[Tea-Table Miscellany Contents]
SHE.
PRay now, John, let Jug prevail,
Doff thy sword, and take a flail;
Wounds and blows, and scorching heat,
Will abroad be all you’ll get.
–
HE.
‘Sounds! you are mad, ye simple jade,
Begone, and don’t prate.
–
SHE.
How think ye I shall do,
With Hob and Sue,
And all our brats when wanting you?
–
ΗΕ.
When I am rich with plunder,
Thou my gain shall share.
–
SHE.
My share will be but small, I fear,
When bold dragoons have been pickering there,
And the flea-flints the Germans strip ‘em bare.
–
HE.
Mind your spinning,
Mend your linnen,
Look to your cheese you,
Your pigs and your geese too.
–
SHE.
No, no, I’ll ramble out with you.
–
HE.
Blood and fire, if you tire
Thus my patience,
With vexations and narrations,
Thumping, thumping, thumping
Is the fatal word, Joan.
–
SHE.
Do, do, I’m good at thumping too.
–
HE.
Morbleau! that huff shall never do.
–
SHE.
Come, come, John, let’s buss and be friends,
Thus still, thus love’s quarrel ends;
I my tongue sometimes let run,
But alas! I soon have done.
–
HE.
‘Tis well you re quash’d,
You’d else been thrash’d,
Sure as my name is John.
–
SHE.
Yet fain I’d know for what
You’re all so hot,
To go to fight where nothing’s got.
–
ΗΕ.
Fortune will prove kind,
And we shall then grow great.
–
SHE.
Grow great!
And want both drink and meat,
And coin, unless the pamper’d French you beat:
Ah John! take care John!
And learn more wit.
–
ΗΕ.
Dare you prate still,
At this rate still,
And like a vermin,
Grudge my preferment.
–
SHE.
You’ll beg, or get a wooden leg.
–
ΗΕ.
Nay, if bawling, catterwawling,
Tittle tattle, prittle prattle,
Still must rattle;
I’ll be gone, and straight aboard.
–
SHE.
Do, do, and so shall Hob and Sue,
Jug too, and all the ragged crew.
