Oh, Mr. Spencer!
I mean no offence, sir—
Retrencher of each trencher—man or woman’s;
Maker of days of ember,
Eloquent Member
Of the House of Com—I mean to say short commons—
Thou Long Tom Coffin singing out, “Hold Fast”—
Avast!
Oh, Mr. Perceval! I’ll bet a dollar, a
Great growth of Cholera,
And new deaths reckon’d,
Will mark thy Lenten twenty-first and second.
The best of our physicians, when they con it,
Depose the malady is in the air:
Oh, Mr. Spencer! if the ill is there,
Why should you bid the people live upon it?
Why should you make discourses against courses,
While doctors, though they bid us rub and chafe,
Declare, of all resources,
The man is safest who gets in the safe?
And yet you bid poor suicidal sinners
Discard their dinners,
Thoughtless how Heaven above will look upon’t,
For man to die so wantonly of want!
By way of a variety,
Think of the ineffectual piety
Of London’s Bishop, at St. Faith’s or Bride’s,
Lecturing such chamelion insides,
Only to find
He’s preaching to the wind.
Whatever others do,—or don’t,
I cannot—dare not—must not fast, and won’t,
Unless by night your day you let me keep,
And fast asleep;
My constitution can’t obey such censors:
I must have meat
Three times a-day to eat;
My health’s of such a sort,—
To say the truth, in short,
The coats of my stomach are not Spencers!