Ye soldiers so stout, With plenty of oaths, though no plenty of coin, Who make such a rout Of all your commanders Who serv'd us in Flanders, And eke at the Boyne : Come leave off your rattling Of sieging and battling, And know you'd much better to sleep in whole bones ; Were you sent to Gibraltar, Your note you'd soon alter, And wish for good claret, and bumpers, 'squire Jones. Ye clergy so wise, Who myst'ries profound can demonstrate most clear, You preach once a week, Above once in a year : Come here without failing, And leave off your railing 'Gainst bishops providing for dull stupid drones; Says the text so divine, What is life without wine? Then away with the claret, a bumper, 'squire Jones. Ye lawyers so just, Be the cause what it will, who so learnedly plead, You know black from white, Yet prefer wrong to right, As you chance to be fee'd : Leave musty reports, And forsake the king's courts, Where dulness and discord have set up their thrones ; Burn Salkeld and Ventris, With all your damn'd entries, And away with the claret, a bumper, 'squire Jones. Ye physical tribe, Whose knowledge consists in hard words and grimace, Whene'er you prescribe Have at your devotion Pills, bolus, or potion, Be what will the case : To purge, blister, and bleed? When ailing yourselves the whole faculty owns, Are not so prevailing As mirth with good claret, and bumpers, 'squire Jones. Ye fox-hunters eke, That follow the call of the horn and the hound, Who your ladies forsake, Before they're awake, To beat up the brake Where the vermin is found: Leave Piper and Blueman, Shrill Duchess and Trueman; No music is found in such dissonant tones: Would you ravish your ears With the songs of the spheres, Hark away to the claret, a bumper, 'squire Jones. SONG XXIX. IN THE PRAISE OF SACK. BY FRANCIS BEAUMONT.* LISTEN all, I pray, To the words I've to say, To the honour of bays; Of all the juice Which the gods produce, Sack shall be prefer'd before 'em ; 'Tis sack that shall * This song is inserted in Beaumont's poems, and his name is here prefixed to it on the authority of an old manuscript copy in the Harleian library. This is the wine Which in former time Each wise one of the Magi, In a frolicsome blouse, Let the hop be their bane, And a rope be their shame, Let the gout and the cholic pine 'em, That offer to shrink In taking their drink, Seu Græcum, sive Latinum.. Let the glass go round, Let the quart pot sound; Let each one do as he's done to ; Avaunt ye that hug The abominable jug, 'Mongst us heteroclita sunto. There's no such disease As he that doth please His palate with beer for to shame us; 'Tis sack makes us sing, Hey down a down ding, Musa paulo majora canamus. He is either mute, Or does poorly dispute, That drinks not wine as we men do; The more a man drinks, Like a subtile sphinx, Tantum valet iste loquendo. 'Tis true our souls, By the lousy bowls Of beer that doth naught but swill us, (Pythagoras 'tis thine) Nam vos mutastis et illas. When I've sack in my brain I'm in a merry vein, And this to me a bliss is; I can justly despise, How it cheers the brains! How it warms the veins ! Et mutatas dicere formas. Give me the boy, My delight and my joy, To my tantum that drinks his tale : By sack he that waxes, In our syntaxis, Est verbum personale. Art thou weak or lame, Or thy wits to blame? Call for sack and thou shalt have it; "Twill make him rise, And be very wise, Cui vim natura negavit. |