The FLATS and the SHARPS of the NATION.
Of Handel’s fam’d Commemoration,
And what was let loose there, I sing,
When the Flats and the Sharps of our nation
Assembled along with their King.
Madam Mara (now mark what will follow)
Her ravishing sounds was imparting;
Momus play’d off a trick on Apollo,
And set the sweet lady a f—t—g.
At Sowgelders’ Hall, rural scene,
The seat of a Knight and his swine,
The musical Madam had been
Invited by Mawbey to dine:
So the cause of this windy commotion
Was owing, if we’re not mistaken,
To her bolting too great a proportion
Of pease-pudding and gammon of bacon.
Sir John Hawky, the musical Knight,
Who in wit all the Quorum surpasses,
And to whom, if we judge of him right,
The wise men of Greece were mere asses,
Has defin’d Antient Music to be
What sprung from the bottom of Madam,
And that under the wisdom-fraught tree
Eve f—t—d in concert with Adam.
Now those sages renown’d in our nation,
The fam’d F.R.S.es, do tell us,
That to blow up the coals of creation,
The bum is a species of bellows.
But Priestley, who loves to oppose,
Doth a different system insist on,
And swears that he’s led by the nose
To pronounce it a Cask of Phlogiston.
The moment the Lady let fly,
Billington, Storacci, and Kelly,
With laughter were ready to die
At the pickle of poor Rubinelli;
For Rubi, the father of screeches,
In laughing at Mara, so strain’d it,
That his PIPE let the piss in his breeches,
For no CISTERN has he to retain it.
Hurlowe Thrumbo, your wonder ’twill raise,
Is of catgut so charming a scraper,
That, old Orpheus-like, when he plays,
The trees and the brutes round him caper.
He blasted the Thing I won’t name,
Hop’d she’d burst on the rock of damnation;
But he stopp’d when the Bishop cry’d “Shame,
“Brother, think of the late proclamation.”
That famous reformist, Jack Wilkes,
Martin Luther the Second now deem’d,
Sat in converse with Lawn Sleeves and Silks,
And declar’d Sacred Music blasphem’d;
But Jack turning round to Jem Twitch,
Swore ’twas like the affair on the Terrace,
When Bethsheba, impudent bitch,
Shew’d bollocking David her bare arse.
Now Sir Watkin ap Williams ap Wynne,
Who came from whence came John ap Morgan,
Roar’d out to the band-leading Bates,
To drown the FOUL NOISE with bur organ:
So Bates, by a blast of the bellows,
Made peace and sweet sounds rule the roast;
Then drink about, laughing fellows—
For f—g and fiddling’s my toast.