WILLIAM OF WICKHAM,

A SONG,

FOR THE WICCAMICAL ANNIVERSARY, HELD AT

THE CROWN AND ANCHOR TAVERN.

I

SING not your heroes of ancient romance: Capadocian George, or Saint Dennis of France;

No chronicler I am

Of Troy and King Priam,

And those crafty old Greeks who to fritters did fry 'em : But your voices, brave boys, one and all I bespeak 'em, In due celebration of WILLIAM of WICKHAM.

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, at the Crown and the Anchor, The flask never quit 'till clean out they have drank her ; And united maintain, whether sober or mellow,

That old BILLY WICKHAM was a very fine fellow.

Hear the Lover, you'll learn, from his tragical stories
Of hard-hearted Phoebe, Corinna, and Chloris,

For some sempstress or starcher

That rascally archer

Call'd Cupid, has made him as mad as a March hare : But at WICKHAM's brave boys should he brandish his

dart,

We'll drown the blind rogue in a Winchester quart.

CHORUS.

For WICKHAM's brave boys, &c.

Let the Soldier, who prates about storming the trenches Of fortified towns, and of fair-visag'd wenches,

Shut

My numbers give heed to,

And, drinking as we do,

up in its scabbard his martial toledo :

For we too shed blood, yet all danger escape,

Since the blood that we shed is the blood of the

grape.

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, &c.

H

Let Lawyers, accustom'd to quarrel and brawl,
Play the devil as usual in Westminster Hall,

Reputations bespatter,

Yet thrive and grow fatter,

While they dash wrong and right up as cookmaids do

batter:

Here good fellowship reigns and, what's stranger by far, No mischief ensues from a call to the Bar.

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, &c.

The Empiric profound, who in heathenish Latin

Such potions prescribes as might poison old Satan,
With blister and bolus

And draught would cajole us,

"Till snug under ground he has clapt in a hole us: But the wise sons of WICKHAM his regimen slight,

They swallow no draughts but of red wine and white.

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, &c.

Let Whig Rhetoricians our rulers defame,
And hungry Sedition's republican flame

Foment, and throw chips on,

Independance their lips on,

While they incense a mob, and exist by Subscription:
Here of Liberty's Tree if for scyons they search,
They'll instead catch a tartar,-Wiccamical Birch.

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, &c.

Ye Poetical tribe, on Parnassus who forage,
Who prate of Jove's nectar and Helicon-porridge,
Yet, for beef-stakes and brandy,

Set each Jack-a-dandy

On a level with Frederick, or Prince Ferdinandy: What's the sword of King Arthur, or Admiral Hosier, TO WILLIAM of WICKHAM and his jolly old Crosier!

CHORUS.

Let WICKHAM's brave boys, at the Crown and the Anchor, The flask never quit 'till clean out they have drank her; And united maintain, whether sober or mellow,

That old BILLY WICKHAM was a very fine fellow.

THE HERMITAGE.

BENEATH thy shelter, LOWLY CELL!
How blest is he who bids farewell

The world, and vain delights foregoes
For calm content, and bland repose!

Can the dome of costly mould, Fretted arch emboss'd with gold, Lavish sculpture's proud design,

Sooth the soul with charms like thine?

I love thy solitary gloom,
I love the roses wild that bloom

Around thy porch-I love to trace
Thy precincts, where each simple grace
Surpasses all that art hath plann'd;

Thy roof of spar, and floor of sand,