But hold-let me pause-don't I hear you pro

nounce,

This tale of the bacon's a damnable bounce; Well, suppose it a bounce-sure a poet may try, By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly. But, my lord, it's no bounce: I protest, in my

turn,

It's a truth, and your lordship may ask Mr. Burn'.
To go on with my tale-as I gaz'd on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;
So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest,
To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best:
Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;
'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's:
But in parting with these I was puzzled again,
With the how, and the who, and the where, and
the when.

There's H-d, and C-y, and H-rth, and H—ff,
I think they love ven'son-I know they love beef.
There's my countryman Higgins-Oh! let him alone,
For making a blunder, or picking a bone.

1 Lord Clare's nephew.

But hang it to poets who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;
Such dainties to them their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
While thus I debated, in reverie center'd,
An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, en-
ter'd;

An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,

And he smil❜d as he look'd at the ven'son and me. "What have we got here?-Why this is good eating!

Your own, I suppose-or is it in waiting?"

Why whose should it be?" cry'd I with a flounce; "I get these things often❞—but that was a bounce: "Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,

Are pleas'd to be kind-but I hate ostentation."

"If that be the case then," cry'd he, very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you dinner with me;

take a poor

No words-I insist on't-precisely at three:

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 ven'son 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, 1769.

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,

They're both of them merry, and authors like you; 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;

F

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."