O, the Roast Beef of Old England!

    “’Twas at the gate of Calais, Hogarth tells,

Where sad despair and famine always dwells;

A meagre Frenchman, Madame Grandsire’s cook,

As home he steer’d, his carcase that way took,

Bending beneath the weight of famed sirloin,

On whom he often wish’d in vain to dine;

Good Father Dominick by chance came by,

With rosy gills, round paunch, and greedy eye;

And, when he first beheld the greasy load,

His benediction on it he bestow’d;

And while the solid fat his fingers press’d,

He lick’d his chops, and thus the knight address’d:

    ‘O rare roast beef, lov’d by all mankind,
Was I but doom’d to have thee,

    Well dress’d, and garnish’d to my mind,
And swimming in thy gravy;

    Not all thy country’s force combined,
Should from my fury save thee!

    ‘Renown’d sirloin! oft times decreed
The theme of English ballad,

    E’en kings on thee have deign’d to feed,
Unknown to Frenchman’s palate;

    Then how much must thy taste exceed
Soup-meagre, frogs, and salad!’”

The thought on which this whimsical and highly-characteristic print is founded, originated in Calais, to which place Mr. Hogarth, accompanied by some of his friends, made an excursion, in the year 1747.

Extreme partiality for his native country was the leading trait of his character; he seems to have begun his three hours’ voyage with a firm determination to be displeased at every thing he saw out of Old England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters, à-la-mode de Paris, to affect the airs of a coxcomb, and the importance of a sovereign, is ridiculous enough; but if it makes a man happy, why should he be laughed at? It must blunt the edge of ridicule, to see natural hilarity defy depression; and a whole nation laugh, sing, and dance, under burthens that would nearly break the firm-knit sinews of a Briton. Such was the picture of France at that period, but it was a picture which our English satirist could not contemplate with common patience. The swarms of grotesque figures who paraded the streets excited his indignation, and drew............