Miscellaneous writings of the late Dr. Maginn :: :: University of Virginia Library

I rose this morning about half past nine,
At breakfast coffee I consumed pour quatre,
Unnumbered rolls enriched with marmalade fine,
And little balls of butter dished in water,

Three eggs, two plateful of superb cold chine
(Much recommended to make thin folks fatter);
And having thus my ballast stow'd on board,
Roamed forth to kill a day's time like a lord.

How I contrived to pass the whole forenoon,
I can't remember though my life were on it;
I helped G. T. in jotting of a tune,
And hinted rhymes to G---s for a sonnet;

Called at the Knox's shop with Miss Balloon
And heard her ipsa dixit on a bonnet;
Then washed my mouth with ices, tarts, and flummeries,
And ginger-beer and soda, at Montgomery's.

Down Prince's Street I once or twice paraded,
And gazed upon these same eternal faces;
Those beardless beaux and bearded belles, those faded
And flashy silks, surtouts, pelisses, laces,
Those crowds of clerks, astride on hackneys jaded,
Prancing and capering with notorial grace;
Dreaming enthusiasts who indulge vain whimsies,
That they might pass in Bond Street or St. James's.

I saw equestrian and pedestrian vanish
—One to a herring in his lonely shop.
And some of kind gregarious, and more clanish,
To club at Waters' for a mutton-chop;
Myself resolved for once my cares to banish,
And give the Cerberus of thought a sop,
Got Jack's, and Sam's, and Dick's, and Tom's consent,
And o'er the Mound to Billy Young's we went.

I am not nice, I care not what I dine on,
A sheep's head or beef-steak is all I wish;
Old Homer! how he loved the ερυθρον οινον
It is the glass that glorifies the dish.
The thing that I have always set my mind on
(A small foundation laid of fowl, flesh, fish)
Is out of bottle, pitcher, or punch-bowl,
To suck reviving solace to my soul.

Life's a dull dusty desert, waste and drear,
With now and then an oasis between,
Where palm-trees rise, and fountains gushing clear
Burst neath the shelter of that leafy screen;
Haste not your parting steps, when such appear,
Repose, ye weary travellers, on the green.
Horace and Milton, Dante, Burns, and Schiller,
Dined at a tavern—when they had “the siller.”

And ne'er did poet, epical or tragical,
At Florence, London, Weimar, Rome, Maybole,
See time's dark lanthern glow with hues more magical
Than I have witnessed in the Coffin-hole.
Praise of antiquity a bam and fudge I call,
Ne'er past the present let my wishes roll;
A fig for all comparing, croaking grumblers,
Hear me, dear dimpling Billy, bring the tumblers.

Let blank verse hero, or Spenserian rhymer,
Treat Donna Musa with chateau-margout,
Chateau-la-fitte, Johannisberg, Hocheimer,
In tall outlandish glasses green and blue,
Thanks to my stars, myself, a doggrel-chimer,
Have nothing with such costly tastes to do;
My muse is always kindest when I court her
O'er whiskey-punch, gin-twist, strong beer, and porter.

And O, my pipe, though in these Dandy days
Few love thee, fewer still their love confess,
Ne'er let me blush to celebrate thy praise,
Divine invention of the age of Bess!
I for a moment interrupt my lays
The tiny tube with loving lip to press,
I'll then come back with a reviving zest,
And give thee three more stanzas of my best.

(I smoke.)

Pipe! whether plain in fashion of Frey-herr,
Or gaudy glittering in the taste of Boor,
Deep-darkened Meer-shaum or Ecume-de-mer,
Or snowy clay of Gowda, light and pure.
Let different people different pipes prefer,
Delft, horn, or catgut, long, short, older, newer,
Puff, every brother, as it likes him best,
De gustibus non disputandum est.

Pipe! when I stuff into thee my canaster,
With flower of camomile and leaf of rose,
And the calm rising fume comes fast and faster,
Curling with balmy circles near my nose,
And all the while my dexter hand is master
Of the full cup from Meux's vat that flows,
Heavens! all my brain a soft oblivion wraps
Of wafered letters and of single taps.

I've no objections to a good segar,
A true Havana, smooth, and moist, and brown;

But then the smoke's too near the eye by far,
And out of doors 'tis in a twinkling flown;
And somehow it sets all my teeth ajar,
When to an inch or so we've smoked him down;
And if your leaf have got a straw within it,
You know 'tis like a cinder in a minute.

I have no doubt a long excursive hooker
Suits well some lordly lounger of Bengal,
Who never writes, or looks into a book, or
Does any thing with earnestness at all;
He sits, and his tobacco's in the nook, or
Tended by some black heathen in the hall,
Lays up his legs, and thinks he does great things
If once in the half hour a puff he brings.

I rather follow in my smoking trim
The example of Scots cottars and their wives
Who, while the evening air is warm and dim,
In July sit beside their garden hives;
And, gazing all the while with wrinkles grim
To see how the concern of honey thrives,
Empty before they've done a four-ounce bag
Of sailors' twist, or, what's less common—shag.