"Beer, happy product of our isle,
Can sinewy strength impart;
And wearied with fatigue and toil,
Can cheer each manly heart.
"Labour and art, upheld by thee,
Successfully advance;
We quaff the balmy juice with glee,
And water leave to France.
"Genius of health, thy grateful taste
Rivals the cup of Jove;
And warms each English, generous breast,
With liberty and love."
[Illustration: BEER STREET.]
This admirable delineation is a picture of John Bull in his most
happy moments. In the left corner, a butcher and a blacksmith are
each of them grasping a foaming tankard of porter. By the _King's
Speech_ and the _Daily Advertiser_ upon the table before them,
they appear to have been studying politics, and settling the state
of the nation. The blacksmith having just purchased a shoulder of
mutton, is triumphantly waving it in the air. Next to him a drayman
is whispering soft sentences of love to a servant-maid, round whose
neck is one of his arms; in the other hand a pot of porter. Two
fish-women, furnished with a flagon of the same liquor, are chaunting
a song of Mr. Lockman's[38] on the British Herring Fishery. A porter
having put a load of waste-paper[39] on the ground, is eagerly
quaffing this best of barley wine.
On the front of a house in ruins, is inscribed "Pinch, pawnbroker,"
and through a hole in the door a boy delivers a full half-pint.
In the background are two chairmen.[40] They have joined for
threepenny-worth to recruit their spirits, and repair the fatigue
they have undergone in _trotting between two poles_ with a ponderous
load of female frailty. Two paviors are washing away their cares
with a heart-cheering cup. In a garret window a trio of sailors are
employed in the same way; and on a house-top are four bricklayers
equally joyous. Each of these groups seem hale, happy, and well
clothed; but the artist, who is painting a glass bottle from an
original which hangs before him, is in a truly deplorable plight,
at the same time that he carries in his countenance a perfect
consciousness of his talents in this creative art.[41]