The Statue at Charing Cross.

What can be the mystery? why Charing Cross
This five months continues still muffled with board;
Dear Wheeler, impart, we are all at a loss,
Unless we must have Punchinello restored.

'T were to Scaramouchio too great disrepect
To limit his troop to this theatre small;
Besides the injustice it were to eject
That mimic, so legally seized of Whitehall.

For a dial the place is too insecure,
Since the Privy Garden could not it defend;
And so near to the Court they will never endure
Any monument, how they their time may misspend.

Were these deals yet in store for sheathing our fleet,
When the King in armada to Portsmouth should sail,
On the Bishops and Treasurer, did they agree 't
To repair with such riff-raff our church's old pale?

No; to comfort the heart of the poor cavalier,
The late King on horseback is here to be shown;
What ado with your Kings and your statues is here!
Have we not had enough, pray, already of one?

Does the Treasurer think men so loyally tame,
When their pensions are stopped, to be fooled with a sight?
And 'tis forty to one, if he play the old game,
He'll reduce us ere long to rehearse forty-eight.

The Trojan horse, so (not of brass, but of wood),
Had within it an army that burned down the town;
However, 'tis ominous, if understood,
For the old King on horseback is but an half-crown.

Yet, his brother-in-law's horse had gained such repute,
That the Treasurer thought prudent to try it again;
And, instead of that market of herbs and of fruit,
He will here keep a shambles of Parliament men.

But why is the work then so long at a stand?
Such things you should never, or suddenly do:
As the Parliament twice was prorogued by your hand,
Would you venture so far to prorogue the King too?

Let's have a King, sir, be he new, be he old,
Not Viner delayed us so, though he were broken:
Though the King be of copper, and Danby of gold,
Shall the Treasurer of guineas refuse such a token?

The housewifery treasuress sure is grown nice,
And so liberally treated the members at supper;
She thinks not convenient to go to the price,
And we 've lost both our King, and our horse, and his crupper.

Where so many parties there are to provide,
To buy a King is not so wise as to sell;
And however, she said, it could not be denied,
That a monarch of gingerbread might do as well.

But the Treasurer told her he thought she was mad,
And his Parliament list too withal did produce;
When he showed her, that so many voters he had,
As would the next tax reimburse them with use.

So the statue will up after all this delay,
But to turn the face towards Whitehall you must shun;
Though of brass, yet with grief it would melt him away
To behold such a prodigal Court and a son.