Sir, Fifty years since to Chelsea great From Rodnam on the Irish main I stroll'd, with maggots in my pate, Where much improv'd they still remain. Through various employs I've past: A scraper, vertuos', projector, Tooth-drawer, trimmer, and at last I'm now a gimcrack whim collector. Monsters of all sorts here are seen, Strange things in nature as they grew so; Some relicks of the Sheba Queen, And fragments of the fam'd Bob Cruso. Knick-knacks too dangle round the wall, Some in glass cases, some on shelf; But what's the rarest sight of all, Your humble servant shows himself. On this my chiefest hope depends. Now, if you will the cause espouse, In Journals pray direct your friends To my Museum Coffee-house; And in requital for the timely favour, I'll _gratis_ bleed, draw teeth, and be your shaver; Nay, that your pate may with my noddle tally, } And you shine bright as I do--marry, shall ye } Freely consult my revelation Molly; } Nor shall one jealous thought create a huff, For she has taught me manners long enough. DON SALTERO. _Chelsea Knackatory._ Several frolicsome gentlemen hired a hackney-coach in 1724, to which they affixed six horses; the coachman and postillion they habited as kennel-sweepers or scavengers; and they placed as many shoe-boys as could cling to the vehicle behind as footmen, with their stools on their heads and baskets of implements by their sides. Thus equipped they drove to the Ring in Hyde-park, and there entertained the company with this species of eccentricity. There is a certain degree of whim in some of the wagers we find recorded in the newspapers, that, however absurd the bettors may appear, a smile is excited perforce. In the above year two gentlemen, full of money and destitute of wit, had a dispute respecting the quantity that might be eaten at one meal. This ended in a bet of 5_l._ proposed by one of them, that himself and _another_ would eat a bushel of tripe, and drink four bottles of wine, within an hour. The parties met at Islington, where the tripe was produced and the wine displayed; nothing remained but the introduction of the _another_; that _another_, gentle reader, proved a sharp-set Bear, who fully justified his friend's prognostick with the tripe diluted by three bottles of wine poured into it.