Away sprung Billy Ramus quick as thought, How Whitbread, staring, stood like any stake, Such horrors unto kings most pleasant are, People of worship, wealth, and birth, Indeed in a most humble light, God knows! While people walking on the strand like crows. Muse, sing the stir that Mr. Whitbread made; 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, Who sometimes swills his beer and grinds his meat Lord Aylesbury, and Denbigh's Lord also, 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 Come with his angels to behold his beer, So much the brewer did the king revere. Her majesty contrived to make a dip: Reader, my Ode should have a simile- 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) Now majesty into a pump so deep Thus have I seen a magpie in the street, And cunning eye, Peep knowingly into a marrow-bone. And now his curious majesty did stoop "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, Things that too oft provoke the public scorn, Now boasting Whitbread serious did declare, Placed side by side, to reach along to Kew: "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, quick turning round his haltered head, Now did the king for other beers inquire, And, after talking of these different beers, This was a puzzling, diagreeing question; Now majesty, alive to knowledge, took Memorandum. A charming place beneath the grates 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? 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, Now having penciled his remarks so shrewd, To Whitbread now deigned majesty to say, "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." 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, Had on the folly dwelt, to seem damned clever! Reader, whene'er thou dost espy a nose That nose thou mayest pronounce, nay safely swear, |