THE HAUNCH OF VENISON. A POETICAL EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE. THANKS, my lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter; The haunch was a picture for painters to study, The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy; Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting To spoil such a delicate picture by eating; I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, But, my lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my turn, Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose; 'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's: But in parting with these I was puzzled again, With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when, There's H―d, and C―y, and H―rth, and H-ff, An acquaintance, a friend, as he call'd himself, enter'd; An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he, And he smil'd as he look'd at the venison and me. "What have we got here?-why, this is good eating! "Your own I suppose-or is it in waiting?" "Why, whose should it be?" cried I with a flounce, "I get these things often;" but that was a bounce: "Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleas'd to be kind; but I hate ostentation." "If that be the case then," cried he, very gay, "I'm glad I have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words-I insist on't-precisely at three: We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there; My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare. What say you a pasty, it shall and it must, Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty, Were things that I never dislik'd in my life, Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife. So next day in due splendour to make my approach, I drove to his door in my own hackney coach. When come to the place where we all were to dine (A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine), My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; "For I knew it," he cried, " both eternally fail, At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, In the middle a place where the pasty was not. rogue, With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and his brogue, And," Madam," quoth he, " may this bit be my poison, A prettier dinner I never set eyes on; Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curst, But I've eat of your tripe, till I'm ready to burst." "The tripe," quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, "I could dine on this tripe seven days in a week: I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the doctor, eats nothing at all." "O-ho!" quoth my friend, "he'll come on in a trice, He's keeping a corner for something that's nice: There's a pasty"-" A pasty!" repeated the Jew; "I don't care if I keep a corner for't too." "What the de'il, mon, a pasty!" re-echoed the Scot; "Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for that." "We'll all keep a corner," the lady cried out; And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven At least, it's your temper, as very well known, |