LINES

ADDRESSED TO A CANDIDATE FOR ADMISSION TO

THE TRAVELLERS*.

You think the stories of the Travellers

Are but the cant of dandy Cavillers;

Now list awhile, as I relate

Our various evils, small and great.

Some danger to ourselves forestalling,
We left a house, because 'twas falling+;
Which still is standing (there's the rub!)>
And harbours well a larger club;

Then bought and pulled a house to pieces,
And made a crack which still increases;
In the desire to break and botch;
Like children, when they 've got a watch.
Our rooms are passage-rooms, and one
Has three deep steps, to throw you down.
Add, that from these there's no egress
To chambers, where we bathe or dress.
Hence we descend (for greater bother)
One staircase, but to climb another.
Strange ups and downs; which seem design'd
For torment of the lame and blind.
Yet we expended on this house and
Establishment some twenty thousand
Pounds sterling, ere we drank or eat.
Hence, over head and ears in debt,
We, if our creditors were rude,
Might all be separately sued.

We wait an hour ere dinner's drest;
In vain we clamour, curse, and peste,'
Our viands are like all the rest.

* The Travellers, a highly respectable Club in Pall-Mall.-This whimsical production, which was printed for private circulation only, is attributed to George Rose (the Younger), a member of the Club.

The house formerly occupied by the Club in Waterloo-place.

We've flaccid fish, and carrion-ham,
Bull-beef, and mutton made of ram:
If our plain dishes make us curse,
Our entrées (one and all) are worse.

Our matelottes would be loathed of otters,
Our stews are formed of tails and trotters:
We've gullet-sweetbreads *, veined with red,
And bloody bones, and raw calf's-head.
Stuffed by our little senate's Catos
(Will we or nill we) with potatoes;

Who care not though we're choked with wax,
If they can raise a paltry tax:

That tolls of sixpence may repay
The thousands which they've thrown away.
Upon sour coffee, black as mud,
All night we foam and chew the cud:
(Coffee by bean-fed burgher boasted)
Ill made, and purchased ready roasted;
Boiled in a copper, like the vittle,
Cooked in a prison ship or spital.
Coffee which lauded by such men is
As never sipt its juice at Venice;
Much less, enveloped in a murky
Vapour, have savoured it in Turkey;
Who fancy nothing can go wrong

If the black broth be "slab and strong :"
The salutary beverage spoiling
By keeping, or by over-boiling.

But lest my tediousness revolt,
With these last words I've shot my bolt.
Such are the works of our Committee,
Culled from the wealthy, wise, and witty,
And form'd to "starve and plague the city."

* Does Mr. Giblet, the butcher, reserve his hinge-sweetbreads and weather-mutton for better customers? If so, why are the Travellers of Pall Mall worse treated than their commercial brethren, who are celebrated " for getting the best of every thing?" Let the Committee examine their fellow labourer and opposite neighbour, as to the mutton which was given him one day in the month of February last,

2

POSTSCRIPT.

To fix them better in the mind,
I in these slip-shod rhymes combined
A series of plain truths, nor vext
An individual in my text;

(None touched in couplet or in triplet)
And if I have a note on Giblet,
I well may be excused; since he
For four years has been poisoning me,
Sheltered at last in the university,
From Cook and Caterer's perversity.
But some I find, who love to crow it,
Have fallen on him they deem the poet,
Supplying, when they'd plant a hit,
With malice what they want in wit.
Against none such I wield my pen,
Warring with measures, not with men :
And wish, in all the pomp of verse,
To my assailants nothing worse,
Than to sit, with the wind at east,
In their own reading-room, to feast
Upon their own unhappy fare,

And blunder up their own back-stair,
And if they feel the sting of semper
Ergo-? to mend their taste and temper.

A COMPLICATION OF DISORDERS.

"WHAT did Mr. die of?" asked a simple neighbour. "Of a complication of disorders," replied his friend. "How do you describe this complication, my good Sir?"-" He died," answered the other, "of two physicians, an apothecary, and a surgeon,'

Chronicle.

POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.

DRINKING.

FROM the days of King Ela, who flourished and staggered nearly a thousand years before the Christian era, down to the present moment, potentates and their subjects have alike revelled in the joys of intoxication. I think I should be enabled to prove, without fear of contradiction, that the wisest of mankind have been addicted to this demoralizing propensity. Noah I look upon as a mere experimentalist, for we have no evidence of his ever becoming a regular practitioner; but to mention the names of Solomon, Solon, and the learned Stagyrite-(Query, could he stagger right under the effects of inebriety?)-may be sufficient, as my readers, anxious to get forward upon the subject, may not like to be taken back to the days of the Greeks, or the Romans.

Shakspeare has recorded of us inhabitants of the "tight little island," that we are most potent in potting, and I am not at all disposed to dispute with so great an authority; Bacon, indeed, whose very name invokes the thirsty throat to a copious libation, was a professed enemy to bibulation; so was Newton; but these were cold reasoners, and those who write dry works, should not partake much of fluids. Pope loved a glass, though his frame denied him the pleasure of it; poor Morland drew more corks than pictures; and in every gradation of society, as well as in every age, the vineyards have had numerous votaries. The accomplished Churchill was a

sot; Goldsmith was never happy out of a tavern; and even grave Dr. Johnson-went to the Devil*. Semel insanivimus omnes may be a veracious maxim, but that we have all at some time been intoxicated, is surely a truer axiom. Getting drunk, Mr. Editor, I look upon as a very serious affair, but, being tipsy, is one of the little luxuries of life. Oh! the entrancing sensation of elevation and superiority-the animating flow of courage and wit, that runs riot in the veins-then the "unutterable dying away," as Coleridge has it→→ the dear charming confusion of intellect, the failing vision, the imaginative dance of the tables and chairs, the memorable moment when even a Templar becomes poetical. I am accustomed to divide drinkers into two classes, namely, Elevationists, or those who get tipsy-and Finishers, or those who get drunk.

Amongst the first class was the ci-devant Jacob Joinem of Islington, who nightly took his seat by the parlour fire, at the Pied Bull (this house was formerly the seat of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Jacob revered him as the father of smokers). Mr. J.'s movements were as regular as the clock; albeit, it was impossible to wind him up to strike, except as hereafter mentioned. He entered the room precisely at half-past seven, and immediately placing himself in the leather-bottomed chair, remained in a state of perfect quiescence › for upwards of four hours. Mr. Joinem was a portly personage, with a short memory and long legs; he was of a grave temperament, and by

• A tavern of that name existed in Fleet-street some years back.