This song is the joint production of Col. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Hewerdine.
A fig for the cares of this Whirligig World,
Shall still be my maxim wherever I’m twirl’d;
From the spring of my youth, to the autumn of life,
It has cheer’d me and whisk’d me through trouble and strife.
CHORUS.
So this is my maxim wherever I’m twirl’d,
A fig for the cares of this whirligig world.
It has taught me to rise to the summit of ease,
By simply submitting to fortune’s degrees;
Thus I’m rich without pelf, for content is true wealth,
And the best vade mecum in sickness and health.
Just as full of defects as the rest of my kind,
“Give and take” is my measure, for specks in the mind;
For who in another shou’d pry for a spot,
When he knows, in his heart, he has blot upon blot.
Mankind I contemplate as Heaven’s great work,
Whether Christian or Jew, Pagan, Gentoo or Turk;
In a nutshell the creed of my conscience will lie,
To others I do, as I wou’d be done by.
’Gainst chill poverty yet, I have ne’er set my face,
For I hope all my heart’s a benevolent place;
A friend in distress my tobacco shall quaff,
And while I’ve a guinea, he’s welcome to half.
From the Court to the Change as I skim o’er each phiz,
Of the sharp, flat, and blood, natty crop, kiddy quiz;
I read as I walk, without study or plan,
The cunning, the weakness, and folly of man.
Yet my spleen never kicks at the whims that it meets,
For in oddity’s circle each gig a gig greets;
So I laugh and grow fat at the figures I see,
And they’re welcome to fatten by laughing at me.
Of the virtue and zeal of the ins and the outs,
After many years musing I’ve clear’d up all doubts;
The outs wou’d get in, if the ins wou’d get out,
And I think it but fair they shou’d take spell about.
All fanatic dispute and sophistical rant
I leave to the crafty professors of cant;
Content if my course from the day-break of youth,
Has steer’d by the rudder and compass of truth.
Fast wedlock I frankly confess not my whim;
Nay, the man, who best marries, I envy not him;
I love the soft sex, and I know, to my cost,
My love has not always been love’s labour lost.
Light, in freight, as a cutter return’d from a cruize,
Finding little to gain, having little to lose;
My anchor is cast, and my sails are all furl’d,
So a fig for the cares of this Whirligig World.