[3] _Cf_: “And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab.” _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Scene 1. [4] The word “trowle” was used of passing the vessel about, as appears by the beginning of an old catch: _Trole_, _trole_ the _bowl_ to me, And I will _trole_ the same again to thee. Charles Dibdin the younger has, in a couple of verses, told a very amusing little story of an old fellow who, in addition to finding that ale was meat, drink and cloth, discovered that it included friends as well—or, at any rate, when he was without ale he was without friends, which comes to much the same thing. THE BARREL OF HUMMING ALE. Old Owen lived on the brow of an hill, And he had more patience than pelf; A small plot of ground was his labour to till, {13} And he toiled through the day by himself. But at night crowds of visitors called at his cot, For he told a right marvellous tale; Yet a stronger attraction by chance he had got, A barrel of old humming ale. Old Owen by all was an oracle thought, While they drank not a joke failed to hit; But Owen at last by experience was taught, That wisdom is better than wit. One night his cot could scarce hold the gay rout, The next not a soul heard his tale, The moral is simply they’d fairly drank out His barrel of old humming ale. For the sake of contrast with the foregoing songs, if for nothing else, the following poem (save the mark!) by George Arnold, a Boston rhymster, is worthy of perusal. The “gurgle-gurgle” of the athletic salmon-fisher, described by Mr. Francis, is replaced by the “idle sipping” (fancy sipping beer!) of the beer-garden frequenter. BEER. Here With my beer I sit, While golden moments flit: Alas! They pass Unheeded by: And, as they fly, I, Being dry, Sit, idly sipping here My beer. The new generation of American poets do not mean, it would appear, to be confined in the old metrical grooves. Very different in style are the verses written on ale by Thomas Wharton, in 1748. _A Panegyric on Oxford Ale_ is the title of the poem, which is prefaced by the lines from Horace:— Mea nec Falernæ Temperant vites, neque Formiani Pocula colles. {14} The poem opens thus:—