University of Virginia Library

ODE X. TO HENRY DUNDAS, ESQ.

For a great empire, fast undoing,
Something, indeed should have been brewing,
Better than brandy and strong beer:
Something was wanting, to my humble thinking,
Besides good eating and hard drinking,
To keep the leaky ship from foundering clear:
Yet 'tis well known that e'er the vessel's sunk,
The sailors commonly get drunk.
Now thou art off, I long to see,
In thine own language, ‘Wha wants me?’
It will not be at all surprising
To catch thee, Harry, advertising.
If mad to face a second storm,
Take an advertisement in form.

500

ADVERTISEMENT

A steady man, near sixty years of age,
Would very willingly engage
As butler to a minister of state,
And overlook the plate.
But should the plate by chance be carried off,
And not a hogshead or a bottle left;
He begs to say, he won't be fool enough
To answer for the leakage, or the theft.
If wanted, he can have, by God's good grace,
An exc'llent character from his last place.
Please to direct to Mister H. Dundas,
At the old sign—the Bottle and the Glass.