From ev'ry meal Pontack in plenty,
To half a pint one day in twenty.
From Ford attending at her call,
To vifits of
From Ford, who thinks of nothing mean,
To the poor doings of the D-n.
From growing richer with good chear,
To running out by starving here.
BUT now arrives the dismal day :
She must return to * Ormond-Key:
The coachman ftopt, fhe look't, and swore,
The rafcal had mistook the door :
At coming in you saw her stoop;
The entry brusht against her hoop:
Each moment rising in her airs,
She curft the narrow winding stairs:
Began a thousand faults to spy;
The ceiling hardly fix foot high;
The smutty wainscot full of cracks,
And half the chairs with broken backs;
Her Quarters out at Lady-day,
She vows she will not longer stay,
In lodgings like a poor Grizette,
While there are lodgings to be lett.
HowE'ER, to keep her spirits up,
She fent for company to sup:
When all the while you might remark,
She ftrove in vain to ape Wood-park.
Where both the ladies lodged.
Two bottles call'd for, (half her ftore;
The cupboard could contain but four ;)
A fupper worthy of herself,
Five nothings in five plates of delph.
THUS, for a week the farce went on;
When all her country-favings gone,
She fell into her former fcene,
Small beer, a herring, and the D-n.
THUS far in jeft. Though now I fear
You think my jefting too fevere:
But Poets, when a hint is new,
Regard not whether false or true :
Yet raillery gives no offence,
Where truth has not the leaft pretence;
Nor can be more fecurely plac't
Then on a nymph of Stella's taste.
I must confefs your wine and vittle
I was too hard upon a little :
Your table neat, your linen fine ;
And though, in miniature, you shine.
Yet, when you figh to leave Wood-park,
The scene, the welcome, and the spark,
To languish in this odious town,
And pull your haughty ftomach down;
We think you quite mistake the case;
The virtue lies not in the place :
For though my raillery were true,
A cottage is Wood-park with you.
The part of a Summer, at the houfe of GEORGE ROCHFORt,
Written in the Year 1723.
PHALIA, tell in fober lays,
How George, Nim, Dan, Dean, pass their days.
BEGIN, my mufe. Firft from our bow'rs
We fally forth at diff'rent hours;
At fev'n, the Dean, in night-gown dreft,
Goes round the houfe to wake the rest:
At nine, grave Nim and George facetious,
Go to the Dean to read Lucretius:
At ten, my lady comes and hectors,
And kiffes George, and ends our lectures;
And when she has him by the neck fast,
Hawls him, and scolds us, down to breakfast.
We squander there an hour or more;
And then all hands, boys, to the oar;
All, heteroclite Dan except,
Who never time, nor order, kept,
But, by peculiar whimsies drawn,
Peeps in the ponds to look for spawn;
O'erfees the work, or * Dragon rows,
Or mars a text, or mends his hofe.
Or-but proceed we in our journal-
At two, or after, we return all.
My Lord Chief Baron's fmaller boat.
From the four elements affembling,
Warn'd by the bell, all folks come trembling;
From airy garrets fome defcend,
Some from the lake's remotest end:
My Lord and Dean the fire forfake;
Dan leaves the earthly spade and rake:
The loit'rers quake, no corner hides them,
And lady Betty foundly chides them.
Now water's brought and dinner's done;
With church and King, the lady's gone:
(Not reck'ning half an hour we pafs
In talking o'er a mod'rate glass).
Dan, growing drowsy, like a thief,
Steals off to dose away his beef;
And this muft pafs for reading Hammond-
While George and Dean go to back-gammon,
George, Nim, and Dean fet out at four,
And then again, boys, to the oar.
But when the Sun goes to the deep,
(Not to disturb him in his fleep,
Or make a rumbling o'er his head,
His candle out, and he a-bed)
We watch his motions to a minute,
And leave the flood when he goes in it.
Now ftinted in the fhort'ning day,
We go to pray'rs, and then to play ;
Till fupper comes, and after that,
We fit an hour to drink and chat,
"Tis late—the old and younger pairs,
By Adam lighted, walk up ftairs.
Dean goes to his chamber,
And Nim and Dan to garret clamber.
So when this circle we have run,
The curtain falls, and all is done.
I might have mentioned several facts,
Like episodes between the acts;
And tell who loses, and who wins,
Who gets a cold, who breaks his fhins;
How Dan caught nothing in his net,
And how the boat was overfet.
For brevity I have retrench'd,
It would be an exploit to brag on,
How valiant George rode o'er the Dragon;
How fteady in the ftorm he fat,
How Nim, (no hunter e'er could match him,)
Still brings us hares, when he can catch 'em :
How skilfully Dan mends his nets;
How fortune fails him, when he fets,
Or, how the Dean delights to vex
The ladies, and lampoon the fex.
Or, how our neighbour lifts his nofe,
To tell what every school-boy knows,
And with his finger on his thumb
Explaining, ftrikes oppofers dumb :
Or how his wife, that female pedant,
(But now there need no more be faid on't),
Shews all her fecrets of house-keeping;
For candles how the trucks her dripping;
|