We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will

be there;

My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my lord Clare.
And, now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
We wanted this venʼson to make out a dinner.
What say you a pasty; it shall, and it must,
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter-this ven'son with me to Mile-end ;
No stirring, I beg my dear friend-my dear
friend!"

Thus snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, And "nobody with me at sea but myself1;" Tho' I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty, Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, Were things that I never dislik'd in my life, Tho' clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.

1 See the letters that passed between his royal highness Henry Duke of Cumberland, and Lady Grosvenor-12o, 1760.

So next day in due splendor to make my approach, I drove to his door in my own hackney-coach.

When come to the place where we were all to dine,

(A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine) My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb

With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not

come;

"For I knew it," he cried, " both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale. But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the

party, With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty.

The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew,

merry,

and authors like you;

They're both of them
The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge;
Some think he writes Cinna-he owns to Panurge."
While thus he describ'd them by trade and by name,
They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came.
At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen,
At the bottom was tripe, in a swinging tureen;

At the sides there were spinnage and pudding made

hot;

In the middle a place where the pasty-was not. Now, my lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion, And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian; So there I sat stuck like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round: But what vex'd me most, was that d—'d Scottish

rogue,

With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and his

brogue,

And, “ Madam," quoth he, “may this bit be my poison,

A prettier dinner I never set eyes on ;

Pray a slice of your liver, though, may I be curst But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst." "The tripe," quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek,

"I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week: I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all."

"O-ho!" quoth my friend, " he'll come on in a

trice,

He's keeping a corner for something that's nice: There's a pasty"-" A pasty!" repeated the Jew; "I don't care if I keep a corner for't too." "What the de'il, mon, a pasty!" re-echo'd the Scot; "Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that." "We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out; "We'll all keep a corner," was echo'd about. While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified, enter'd the maid; A visage so sad, and so pale with affright,

Wak'd Priam, in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out (for who could mistake

her?)

That she came with some terrible news from the

baker:

And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.
Sad Philomel thus-but let similes drop-
And now that I think on't the story may stop.

To be plain, my good lord, it's but labour misplac'd, To send such good verses to one of your taste: You've got an odd something-a kind of discern

ing—

A relish a taste-sicken'd over by learning;
At least it's your temper, as very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your own;
So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,
You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this,