orpse full dress'd,
Preparing for the vault--
To set up what the Poet calls
My everlasting halt.

XVII.

This funeral show inclined me quite
To peace:--and here I am!
Whilst better lions go to war,
Enjoying with the lamb
A lengthen'd life, that might have been
A Martial Epigram.

THE EPPING HUNT.[28]

[Footnote 28: Originally published in 1830 in a thin duodecimo, with
illustrations by George Cruikshank. It was while Hood was living at
Winchmore Hill that he had the opportunity of noting the chief features
of this once famous Civic Revel--the Easter Monday Hunt--even then in
its decadence.]

ADVERTISEMENT.

Striding in the Steps of Strutt--The historian of the old English
ports--the author of the following pages has endeavored to record a
yearly revel, already fast hastening to decay. The Easter phase will
soon be numbered with the pastimes of past times: its dogs will have
had their day, and its Deer will be Fallow. A few more seasons, and
this City Common Hunt will become uncommon.

In proof of this melancholy decadance, the ensuing epistle is
inserted. It was penned by an underling at the Kells, a person more
accustomed to riding than writing:--

"Sir,--About the Hunt. In anser to your Innqueries, their as been a
great falling off laterally, so muches this year that there was
nobody allmost. We did smear nothing provisionally, hardly a Bottle
extra, wich is a proof in Pint. In short our Hunt may be said to be
in the last Stag of a decline."

"I am, Sir,"
"With respects from your humble Servant,"

"BARTHOLOMEW RUTT."

"On Monday they began to hunt."--_Chevy Chase_.

John Huggins was as bold a man
As trade did ever know,
A warehouse good he had, that stood
Hard by the church of Bow.

There people bought Dutch cheeses round,
And single Glo'ster flat,--
And English butter in a lump,
And Irish--in a _pat_.

Six days a week beheld him stand,
His business next his heart,
At _counter_, with his apron tied
About his _counter-part._

The seventh, in a sluice-house box
He took his pipe and pot;
On Sundays, for _eel-piety_,
A very noted spot.

Ah, blest if he had never gone
Beyond its rural shed!
One Easter-tide, some evil guide
Put Epping in his head;

Epping, for butter justly famed,
And pork in sausage pop't;
Where, winter time or summer time,
Pig's flesh is always _chop't_.

But famous more, as annals tell,