The dress, appearance, and
language to the life.
~241~~
Yet still you've shown us, my smart beau,
Things that we should and should not know,
Vide the Oakland cots.
Bernard Blackmantle, learned Spy,
Don't you think hundreds will cry fie,
If you expose such plots?
You should have told them as I do,
And yet I love your hunters too,
That nothing is so vile
As strutting up and down a street,8
Dirt-spatter'd o'er from head to feet,
In the horse-jockey style.
_Ne sutor ultra crep_, should tell
These red-coats 'tis a paltry swell,
Such careless customs backing;
If they must strut in spurs and boots,
For once I'd join the chalk recruits,
And shout, "Use Turner's Blacking."
Howe'er, push on--there are of all,
Good, bad, high, low, and short, and tall,
That seek from you decrees.
Fear not, strike strong--you must not fly--
We will have shots enough--I'm by,
A Mephistopheles.
8 There surely is much and offensive vanity in the practice
adopted by many members of the B. H. of appearing on the
pro-menades and in the rooms of Cheltenham, bespattered o'er
with the slush and foam of the hunting field.
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