When terms begin, and end, could tell,
With their returns, in doggerel;[1]
When the exchequer opes and shuts,
And sow-gelder with safety cuts;
When men may eat and drink their fill, 365
And when be temp'rate if they will;
When use, and when abstain from vice,
Figs, grapes, phlebotomy, and spice.
And as in prison mean rogues beat
Hemp for the service of the great,[2] 370
So Whachum beat his dirty brains
T' advance his master's fame and gains,
And like the devil's oracles,
Put into dogg'rel rhymes his spells,
Which, over ev'ry month's blank page 375
I' th' almanack, strange bilks presage.[3]
He would an elegy compose
On maggots squeez'd out of his nose;
In lyric numbers write an ode on
His mistress, eating a black-pudden; 380
And, when imprison'd air escap'd her,
It puft him with poetic rapture:
His sonnets charm'd th' attentive crowd,
By wide-mouth'd mortal troll'd aloud,
That, circled with his long-ear'd guests, 385
Like Orpheus look'd among the beasts:
A carman's horse could not pass by,
But stood ty'd up to poetry:
No porter's burden pass'd along,
But serv'd for burden to his song: 390
- ↑ Mnemonic verses for such things have always been in vogue and are useful enough: such as Thirty days has September, April, June, and November, &c. The couplet by which the Dominical or Sunday Letter can always be discovered (in common years) is an example of them—
"At Dover Dwell George Brown Esquire
Good Christopher Finch And David Frier."
The initial letters being those of the first days of the twelve months, in order; from which those of all other days may be reckoned. - ↑ Petty rogues, in Bridewell, beat hemp; and it may happen that the produce of their labour is employed in making halters, in which greater criminals are hanged.
- ↑ Bilk signifies a cheat or fraud, as well as to baulk or disappoint.
