What, and how great, the virtue and the art To live on little with a cheerful heart; (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine) Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine; Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside; Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll, And the brain dances to the mantling bowl. Hear Bethel's sermon, one not versed in schools, But strong in sense, and wise without the rules. 10 Go, work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began) Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can. Your wine lock'd up, your butler stroll'd abroad, Or fish denied (the river yet unthaw'd), If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat. Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men Will choose a pheasant still before a hen; Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold, Except you eat the feathers green and gold. 20 Of carps and mullets why prefer the great, (Though cut in pieces ere my lord can eat) Yet for small turbots such esteem profess? Because God made these large, the other less. Oldfield,[128] with more than harpy throat endued, Cries, 'Send me, gods! a whole hog barbecued!' Oh, blast it, south-winds! till a stench exhale Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail. By what criterion do ye eat, d' ye think, If this is prized for sweetness, that for stink? 30 When the tired glutton labours through a treat, He finds no relish in the sweetest meat, He calls for something bitter, something sour, And the rich feast concludes extremely poor: Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see; Thus much is left of old simplicity! The robin redbreast till of late had rest, And children sacred held a martin's nest, Till beccaficos sold so devilish dear To one that was, or would have been, a peer. 40 Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed, I'll have a party at the Bedford-head;[129] Or even to crack live crawfish recommend; I'd never doubt at court to make a friend. 'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother About one vice, and fall into the other: Between excess and famine lies a mean; Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean. Avidien, or his wife (no matter which, For him you'll call a dog, and her a bitch) 50 Sell their presented partridges, and fruits, And humbly live on rabbits and on roots: One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine, And is at once their vinegar and wine. But on some lucky day (as when they found A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drown'd) At such a feast, old vinegar to spare, Is what two souls so generous cannot bear: Oil, though it stink, they drop by drop impart, 60 But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.