T. Quince, Esq., to the Rev. Matthew Pringle

You wonder that your ancient friendHas come so near his journey’s end,And borne his heavy load of illO’er Sorrow’s slough, and Labour’s hill,Without a partner to beguileThe toilsome way with constant smile,To share in happiness and pain,To guide, to comfort, to sustain,And cheer the last long weary stageThat leads to Death through gloomy Age!To drop these metaphoric jokes,And speak like reasonable folks,It seems you wonder, Mr. Pringle,That old Tom Quince is living single!

Since my old crony and myselfLaid crabbed Euclid on the shelf,And made our congé to the Cam,Long years have passed; and here I amWith nerves and gout, but yet alive,A Bachelor, and fifty-five.--Sir, I’m a Bachelor, and meanUntil the closing of the scene,Or be it right, or be it wrong,To play the part I’ve played so long,Nor be the rat that others are,Caught by a ribbon or a star.

“As years increase,” your worship cries,“All troubles and anxietiesCome swiftly on: you feel vexationAbout your neighbours, or the nation;The gout in fingers or in toesAwakes you from your first repose;You’ll want a clever nurse, when lifeBegins to fail you--take a wife!Believe me, from the mind’s diseaseHer soothing voice might give you ease,And, when the twinge comes shooting through you,Her care might be of service to you!”Sir, I’m not dying, though I knowYou charitably think me so;--Not dying yet, though you, and others,In augury your learned brothers,Take pains to prophesy eventsWhich lie some twenty winters hence.Some twenty?--look! you shake your headAs if I were insane or dead,And tell your children and your wife--“Old men grow very fond of life!”Alas! you prescience never endsAs long as it concerns your friends;But your own fifty-third DecemberIs what you never can remember!And when I talk about my healthAnd future hopes of weal or wealth,With something ’twixt a grunt and groanYou mutter in an undertone--“Hark! how the dotard chatters still!He’ll not believe he’s old or ill!He goes on forming great designs,--Has just laid in a stock of wines,--And promises his niece a ball,As if grey hairs would never fall!I really think he’s all but mad.”Then, with a wink and sigh, you add,“Tom is a friend I dearly prize,But--never thought him over wise!”

You--who are clever to foretellWhere ignorance might be as well--Would marvel how my health has stood:My pulse is firm, digestion good,I walk to see my turnips grow,Manage to ride a mile or so,Get to the village church to pray,And drink my pint of wine a day;And often, in an idle mood,Emerging from my solitude,Look at my sheep, and geese, and fowls,And scare the sparrows and the owls,Or talk with Dick about my crops,And learn the price of malt and hops.

You say that when you saw me lastMy appetite was going fast,My eye was dim, my cheek was pale,My bread--and stories--both were stale;My wine and wit were growing worse,And all things else,--except my purse;In short, the very blind might seeI was not what I used to be.

My glass (which I believe before ye)Will teach me quite another story;My wrinkles are not many yet,My hair is still as black as jet;My legs are full, my cheeks are ruddy,My eyes, though somewhat weak by study,Retain a most vivacious ray,And tell no stories of decay;And then my waist, unvexed, unstayed,By fetters of the tailor’s trade,Tells you, as plain as waist can tell,I’m most unfashionably well.

And yet you think I’m growing thinner!--You’d stare to see me eat my dinner!You know that I was held by allThe greatest epicure in Hall,And that the voice of Granta’s sonsStyled me the Gourmand of St. John’s:--I have not yet been found unableTo do my duty to my table,Though at its head no lady gayHath driven British food away,And made her hapless husband bearAlike her fury and her fare.If some kind-hearted chum calls in,An extra dish and older binAnd John in all his finery drestDo honour to the welcome guest;And then we talk of other times,Of parted friends, and distant climes,And lengthened converse, tale, and jest,Lull every anxious care to rest;And when unwillingly I riseWith newly wakened sympathiesFrom conversation--and the bowl,The feast of stomach--and of soul,I lay me down, and seem to leapO’er forty summers in my sleep;And youth, with all its joy and pain,Comes rushing on my soul again.I rove where’er my boyhood roved--I love whate’er my boyhood loved--And rocks, and vales, and woods, and streams,Fleet o’er my pillow in my dreams.

’Tis true, some ugly foes arise,E’en in this earthly paradise,Which you, good Pringle, may beguile,By Mrs. P’s unceasing smile;I am an independent elf,And keep my comforts in myself.If my best sheep have got the rot--Or if the Parson hits a blot--Or if young witless prates of laurel--Or if my tithe produces quarrel--Or if my roofing wants repairs--Or if I’m angry with my heirs--Or if I’ve nothing else to do--I grumble for an hour or two;Riots or rumours unrepressed,My niece--or knuckle--over-drest,The lateness of a wished-for post,Miss Mackrell’s story of the ghost,New wine, new fashions, or new faces,New bills, new taxes, or new places,Or Mr. Hume’s enumerationOf all the troubles of the nation,Will sometimes wear my patience out!Then, as I said before, the gout--Well, well, my heart was never faint!And yet it might provoke a saint.A rise of bread, or fall of rain,Sometimes unite to give me pain;And oft my lawyer’s bag of papersGives me a taste of spleen and vapours.Angry or sad, alone or ill,I have my senses with me still;Although my eyes are somewhat weak,Yet can I dissipate my pique,By Poem, Paper, or Review;And though I’m dozy in my pewAt Dr. Poundtext’s second leaf,I am not yet so very deafAs to require the rousing noiseOf screaming girls and roaring boys.Thrice--thrice accursed be the dayWhen I shall fling my bliss away,And, to disturb my quiet life,Take discord in the shape of wife!Time, in his endless muster-roll,Shall mark the hour with blackest coal,When old Tom Quince shall cease to seeThe Chronicle with toast and tea,Confine his rambles to his park,And never dine till after dark,And change his comfort and his cronyFor crowd and conversazione.

If every aiding thought is vain,And momentary grief and painUrge the old man to frown and fret,He has another comfort yet;This earth has thorns, as poets sing,But not for ever can they sting;Our sand from out its narrow glassRapidly passes!--let it pass!I seek not, I, to check or stayThe progress of a single day,But rather cheer my hours of pain,Because so few of them remain.Care circles every mortal head,--The dust will be a calmer bed!From Life’s alloy no life is free,But--Life is not Eternity!

When that unerring day shall comeTo call me, from my wandering, home,--The dark and still and painful dayWhen breath shall fleet in groans away,When comfort shall be vainly sought,And doubt shall be in every thought,When words shall fail th’ unuttered vow,And fever heat the burning brow,When the dim eye shall gaze, and fearTo close the glance that lingers here,Snatching the faint departing lightThat seems to flicker in its flight,When the lone heart, in that long strife,Shall cling unconsciously to life,--I’ll have no shrieking female byTo shed her drops of sympathy;To listen to each smothered throe,To feel, or feign, officious woe,To bring me every useless cup,And beg “dear Tom” to drink it up,To turn my oldest servants off,E’en as she hears my gurgling cough;And then expectantly to stand,And chafe my temples with her hand,And pull a cleaner night-cap o’er ’em,That I may die with due decorum;And watch the while my ebbing breath,And count the tardy steps of death;Grudging the leech his growing bill,And wrapt in dreams about the will.I’ll have no Furies round my bed!--They shall not plague me--till I’m dead.

Believe me! ill my dust would rest,If the plain marble o’er my breast,That tells, in letters large and clear,Should add a talisman of strife,No! while beneath this simple stoneOld Quince shall sleep, and sleep alone,Some village Oracle, who wellKnows how to speak, and read, and spell,Shall slowly construe, bit by bit,My “Natus” and my “Obiit,”And then, with sage discourse and long,Recite my virtues to the throng:--

“The Gentleman came straight from College:A most prodigious man for knowledge!He used to pay all men their due,Hated a miser--and a Jew;But always opened wide his doorTo the first knocking of the poor.None, as the grateful parish knows,Save the Churchwardens, were his foes;They could not bear the virtuous prideWhich gave the sixpence they denied.If neighbours had a mind to quarrel,He used to treat them to a barrel;And that, I think, was sounder lawThan any book I ever saw.The ladies never used to flout him;But this was rather strange about him:That, gay or thoughtful, young or old,He took no wife for love or gold;Women he called ‘a pretty thing,’But never could abide a ring!”

Good Mr. Pringle!--you must seeYour arguments are light with me;They buzz like feeble flies around me,But leave me firm, as first they found me.Silence your logic! burn your pen!The poet says, “We all are men;”And all “condemned alike to groan”--You with a wife, and I with none.Well! yours may be a happier lot,But it is one I envy not;And you’ll allow me, Sir, to prayThat, at some near-approaching day,You may not have to wince and whine,And find some cause to envy mine!