GO ALL TO COQUET AND WOO.
Northumberland lads are handsome squads,
And female affiance must share;
If you wish to wed, betroth to bed,
One cull’d with caution and care.
I here make free—give ear to me,
The county I’ve scan’d around;
So from the mass select a lass,
Where virtue and beauties abound.
The lasses of TWEED are deft indeed,
Their garlands give such grace:
The lasses of TILL are sprightly still,
In figure, in fashion, and face.
The lasses of BREMISH look rather squeamish,
Embellish’d with elegant ease;
The lasses of ALE, for plumage prevail,
Their pomp and appendages please.
The lasses of ALWIN obey fashion’s call, when
A princess prescribes a new dress;
The lasses of REED, each hair-braids her head,
And apes alamode to excess.
The lasses of WENSBECK, like dignify’d dames deck,
And their address quite debonair;
The lasses of FOUNT, though pronounc’d paramount,
Can scarce with these comits compare.
The lasses of PONT, to decorate don’t
Soar yet in the sphere of extremes;
The lasses of ERRING, on fashions conferring,
The decent most dext’rous deem.
The lasses of TYNE, who peerlessly shine,
Are mirrors of modesty too:
The lasses of COQUET put all in their pocket,
Go all to Coquet and woo!
So take my advice, tour there in a trice,
These provident paragons view;
So splendid and pretty, so worthy, and witty,
You’ll never have reason to rue.
THE FRACTIOUS FARMER.
A SONG.—1792.
A farmer near Felton, fam’d for vulgar fractions,
Both testy and stubborn in all his transactions;
With fraud and with falsehoods to litigate labours,
A plague to the public, and pest to his neighbours.
His BULL, this base brigand kept bound by the nose,
In a creek, on the confines of Coquet, that those
Cows which came across (thus decoy’d) to his corn,
The coin of their owners by craft to suborn.
He marry’d a maid with much money, as stated,
Both handsome, and harmless, yet heartily hated;
Hence hootings, and hissings, and banters beset her,
Because he his handmaid had long lov’d far better.
One sunday at dinner he saw of a sudden,
A human head hair peeping out of the pudding:
Though his minx mix’d the mass, made his spouse pluck it out,
And likewise submit to a buffetting bout.
One time when he wanted his fingers to warm,
She fronted the fire, and thought of no harm;
Her seat he upset, and she fell on the floor,
Depriv’d of her senses for more than an hour.
As he and his harlot one time sat at tea,
To taste a bit toast, his own matron made free;
For which misdemeanor his concubine cog’d her,
And for the offence he unfeelingly flog’d her.
One afternoon, ent’ring the parlour, he saw,
Expos’d on the carpet, prostrate, a piece straw;
His spouse he suspected for the foul offence,
And snatching the poker, depriv’d her of sense.
His children he taught with a dutiful grace,
To piss upon Mammy, and spit on her face;
And laugh when he lash’d her, ’till sickly and sore,
And in storms and in tempests turn’d her to the door.
With hunger and hardships, by bruises and blows,
His help-mate is render’d so lank and so low;
She seems to surrender the lease of her life,
And wind up the warfare of a wailing wife.