Away sprung Billy Ramus quick as thought,
To majesty the welcome tidings brought,

How Whitbread, staring, stood like any stake,
And trembled-then the civil things he said-
On which the king did smile and nod his head:
For monarchs like to see their subjects quake:

Such horrors unto kings most pleasant are,
Proclaiming reverence and humility:
High thoughts, too, all those shaking fits declare
Of kingly grandeur and great capability!

People of worship, wealth, and birth,
Look on the humbler sons of earth,

Indeed in a most humble light, God knows!
High stations are like Dover's towering cliffs,
Where ships below appear like little skiffs,

While people walking on the strand like crows.

Muse, sing the stir that Mr. Whitbread made;
Poor gentleman! most terribly afraid

He should not charm enough his guests divine: He gave his maids new aprons, gowns and smocks; And lo! two hundred pounds were spent in frocks, To make the apprentices and draymen fine:

Busy as horses in a field of clover,

Dogs, cats, and chairs, and stools, were tumbled over, Amid the Whitbread rout of preparation,

To treat the lofty ruler of the nation.

Now moved king, queen, and princesses so grand,
To visit the first brewer in the land;

Who sometimes swills his beer and grinds his meat
In a snug corner christened Chiswell-street;
But oftener charmed with fashionable air,
Amid the gaudy great of Portman-square.

Lord Aylesbury, and Denbigh's Lord also,
His grace the Duke of Montague likewise,
With Lady Harcourt joined the raree-show,
And fixed all Smithfield's marveling eyes:

For lo! a greater show ne'er graced those quarters, Since Mary roasted, just like crabs, the martyrs.

Arrived, the king broad grinned, and gave a nod
To smiling Whitbread, who, had God

Come with his angels to behold his beer,
With more respect he never could have met--
Indeed the man was in a sweat,

So much the brewer did the king revere.

Her majesty contrived to make a dip:
Light as a feather then the king did skip,
And asked a thousand questions, with a laugh,
Before poor Whitbread comprehended half.

Reader, my Ode should have a simile-
Well, in Jamaica, on a tamarind tree,

Five hundred parrots, gabbling just like Jews, I've seen such noise the feathered imps did make, As made my very pericranium ache

Asking and telling parrot news:

Thus was the brewhouse filled with gabbling noise, Whilst draymen and the brewer's boys,

Devoured the questions that the king did ask: In different parties were they staring seen, Wondering to think they saw a king and queen! Behind a tub were some, and some behind a cask.

Some draymen forced themselves (a pretty luncheon)
Into the mouth of many a gaping puncheon ;
And through the bung-hole winked with curious eye,
To view, and be assured what sort of things
Were princesses, and queens, and kings,
For whose most lofty station thousands sigh!
And lo! of all the gaping puncheon clan,
Few were the mouths that had not got a man!

Now majesty into a pump so deep
Did with an opera-glass so curious peep:
Examining with care each wondrous matter
That brought up water!

Thus have I seen a magpie in the street,
A chattering bird we often meet,
A bird for curiosity well known;
With head awry,

And cunning eye,

Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone.

And now his curious majesty did stoop
To count the nails on every hoop;
And, lo! no single thing came in his way,
That, full of deep research, he did not say,

"What's this! hæ, hæ? what's that? what's this? what's that ?"

So quick the words, too, when he deigned to speak,

As if each syllable would break his neck.

Thus, to the world of great whilst others crawl,
Our sovereign peeps into the world of small;
Thus microscopic genuises explore

Things that too oft provoke the public scorn,
Yet swell of useful knowledges the store,
By finding systems in a pepper-corn.

Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare,
To make the majesty of England stare,
That he had butts enough, he knew,

Placed side by side, to reach along to Kew:
On which the king with wonder swiftly cried,

"What, if they reach to Kew then, side by side,

What would they do, what, what, placed end to end?"" To whom with knitted, calculating brow,

The man of beer most solemnly did vow,

Almost to Windsor that they would extend;
On which the king, with wondering mien,
Repeated it unto the wondering queen:

On which, quick turning round his haltered head,
The brewer's horse, with face astonished neighed;
The brewer's dog too poured a note of thunder,
Rattled his chain, and wagged his tail for wonder.

Now did the king for other beers inquire,
For Calvert's, Jordan's, Thrale's entire;

And, after talking of these different beers,
Asked Whitbread if his porter equalled theirs?

This was a puzzling, diagreeing question;
Grating like arsenic on his host's digestion :
A kind of question to the man of cask,
That not even Solomon himself would ask.

Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took
A very pretty memorandum-book,
With gilded leaves of asses' skin so white,
And in it legibly began to write-

Memorandum.

A charming place beneath the grates
For roasting chestnuts or potates.

Mem.

'Tis hops that give a bitterness to beer— Hops grow in Kent, says Whitbread, and elsewhere.

Quære.

Is there no cheaper stuff? where doth it dwell?
Would not horse-aloes bitter it as well?

Mem.

To try it soon on our small beer

'T will save us several pound a year.

Mem.

To remember to forget to ask

Old Whitbread to my house one day.

Mem.

Not to forget to take of beer the cask,
The brewer offered me, away.

Now having penciled his remarks so shrewd,
Sharp as the point indeed of a new pin,
His majesty his watch most sagely viewed,
And then put up his asses' skin.

To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say,
"Whitbread, are all your horses fond of hay!"
"Yes, please your majesty," in humble notes,
The brewer answered-" also, sir, of oats:
Another thing my horses too maintains,
And that, an't please your majesty, are grains."

"Grains, grains," said majesty, "to fill their crops?

Grains, grains?—that comes from hops-yes, hops, hops? hops ?"

Here was the king, like hounds sometimes, at fault— "Sire," cried the humble brewer, "give me leave Your sacred majesty to undeceive;

Grains, sire, are never made from hops, but malt."

'True," said the cautious monarch, with a smile:

"From malt, malt, malt-I meant malt all the while."
"Yes," with the sweetest bow, rejoined the brewer,
"An't please your majesty, you did, I'm sure."
"Yes," answered majesty, with quick reply,
“I did, I did, I did I, I, I, I.”

Now this was wise in Whitbread-here we find

A very pretty knowledge of mankind;

As monarchs never must be in the wrong,

'T was really a bright thought in Whitbread's tongue, To tell a little fib, or some such thing,

To save the sinking credit of a king.

Some brewers, in a rage of information,
Proud to instruct the ruler of a nation,

Had on the folly dwelt, to seem damned clever!
Now, what had been the consequence? Too plain!
The man had cut his consequence in twain;
The king had hated the wise fool forever!

Reader, whene'er thou dost espy a nose
That bright with many a ruby glows,

That nose thou mayest pronounce, nay safely swear,
Is nursed on something better than small-beer.