For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moulting season; And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their screeching and cackles, For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he called them the hackles. A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it wasn’t picking enough, When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff-- “O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur was all gone in patches; And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches-- But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies--sham flies to go trolling and trouting, For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a-doubting. A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers! And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers! And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing; So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing. As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be lucky, For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of Your servant, JANE ELIZABETH STUCKEY. TO MARY HOUSEMAID. ON VALENTINE’S DAY. Mary, you know I’ve no love-nonsense, And, though I pen on such a day, I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience, Or writing in the courting way. Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature, It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain, And many a poor unhappy creature May wish that she was half as plain. Your virtues would not rise an inch, Although your shape was two foot taller, And wisely you let others pinch Great waists and feet to make them smaller. You never try to spare your hands From getting red by household duty, But, doing all that it commands, Their coarseness is a moral beauty. Let Susan flourish her fair arms And at your old legs sneer and scoff, But let her laugh, for you have charms That nobody knows nothing of. TO A BAD RIDER. I. Why, Mr. Rider, why Your nag so ill indorse, man? To make observers cry, You’re mounted, but no horseman? II. With elbows out so far, This thought you can’t debar me-- Though no Dragoon--Hussar-- You’re surely of the army! III. I hope to turn M.P. You have not any notion, So awkward you would be At “seconding a motion!” TO A CRITIC.