FOOTNOTES:

[43] The Duke of Cumberland.

SONG
FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.”

Scene.—A Room in the Alehouse, “The Three Pigeons.”

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning—
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genus a better discerning.
Let them brag of their heathenish gods—
Their Lethes, and Styxes, and Stygians;
Their Quis, and their Quæs, and their Quods:
They ’re all but a parcel of Pigeons.
To-roddle, to-roddle, to-rol.

When methodist preachers come down,
A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
I’ll wager the rascals a crown,
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I’ll leave it to all men of sense—
But you, my good friend, are the Pigeon.
To-roddle, &c.

Then, come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout—
Here’s the “Three Jolly Pigeons” for ever!
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
But of all the gay birds in the air—
Here’s a health to the “Three Jolly Pigeons.”
To-roddle, &c.

ANSWER
TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER.

“This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!”

Your mandate I got—
You may all go to pot:
Had your senses been right,
You’d have sent before night.
As I hope to be sav’d,
I put off being shav’d,
For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,
Or to put on my duds.
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffman beside,
And the Jessamy[44] bride,
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses two,
Little Comedy’s[45] face,
And the Captain[46] in lace.
—(By the by, you may tell him
I have something to sell him;
Of use, I insist,
When he comes to enlist.
Your worships must know,
That a few days ago
An order went out,
For the foot-guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste—
Twelve inches at least:
Now, I’ve got him a scale
To measure each tail;
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail.)

Yet how can I, when vext,
Thus stray from my text!
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew.
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But ’tis Reynolds’s way,
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica’s whim
To be frolick like him—

But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoil’d in to-day’s Advertiser?[47]

Oliver Goldsmith.