“Why, how now, Doll Diamond, you’re very alert; Is it your French breeding has made you so pert? Because I was civil, here’s a stir with a pox: Who is it that values your —— or your fox? Sure ’tis to her honour, he ever should bed His bloody red hand to her bloody red head. You’re proud of your gilding; but I tell you each nail Is only just tinged with a rub at her tail; And although it may pass for gold on a ninny, Sure we know a Bath shilling soon from a guinea. Nay, her foretop’s a cheat; each morn she does black it, Yet, ere it be night, it’s the same with her placket. I’ll ne’er be run down any more with your cant; Your velvet was wore before in a mant, On the back of her mother; but now ’tis much duller,— The fire she carries hath changed its colour. Those creatures that draw me you never would mind, If you’d but look on your own Pharaoh’s lean kine; They’re taken for spectres, they’re so meagre and spare, Drawn damnably low by your sorrel mare. We know how your lady was on you befriended; You’re not to be paid for ’till the lawsuit is ended: But her bond it is good, he need not to doubt; She is two or three years above being out. Could my Knight be advised, he should ne’er spend his vigour On one he can’t hope of e’er making _bigger_.” Gay seems to have shared the watermen’s disgust at both coach and sedan. “Boxed within the chair, contemn the street And trust their safety to another’s feet,” he says of those willing to use the chair. In another place he is comparing the two:— “The gilded chariots while they loll at ease And lazily insure a life’s disease; While softer chairs the tawdry load convey To court, to _White’s_, assemblies or the play.” Elsewhere he exhorts the pedestrian to assert his rights:— “Let not the chairman, with assuming stride, Press near the wall, and rudely thrust thy side; The laws have set him bounds; his servile feet Should ne’er encroach where posts defend the street.”