MERCURY. A tedious voyage we've ventur'd, a voyage I've been full oft, There's ne'er a lad can go below, or climb like me aloft, And a begging we will go, &c. JUPITER. a fig The cares of Church and State, sir, we value this Whirligig And leave to wiser heads than ours to Nor any thought have we at all, but how to earn a souse! And a begging we will go, &c. BOTH. Then who that'twixt vexation and ease can weigh the odds Would chop and change the beggar's life to live like And a begging we will go, &c. RECITATIVE. PANDORA. Heigh-ho! my heart. SCENE IX. Enter PLUTUS and CLERKS. PLUTUS. Here seize on these rascallions. PANDORA. Spare the poor youth. PLUTUS. What for your private dalliance? PANDORA. Do, what you will, with that old sturdy sinner. JUPITER, (aside to Mercury.) To her-we'll stand our ground could you but win her. MERCURY. Dear ma'am make me your groom so spruce and spunky? PLUTUS. Shall I wear horns to please a powder-monkey? QUARTETTO and CHORUS. AIR-Hunting the Hare. JUPITER AND MERCURY. Spare a brace of unfortunate mariners Wreck'd d'ye see, for we scorn for to fudge, Wreck'd while guarding Old England from foreigners, Give poor Jack a snug birth, and ne'er grudge. PLUTUS. Hence be trotting, you beggarly vagabond, Hence be gone with your flimsy pretence; Zounds! I warrant you know how to drag a pond, Wire a hare, or jump over a fence. MERCURY. Tell, good lady, those fair-weather gentlemen, We defy little Bony to come, Lest, at sight of his fierce regimental men, PANDORA. There's a voice that might soften a Saraçen, Prim'd with courage enough for a garrison, CHORUS. PLUTUS AND CLERKS. We've enough in all conscience of pillagers JUPITER AND MERCURY. We be tars, neither poachers nor pillagers Come to plunder your forests and flocks; H Woe to you and your clerks and your villagers, PANDORA. He is none of your ill-looking pillagers ; Ne'er were made to be clapt into stocks. [Exeunt on one side Jupiter and Mercury in custody, on the other Pandora in despair. |