When come to the place where we all were to dine, (A chair-lumber’d closet just twelve feet by nine:) My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; 70 ‘For I knew it,’ he cried, ‘both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and t’other with Thrale; But no matter, I’ll warrant we’ll make up the party With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, 75 They[’re] both of them merry and authors like you; The one writes the _Snarler_, the other the _Scourge_; Some think he writes _Cinna_—he owns to _Panurge._’ While thus he describ’d them by trade, and by name, They enter’d and dinner was serv’d as they came. 80 At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen; At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot; In the middle a place where the pasty—was not. Now, my Lord as for tripe, it’s my utter aversion, 85 And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian; So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound, While the bacon and liver went merrily round. But what vex’d me most was that d—’d Scottish rogue, With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue; 90 And, ‘Madam,’ quoth he, ‘may this bit be my poison, A prettier dinner I never set eyes on; Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs’d, But I’ve eat of your tripe till I’m ready to burst.’ ‘The tripe,’ quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, 95 ‘I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week: I like these here dinners so pretty and small; But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.’ ‘O—Oh!’ quoth my friend, ‘he’ll come on in a trice, He’s keeping a corner for something that’s nice: 100 There’s a pasty’—‘A pasty!’ repeated the Jew, ‘I don’t care if I keep a corner for’t too.’ ‘What the de’il, mon, a pasty!’ re-echoed the Scot, ‘Though splitting, I’ll still keep a corner for thot.’ ‘We’ll all keep a corner,’ the lady cried out; 105 ‘We’ll all keep a corner,’ was echoed about. While thus we resolv’d, and the pasty delay’d, With look that quite petrified, enter’d the maid; A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, Wak’d Priam in drawing his curtains by night. 110 But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her? That she came with some terrible news from the baker: And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven Sad Philomel thus—but let similes drop— 115 And now that I think on’t, the story may stop. To be plain, my good Lord, it’s but labour misplac’d To send such good verses to one of your taste; You’ve got an odd something—a kind of discerning— A relish—a taste—sicken’d over by learning; 120 At least, it’s your temper, as very well known, That you think very slightly of all that’s your own: So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,