eltenham's town,
The gossips are up, and the colonel is down;
He has taken the place of the famous Old Gun {1}
That exploded last year, and created some fun.
Were no lives then lost? some say, Yes! and some, No!
The report even shook the old walls of Glasgow.{2}
And the Bushe was found out to be no safe retreat,
For in love, as in war, you may chance to be beat;
And a hell-shaming fellow can never be reckon'd,
Whate'er he may publish, a capital second.'

"But now having had our fling at his vices, let us speak of him more
agreeably; for the fellow hath some qualifications which, if humour
suit, enables him to shine forth a star of the first magnitude among
_bons vivants_ and sporting characters, who ride, amble, and vegetate
upon the banks of the Chelt. Such is his love of hunting, a pleasure in
which he not only indulges himself, but enables others, his friends,
to participate with him, by keeping up a numerous stud of thirty well
trained horses, and a double pack of fox-hounds, that no appropriate day
may be lost, nor any opportunity missed, of pursuing the sports of the
chase. This is as it should be, and smacks of that glorious spirit
which animated his ancestors; although the violence of his temper will
sometimes break out even here, in the field, when some young and forward
Nimrod, unable to restrain his fiery steed, _o'er-caps_ the hounds, or
crosses the scent. As the Chelts are, or have been, greatly benefited by
the hounds being kept alternately during the hunting months between

1 A good-morrow to you, Captain Gun.

2 Miss Glasgow, divine perfection of antique virgin purity!
what could the poet mean by this allusion?

~229~~Cheltenham and Gloucester, they must at least feel some little
gratitude to be due to the man who is the cause of such an increase of
society, and consequent expenditure of cash. But, say they, we lose in
a fourfold degree; for the respectable portion of the fashionable
visitants have of late cut us entirely, to save their sons and daughters
from pollution and ruin, by association or the force of example. 'Tis
not in the nature of the English Spy rudely to draw aside the curtain,
even to expose the midnight revelries and debaucheries, of which he
possesses some extraordinary anecdotes; events, which, if recorded here,
would, in the language of the poet,

'Give ample roo