Everyday Characters II - Quince
Fallentis semita vit*. — Hor.
Near a small village in the West,
Where many very worthy people
Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best
To guard from evil Church and steeple.
There stood — alas! it stands no more! —
A tenement of brick and plaster,
Of which, for forty years and four,
My good friend Quince was lord and master.
Welcome was he in hut and hall
To maids and matrons, peers and peasants ;
He won the sympathies of all
By making puns, and making presents.
Though all the parish were at strife.
He kept his counsel, and his carriage,
He laughed, and loved a quiet life,
And shrank from Chancery suits — and marriage.
Sound was his claret — and his head;
Warm was his double ale — and feelings;
His partners at the whist club said
That he was faultless in his dealings :
He went to church but once a week ;
Yet Dr. Poundtext always found him
An upright man, who studied Greek,
And liked to see his friends around him.
Asylums, hospitals and schools,
He used to swear, were made to cozen ;
All who subscribed to them were fools, —
And he subscribed to half-a-dozen :
It was his doctrine, that the poor
Were always able, never willing ;
And so the beggar at his door
Had first abuse, and then — a shilling.
Some public principles he had,
But was no flatterer, nor fretter ;
He rapped his box when things were bad.
And said 'I cannot make them better!'
And much he loathed the patriot's snort,
And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle ;
And cut the fiercest quarrels short
With — ' ' Patience, gentlemen — and shuffle ! ' '
For full ten years his pointer Speed
Had couched beneath her master's table ;
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poem by Winthrop Mackworth Praed
Added by Poetry Lover
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