And dandies start their thinnest pumps,
And Michael Oakley's in the dumps;
And there is naught beneath the sun,
But dash, and splash, and falls, and fun.

Lord! what would be the cynic's mirth,
If fate would lift him to the earth,
And set his tub, with magic jump,
Squat down beside the Brocas clump!
What scoffs the sage would utter there,
From his unpolished elbow chair,
To see the sempstress' handiwork,
The Greek confounded with the Turk,
Parisian mix'd with Piedmontese,
And Persian join'd to Portuguese;
And mantles short, and mantles long,
And mantles right, and mantles wrong,
Misshaped, miscolored, and misplaced,
With what the tailor calls-a taste.
And then the badges, and the boats,
The flags, the drums, the paint, the coats;
But more than these, and more than all,
The pullers' intermitted call,

"Easy!"—"Hard all !"-"Now pick her up!"
"Upon my life, how I shall sup!"
Would be a fine and merry matter,
To wake the sage's love of satire.
Kind readers, at my laughing age,
I thank my stars I'm not a sage;

I, an unthinking, scribbling elf,

Love to please others, and myself;

Therefore I fly a malo joco,

But like desipere in loco,
Excuse me that I wander so;

All modern pens digress, you know.

Now to my theme! Thou Being gay,
Houri or goddess, nymph or fay,
Whoe'er, whate'er, where'er thou art,
Who, with thy warm and kindly heart,
Hast made these blest abodes thy care;
Being of water, earth, or air,
Beneath the moonbeam hasten hither,
Enjoy thy blessings ere they wither,
And witness, with thy gladdest face,
The glories of thy dwelling-place!

The boat puts off!—throughout the crowd
The tumult thickens; wide and loud
The din reëchoes; man and horse
Plunge onward in their mingled course.
Look at the troop: I love to see
Our real Etonian Cavalry;
They start in such a pretty trim,

And such sweet scorn of life and limb.
I must confess, I never found

A horse much worse for being sound;

I wish my Nag not wholly blind,
And like to have a tail behind;

And though he certainly may hear
Correctly with a single ear,

I think, to look genteel and neat,
He ought to have his two complete.
But these are trifles! off they go
Beside the wondering River's flow;
And if, by dint of spur and whip,
They shamble on without a trip,

Well have they done! I make no question
They're shaken into good digestion.

I and my Muse,-my Muse and I,
Will follow with the Company,
And get to Surly Hall in time
To make a Supper and a Rhyme.
Yes! while the animating crowd,
The gay, and fair, and kind, and proud,
With eager voice and eager glance
Wait till the pageantry advance,
We'll throw around a hasty view,
And try to get a sketch or two.

First in the race is William Tag,
Thalia's most industrious fag:
Whate'er the subject he essays
To dress in never-dying lays,-
A chief, a cheese, a dearth, a dinner,
A cot, a castle, cards, Corinna,
Hibernia, Baffin's Bay, Parnassus,
Beef, Bonaparte, Beer, Bonassus,—

Will hath his ordered words and rhymes
For various scenes and various times,
Which suit alike for this or that,
And come, like volunteers, quite pat.
He hath his Elegy, or Sonnet,
For Lucy's bier, or Lucy's bonnet;
And celebrates, with equal ardor,
A Monarch's sceptre, or his larder.
Poor William! when he wants a hint,
All other Poets are his mint;
He coins his epic, or his lyric,
His satire, or his panegyric,
From all the gravity and wit

Of what the ancients thought and writ.
Armed with his Ovid and his Flaccus,
He comes like thunder to attack us;
In pilfered mail he bursts to view,
The cleverest thief I ever knew.
time

Thou noble Bard, at any

Borrow my measure and my rhyme;

Borrow (I'll cancel all the debt,)

An epigram or epithet;

Borrow my mountains, or my trees,

My paintings, or my similes;

Nay, borrow all my pretty names,

My real or my fancied flames-
Eliza, Alice, Leonora,

Mary, Melissa, and Medora;

And borrow all my

"mutual vows,"

My "ruby lips," and "cruel brows;"

And all my stupors, and my startings,
And all my meetings, and my partings;
Thus far, my friend, you'll find me willing;
Borrow all things, save one-a shilling!

Drunken, and loud, and mad, and rash,
Joe Tarrell wields his ceaseless lash;
The would-be sportsman; o'er the sides
Of the lank charger he bestrides,
The foam lies painfully; and blood
Is trickling in a ruddier flood,
Beneath the fury of the steel
Projecting from his armèd heel.

E'en from his childhood's earliest bloom,
All studies that become a groom,
Eton's spes gregis, honest Joe,

Or knows, or would be thought to know;

He picks a hunter's hoof quite finely,

And spells a horse's teeth divinely.
Prime terror of molesting duns,

Sole judge of greyhounds and of guns,
A skilful whip, a steady shot,

Joe swears he is!—who says he's not ?
And then he has such knowing faces
For all the week of Ascot races,
And talks with such a mystic speech,
Untangible to vulgar reach,
Of Sultan, Highflyer, and Ranter,
Potatoes, Quiz, and Tam O'Shanter;