Stant littore Puppies!—VIRGIL.
It was a litter, a litter of five,
Four are drown'd, and one left alive,
He was thought worthy alone to survive;
And the Bagman resolved upon bringing him up,
To eat of his bread, and to drink of his cup,
He was such a dear little cock-tail'd pup!
The Bagman taught him many a trick;
He would carry, and fetch, and run after a stick,
He could well understand
The word of command,
And appear to doze
With a crust on his nose
Till the Bagman permissively waved his hand:
Then to throw up and catch it he never would fail,
As he sat up on end, on his little cock-tail.
Never was puppy so bien instruit,
Or possess'd of such natural talent as he;
And as he grew older,
Every beholder
Agreed he grew handsomer, sleeker, and bolder.
Time, however his wheels we may clog,
Wends steadily still with onward jog,
And the cock-tail'd puppy's a curly-tail'd dog!
When, just at the time
He was reaching his prime,
And all thought he'd be turning out something sublime,
One unlucky day,
How no one could say,
Whether soft liaison induced him to stray,
Or some kidnapping vagabond coaxed him away,
He was lost to the view,
Like the morning dew;—
He had been, and was not—that's all that they knew
And the Bagman storm'd, and the Bagman swore
As never a Bagman had sworn before;
But storming or swearing but little avails
To recover lost dogs with great curly tails.
In a large paved court, close by Billiter Square,
Stands a mansion, old, but in thorough repair,
The only thing strange, from the general air
Of its size and appearance, is how it got there;
In front is a short semicircular stair
Of stone steps—some half score—
Then you reach the ground floor,
With a shell-pattern'd architrave over the door.
It is spacious, and seems to be built on the plan
Of a Gentleman's house in the time of Queen Anne;
Which is odd, for, although
As we very well know,
Under Tudors and Stuarts the City could show
Many Noblemen's seats above Bridge and below,
Yet that fashion soon after induced them to go
From St. Michael Cornhill, and St. Mary-le-Bow,
To St. James, and St. George, and St. Anne in Soho—
Be this as it may—at the date I assign
To my tale—that's about Seventeen Sixty-Nine—
This mansion, now rather upon the decline,
Had less dignified owners—belonging, in fine,
To Turner, Dry, Weipersyde, Rogers, and Pyne—
A respectable House in the Manchester line.
There were a score
Of Bagmen, and more,
Who had travel'd full oft for the firm before,
But just at this period they wanted to send
Some person on whom they could safely depend—
A trust-worthy body, half agent, half friend—
On some mercantile matter, as far as Ostend;
And the person they pitch'd on was Anthony Blogg
A grave, steady man, not addicted to grog—
The Bagman, in short, who had lost the great dog.
* * * * * *
"The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!—
That is the place where we all wish to be,
Rolling about on it merrily!"
So all sing and say
By night and by day,
In the boudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,
In a sort of coxcombical roundelay;—
You may roam through the City, transversely or straight
From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland gate,
And every young Lady who thrums a guitar,
Ev'ry mustached Shopman who smokes a cigar,
With affected devotion
Promulgates his notion
Of being a "Rover" and "Child of the Ocean"—
Whate'er their age, sex, or condition may be,
They all of them long for the "Wide, Wide Sea!"
But, however they dote,
Only set them afloat
In any craft bigger at all than a boat,
Take them down to the Nore,
And you'll see that, before
The "Wessel" they "Woyage" in has made half her way
Between Shell-Ness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,
Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,
They'll be all of them heartily sick of "the Sea!"