The Keep, I find, 's been sadly alter'd lately,
And 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honor jealous,
In martial panoply so grand and stately,
Its walls are rilled with money-making fellows,
And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly,
With leaden pipes, and coke, and coal, and bellows
In short, so great a change has come to pass,
Tis now a manufactory of Gas.
But to my tale.—Before this profanation,
And ere its ancient glories were out short all,
A poor hard-working Cobbler took his station
In a small house, just opposite the portal;
His birth, his parentage, and education,
I know but little of—a strange, odd mortal;
His aspect, air, and gait, were all ridiculous;
His name was Mason—he'd been christened Nicholas.
Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm,
And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion;
But, spite of all her piety, her arm
She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion;
And, being of a temper somewhat warm,
Would now and then seize, upon small occasion,
A stick, or stool, or any thing that round did lie,
And baste her lord and master most confoundedly.
No matter;—'tis a thing that's not uncommon,
'Tis what we all have heard, and most have read of,—
I mean, a bruising, pugilistic woman,
Such as I own I entertain a dread of,
—And so did Nick,—whom sometimes there would come on
A sort of fear his Spouse might knock his head off,
Demolish half his teeth, or drive a rib in,
She shone so much in "facers" and in "fibbing."
"There's time and place for all things," said a sage
(King Solomon, I think), and this I can say,
Within a well-roped ring, or on a stage,
Boxing may be a very pretty FANCY,
When Messrs. Burke or Bendigo engage;
—'Tis not so well in Susan or in Nancy:—
To get well mill'd by any one's an evil,
But by a lady—'tis the very Devil.
And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble
(At least his worst) was this, his rib's propensity;
For sometimes from the ale-house he would hobble,
His senses lost in a sublime immensity
Of cogitation—then he couldn't cobble—
And then his wife would often try the density
Of his poor skull, and strike with all her might,
As fast as kitchen wenches strike a light.
Mason, meek soul, who ever hated strife,
Of this same striking had a morbid dread,
He hated it like poison—or his wife—
A vast antipathy!—but so he said—
And very often, for a quiet life,
On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed,
Grope darkling in, and soon as at the door
He heard his lady—he'd pretend to snore.
One night, then, ever partial to society,
Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow),
Went to a Club—I should have said Society—
At the "City Arms," once call'd the "Porto Bello"
A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, I
Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow;
There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather,
And change of ministers and change of weather.
In short, it was a kind of British Forum,
Like John Gale Jones', erst in Piccadilly,
Only they managed things with more decorum,
And the Orations were not QUITE so silly;
Far different questions, too, would come before 'em
Not always politics, which, will ye nill ye,
Their London prototypes were always willing,
To give one QUANTUM SUFF. of—for a shilling.
It more resembled one of later date,
And tenfold talent, as I'm told, in Bow-street,
Where kindlier nurtured souls do congregate,
And, though there are who deem that same a low street
Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate
And genuine humor it's surpassed by no street,
When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes
To "rule" o'er mimic "Thesigers" and "Broughams."