~241~~

Yet still you've shown us, my smart beau,
Things that we should and should not know,
Vide the Oakland cots.
Bernard Blackmantle, learned Spy,
Don't you think hundreds will cry fie,
If you expose such plots?

You should have told them as I do,
And yet I love your hunters too,
That nothing is so vile
As strutting up and down a street,8
Dirt-spatter'd o'er from head to feet,
In the horse-jockey style.

_Ne sutor ultra crep_, should tell
These red-coats 'tis a paltry swell,
Such careless customs backing;
If they must strut in spurs and boots,
For once I'd join the chalk recruits,
And shout, "Use Turner's Blacking."

Howe'er, push on--there are of all,
Good, bad, high, low, and short, and tall,
That seek from you decrees.
Fear not, strike strong--you must not fly--
We will have shots enough--I'm by,
A Mephistopheles.

8 There surely is much and offensive vanity in the practice
adopted by many members of the B. H. of appearing on the
pro-menades and in the rooms of Cheltenham, bespattered o'er
with the slush and foam of the hunting field. Every
situation has its decent appropriations, and one would
suppose comfort would have taught these Nimrods a better
lesson. It is pardonable for children to wear their
Valentines on the 14th of February, or for a young ensign to
strut about armed _cap a pie_ for the first week of his
appointment; but the fashion of showing off in a red jerkin,
soiled smalls, mudded boots, and blooded spurs, is not
imitable: there is nothing of the old manhood of sport in
it; foppery and fox-hunting are not synonymous. Members of
the B. H. look to it; follow no leader in this respect. Or,
if you must needs persevere, turn your next fox out in the
ball-room, and let the huntsman's horn and the view halloo
supersede the necessity of harps and fiddle-strings.

~242~~

We'll learn and con them each by heart, Set them in note books by our
art, Each lord, and duke, and tailor. From Dr. S------{9} to Peter
K------, U------, O------, and I------, and E-----, and A------, Down to
the ploughman Naylor.{10}

Then let them sow their crop of cares, Their flowers, their wee