation,
A true-born Englishman's a contradiction,
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction:
A banter made to be a test of fools,
Which those that use it justly ridicules;
A metaphor intended to express,
A man a-kin to all the universe.

  For as the Scots, as learned men have said,
Throughout the world their wand'ring seed have spread,
So open-handed England, 'tis believed,
Has all the gleanings of the world received.

  Some think of England, 'twas our Saviour meant,
The Gospel should to all the world be sent:
Since when the blessed sound did hither reach,
They to all nations might be said to preach.

  'Tis well that virtue gives nobility,
Else God knows where had we our gentry,
Since scarce one family is left alive,
Which does not from some foreigner derive.
Of sixty thousand English gentlemen,
Whose names and arms in registers remain,
We challenge