Hilaria. The Festive Board

by Unknown

COUNTRY LIFE.

Written by CAPTAIN MORRIS.

WITH ADDITIONAL STANZAS BY MR. HEWERDINE, MARKED BY INVERTED COMMAS.

Captain Morris’s song is here inserted, for the sake of the answer that follows.

In London I never know what to be at—

Enraptur’d with this, and transported with that;

I’m wild with the sweets of variety’s plan—

And life seems a blessing too happy for man!

But the Country (Lord bless us!) sets all matters right—

So calm and composing from morning to night:

Oh, it settles the stomach, when nothing is seen

But an ass on a common—a goose on a green!

In London how easy we visit and meet!—

Gay pleasure’s the theme, and sweet smiles are our treat;

Our mornings a round of good humour delight—

And we rattle in comfort and pleasure all night!

In the Country how pleasant our visits to make,

Thro’ ten miles of mud, for formality’s sake;

With the coachman in drink, and the moon in a fog,

And no thought in our head—but a ditch or a bog!

In London, if folks ill together are put,

A bore may be roasted, a quiz may be cut.

“In the Country your friends would feel angry and sore,

“Call an old maid a quiz, or a parson a bore.”

In the Country you’re nail’d like a pale in your park,

To some stick of a neighbour cramm’d into the ark;

Or, if you are sick, or in fits tumble down,

You reach death, ere the doctor can reach you from town.

I’ve heard that how love in a cottage is sweet,

When two hearts in one link of soft sympathy meet:—

I know nothing of that; for, alas, I’m a swain

Who requires (I own it) more links to my chain!

Your jays and your magpies may chatter on trees,

And whisper soft nonsense in groves if they please:

But a house is much more to my mind than a tree;

And, for groves—oh, a fine grove of chimneys for me!

“In the ev’ning you’re screw’d to your chairs fist to fist,

“All stupidly yawning at sixpenny whist;

“And, tho’ win or lose, ’tis as true as ’tis strange,

“You’ve nothing to pay—the good folks have no change!

“But, for singing and piping, your time to engage,

“You’ve cock and hen bullfinches coop’d in a cage;

“And what music in nature can make you so feel,

“As a pig in a gate stuck, or knife-grinder’s wheel!

“I grant, if in fishing you take much delight,

“In a punt you may shiver from morning to night;

“And, tho’ blest with the patience that Job had of old,

“The devil a thing do you catch—but a cold!

“Yet ’tis charming to hear, just from boarding-school come,

“A Tit-up tune up an old family strum:

“Play God save the King in an excellent tone,

“With the sweet variation of Old Bob and Joan!

“But, what tho’ your appetite’s in a weak state,

“A pound at a time they will push on your plate:—

“’Tis true, as to health, you’ve no cause to complain;

“For they’ll drink it, God bless ’em, again and again!”

Then in Town let me live, and in Town let me die;

For, in truth, I can’t relish the Country—not I.

If I must have a villa in London to dwell,

Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall-mall!

The ANSWER to CAPTAIN MORRIS’s
SONG, “The COUNTRY LIFE.”

I.

As town-bitten bards, bred in fashion and noise,

The country decry, and its health yielding joys;

Let us fairly examine the preference due

To the smoak-smother’d town, o’er the villa’s clear view.

II.

At ev’ry town tavern you turn in to dine,

Tho’ your dinner’s half cold, smoaking hot is your wine;

Then how pleasant and wholesome while picking your bone,

The mix’d odour of other folks food and your own.

III.

Then noisy and drunk, scarcely feeling their legs,

Bucks sup at the M⸺, on hash’d duck, oysters, eggs,

Eggs pregnant with chick, oysters sp—d up before,

The duck dainty fed in the streets common sewer.

IV.

Yet, how charming Vauxhall in a cold rainy night,

To hear dull-hacknied ditties to music so trite;

You’ve a thin slice of ham, town-made wine thick and flat:

View a tinman’s cascade, and a fidler’s cock’d hat!

V.

See Ranelagh! folly and fashion’s resort,

And vapid masqued balls, where Intrigue holds her court;

There girls are “loose fishes,” pull’d up in their turns;

There wives are harpoon’d, and dull husbands get horns.

VI.

The dance is bon ton—and in hot sultry weather

Sticks the sexes like two pats of butter together!

And when you get into the heart of the hop,

You’re pinion’d like fowls in a poulterer’s shop.

VII.

But routes for fine fellows, fine feathers to see,

Strong liqueurs for ladies, who love to make free;

Old tabbies at cards, over old fashion’d fans,

Peeping, cheating, and squinting in each others hands.

VIII.

Then at dinners and concerts see fidlers so fine,

Bolt hot macaroni, drink rare foreign wine;

There musical dames, at each shift and each shake,

Die away, “amoroso,” for fiddle-stick’s sake.

IX.

In a vortex of dust, thro’ the sun’s scorching ray,

A rotten-row ride on a Sunday how gay;

Thro’ a long lane of lacqueys you meet your hard fate,

Screw’d in and screw’d out of a damn’d narrow gate.

X.

Then how cursedly civil when folks in town roam,

To leave cards with their friends, when they know they’re from home;

In the country, glad welcome our visits attends,

We’ve no humbugging, card-dropping, shy-fighting friends.

XI.

In London, while day-light, not long are you clean;

At night you’re bug bitten, scarce fit to be seen;

Thus amusement and exercise fall in your way,

For you’re scratching all night, and you’re scrubbing all day.

XII.

In the streets oft you meet a queer stick of a fellow,

Who pokes in your eye his sharp-pointed umbrella;

But the measure of danger is scarcely half full,

When a flow’r-pot dropt down, breaks itself and your scull.

XIII.

If in London the doctors should shorten life’s date,

To lie long in the grave’s, not the dead bodies fate;

For surgeon, clerk, sexton, and coachman conspire,

To mangle the corpse, and the bones join with wire.

XIV.

In the country we’re healthy, all vigour and spunk,

No doctor we want, but to make him dead drunk;

Nor yet patent-coffins; for, once in the ground,

Our bodies are snug, till the trumpet’s last sound.

XV.

Now suppose you a flat, and addicted to play,

In London a sharp will seize on you as prey;

He’ll the passion promote, make you drink, though not dry,

And filch your fair prospects by loading the die.

XVI.

Then the sports of the field, a fine view of the sea,

Friend and bottle, girl, Cutter, and cottage give me;

At smoak’d rus in urbe let other bards dwell,

Keep me from Pall Mall, Piccadilly, and Hell![1]

[1] A famous gambling-house so called in the vicinity of S. James’s.