Let gin, rum, and brandy grow dearer and dearer, Distillers stop working--no toper will mourn; Of Gas we can make a delectable cheerer, Which, nor reddens our noses, nor livers will burn; Unbeholden to whisky We’ll drink and get frisky, Nor fear that to-morrow our temples may ache; Neither stomach commotions, Nor camomile potions, Shall evermore cause us with terror to quake; For what can so fire us, &c. Let the miser’s deep coffers be fill’d to his mind now, Let the man of ambition with honours abound, Give the lover his mistress, complying and kind too, And with laurel let Poets and Heroes be crown’d. Let all be blest round me, No envy shall wound me, Contented and cheerful thro’ life will I pass, If fortune befriends me, And constantly sends me A _quantum sufficit_ of Oxygen Gas. For what can so fire us, &c. THE BARDS OF THE TYNE. _Published in the Tyne Mercury Newspaper, under the Signature of C.P._ (Charles Purvis.) _Tune_--Newcastle Beer. Ye sons of Parnassus, whose brains are inspir’d With envy or madness, dame dullness, or wine, Who wish to be flatter’d, or prais’d, or admir’d, Leave thinking, and fly to the banks of the Tyne: No wit is requir’d To make you admir’d, Let doggrel run limping thro’ each crippled line; No humour degrades, Nor genius pervades The verses sublime of our Bards of the Tyne. No soft flowing numbers must ravish the senses, Whose soothing meanders a ditty would stain A muse with such drowsy materials dispenses, Whilst Grub-street’s quintessence will squeese from the brain: How sweetly the strains Must thrill thro’ the veins, When Sandgate and Bedlam together combine; Or “Oxygen Gas,” From the pipe of an ass, Rarifies the dence brains of our Bards of the Tyne. With rhymers our Theatre’s always surrounded, Whose Bellman taught lays set the house in a roar: Common sense stands aghast, thunder-struck and confounded, While Dullness brays out from its Gall’ry, _Encore!_ Then, big with applause, Crack’s Scotch ell of jaws[14] Sets forth a hoarse bawling, so purely divine, That hydras or bears Might prick up their ears, And howl out in concert with Bards of the Tyne. [14] Alluding to the character of Crack, in the farce of the Turnpike Gate, where Mr Noble performed with true spirit. AN ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING. _By JAMES STAWPERT_. Who’s he that with great _Mercury_ strides, In imitation’s line, And, without reason, thus derides The poets of the Tyne? Who, not content with critic’s skill, That lets no error pass; In passion’s cup he dips his quill, And calls his brother--ass. I tell thee, Satirist, forbear, For asses have a trick, And, if provok’d, ’tis very rare They’re not inclin’d to kick.