[Tea-Table Miscellany Contents]
WOu’d you chuse a wife,
For a happy life,
Leave the court and the country take,
Where Dolly and Sue,
Young Molly and Prue,
Follow Roger and John,
Whilst harvest goes on,
And merrily merrily rake.
–
Leave the London dames
(Be it spoke to their shames)
To ly in their beds till noon,
Then get up and stretch,
And paint too and patch,
Some widgeon to catch,
Then look on their watch,
And wonder they rose up so soon.
–
Then coffee and tea,
Both green and bohea,
Are serv’d to their tables in plate,
Where tatles do run,
As swift as the sun,
Of what they have won,
And who is undone
By their gaming and sitting up late.
–
The lass give me here,
Tho’ brown as my beer,
That knows how to govern her house,
That can milk her cow,
Or farrow her sow,
Make butter and cheese,
Or gather green pease,
And values fine cloaths not a souse.
–
This is the girl
Worth rubies and pearl,
A wife that will make a man rich:
We gentlemen need
No quality breed,
To squander away
What taxes wou’d pay;
We care not in faith for such.
