TO BARRON FIELD.

DEAR Field, my old friend, who love strait-forward

verse,

And will take it, like marriage, for better, for

worse,

Who cheered my fire-side, when we grew up toge

ther,

And still warm iny heart in these times and this

weather;

I know you'll be glad to see, under my hand,

That I'm still, as the phrase is, alive in the land,

When you hear, that since meeting the bright-eyed

and witty,

I've been asked to an absolute feast in the city!

Yes, Barron, no more of the Nelsons and Jervises:
-Dinner's the place for the hottest of services;
-There's the array, and the ardour to win,
The clashing, and splashing, and crashing, and din;
With fierce intercepting of convoys of butter,

And phrases and outcries tremendous to utter,— Blood, devils, and drum-sticks,-now cut it-the jowl there

Brains, bones, head and shoulders, and into the sole there!

The veterans too, round you-how obviously brave! What wounds and what swellings they bear to their

grave!

Some red as a fever, some pallid as death,
Some ballustrade-legg'd, others panting for breath,
Some jaundiced, some jaded, some almost a jelly,
And numbers with horrid contusion of belly.

No wonder the wise look on dinners like these,
As so much sheer warfare with pain and disease.
Indeed, you may see by the gestures and grins
Which some dishes make, how they wait for one's

sins;

The gape

of a cod-fish, and round staring eye, The claws that threat up from a fierce pigeon pye,—

Don't they warn us, with signs at which heroes

might shiver,

Of wounds in the midriff, and scars in the liver? Even hares become bold in so desperate a case,

And with hollow defiance look full in one's face.

This made, t'other day, a physician declare,

That disease, bonâ fide, was part of our fare.
For example, he held that a plate of green fruit
Was not only substance, but colic to boot;
That veal, besides making an exquisite dish,
Was a fine indigestion, and so was salt fish ;
That a tongue was most truly a thing to provoke,
Hasty-pudding slow poison, and trifle no joke.

Had you asked him accordingly, what was the fare,
When he dined t'other day with the vicar or may'r,
He'd have said, "Oh, of course, every thing of the

best,

Gout, head-ache, and fever, and pain in the chest."
'Twas thus too at table, when helping the meat,
He'd have had you encourage the people to eat,
As" Pray, Sir, allow me,-a slice of this gout;
I could get no St. Anthony's fire-it's quite out.

Mr. P. there, more nightmare? my hand's quite

at leisure?

A glass of slow fever? I'm sure with great pleasure. My dear Mrs. H., why your plate's always empty! Now can't a small piece of this agony tempt ye? And then leaning over, with spoon and with smile, Do let me, Miss Betsy,- -a little more bile?— Have I no more persuasion with you too, Miss Virtue ?

A little, I'm sure, of this cough couldn't hurt you."

Now all this is good, and didactic enough

For those who'd make bodies mere cushions to stuff: Excess is bad always ;-but there's a relation

Of this same Excess, sometimes called Moderation, Who wonders, and smiles, and concludes you a glutton,

If helped more than he is to turnips and mutton,—