Besides, Bon Gaultier definitely shews

That the real beverage for feasting gods on Is a soft compound, grateful to the nose

And also to the palate, known as 'Hodgson.' I know a man-a tailor's son- - who rose

To be a peer and this I would lay odds on, (Though in his Memoirs it may not appear,) That that man owed his rise to copious Beer.

O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue! Shall days and months and years and centuries

pass,

And still your merits be unrecked, unsung?

Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass,

And wished that lyre could yet again be strung

Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and

taught her

Misguided sons that "the best drink was water."

How would he now recant that wild opinion,

And sing-as would that I could sing—of you! I was not born (alas!) the "Muses' minion,"

I'm not poetical, not even blue :

And he (we know) but strives with waxen pinion, Whoe'er he is that entertains the view

Of emulating Pindar, and will be

Sponsor at last to some nameless sea.

Oh! when the green slopes of Arcadia burned
With all the lustre of the dying day,

And on Citharon's brow the reaper turned,
(Humming, of course, in his delightful way,

How Lycidas was dead, and how concerned

The Nymphs were when they saw his lifeless clay; And how rock told to rock the dreadful story That poor young Lycidas was gone to glory :)

What would that lone and labouring soul have given, At that soft moment, for a pewter pot!

How had the mists that dimmed his eye been riven,

And Lycidas and sorrow all forgot!

If his own grandmother had died unshriven,

In two short seconds he'd have recked it not;

Such power hath Beer. The heart which Grief hath canker'd

Hath one unfailing remedy-the Tankard.

Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa;

When a rapt audience has encored 'Fra Poco'

Or Casta Diva,' I have heard that then

The Prima Donna, smiling herself out,

Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.

But what is coffee, but a noxious berry,

Born to keep used-up Londoners awake?

What is Falernian, what is Port or Sherry,

But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache?

Nay stout itself (though good with oysters, very)— Is not a thing your reading man should take. He that would shine, and petrify his tutor, Should drink draught Allsop in its "native pewter."

But hark! a sound is stealing on my ear—

A soft and silvery sound-I know it well.

Its tinkling tells me that a time is near

Precious to me-it is the Dinner Bell.

O blessed Bell! Thou bringest beef and beer,

Thou bringest good things more than tongue may

tell:

Seared is (of course) my heart-but unsubdued

Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.

I go. Untaught and feeble is my pen:

But on one statement I may safely venture:

That few of our most highly gifted men

Have more appreciation of the trencher.
I go. One pound of British beef, and then

What Mr. Swiveller called a "modest quencher "; That home-returning, I may 'soothly say,'

"Fate cannot touch me: I have dined to-day."