The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

200
Or if it be his fate to meet
With folks who have more wealth than wit
He loves cheap port, and double bub;
And settles in the hum-drum club:
He earns how stocks will fall or rise;
Holds poverty the greatest vice;
Thinks wit the bane of conversation;
And says that learning spoils a nation.
But if, at first, he minds his hits,
And drinks champagne among the wits!
Five deep he toasts the towering lasses;
Repeats you verses wrote on glasses;
Is in the chair; prescribes the law;
And lies with those he never saw.
MERRY ANDREW.
MATTHEW PRIOR.
SLY Merry Andrew, the last Southwark fair
(At Barthol'mew he did not much appear:
So peevish was the edict of the Mayor)
At Southwark, therefore, as his tricks he show'd,
To please our masters, and his friends the crowd;
A huge neat's tongue he in his right hand held:
His left was with a huge black pudding fill'd.
With a grave look in this odd equipage,
The clownish mimic traverses the stage:
Why, how now, Andrew! cries his brother droll,
To-day's conceit, methinks, is something dull:
Come on, sir, to our worthy friends explain,
What does your emblematic worship mean?
Quoth Andrew; Honest English let us speak:
Your emble--(what d' ye call 't) is heathen Greek.
To tongue or pudding thou hast no pretense:
Learning thy talent is, but mine is sense.
That busy fool I was, which thou art now;
Desirous to correct, not knowing how:
With very good design, but little wit,
Blaming or praising things, as I thought fit