Thus was the brewhouse filled with gabbling noise,
Whilst draymen and the brewer's boys,
Devoured the questions that the king did ask:
In different parties were they staring seen,
Wondering to think they saw a king and queen!
Behind a tub were some, and some behind a cask.
Some draymen forced themselves (a pretty luncheon)
Into the mouth of many a gaping puncheon;
And through the bung-hole winked with curious eye,
To view, and be assured what sort of things
Were princesses, and queens, and kings,
For whose most lofty station thousands sigh!
And lo! of all the gaping puncheon clan,
Few were the mouths that had not got a man!
Now majesty into a pump so deep
Did with an opera-glass so curious peep:
Examining with care each wondrous matter
That brought up water!
Thus have I seen a magpie in the street,
A chattering bird we often meet,
A bird for curiosity well known;
With head awry,
And cunning eye,
Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone.
And now his curious majesty did stoop
To count the nails on every hoop;
And, lo! no single thing came in his way,
That, full of deep research, he did not say,
"What's this! hae, hae? what's that? what's this? what's that?"
So quick the words, too, when he deigned to speak,
As if each syllable would break his neck.
Thus, to the world of GREAT whilst others crawl,
Our sovereign peeps into the world of SMALL;
Thus microscopic genuises explore
Things that too oft provoke the public scorn,
Yet swell of useful knowledges the store,
By finding systems in a pepper-corn.
Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare,
To make the majesty of England stare,
That he had butts enough, he knew,
Placed side by side, to reach along to Kew:
On which the king with wonder swiftly cried,
"What, if they reach to Kew then, side by side,
What would they do, what, what, placed end to end?"
To whom with knitted, calculating brow,
The man of beer most solemnly did vow,
Almost to Windsor that they would extend;
On which the king, with wondering mien,
Repeated it unto the wondering queen:
On which, quick turning round his haltered head,
The brewer's horse, with face astonished neighed;
The brewer's dog too poured a note of thunder,
Rattled his chain, and wagged his tail for wonder.
Now did the king for other beers inquire,
For Calvert's, Jordan's, Thrale's entire
And, after talking of these different beers,
Asked Whitbread if his porter equalled theirs?
This was a puzzling, disagreeing question;
Grating like arsenic on his host's digestion:
A kind of question to the man of cask,
That not even Solomon himself would ask.
Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took
A very pretty memorandum-book,
With gilded leaves of asses' skin so white,
And in it legibly began to write—
MEMORANDUM.
A charming place beneath the grates
For roasting chestnuts or potates.