oldsmith's
"Retaliation," begin thus:--

"Sunt quidam jolly dogs, Saturday qui nocte frequentant
Antiqui [Greek: Stefanon] qui stat prope moenia Druri,
[Greek: Boulomenoi] cum prog distendere rather,
Indulgere jocis, necnon Baccho atque tobacco..."

--lines which, with a few of the succeeding ones, I may render thus, the
spirit and the text being followed as closely as may be:--

"Some jolly dogs on Saturdays at fall of night are fain
To haunt the 'Crown' beside old Drury, hard by Drury Lane;
Their object, to expand themselves with dainties of the feed
And give the hour to jest and wine, and smoke the fragrant weed.
Such fellows, sure, ne'er graced before that jovial mundane hole.
To them I sing this song of praise--those mighty men of soul,
Whose fame henceforth shall spread abroad, so long as time shall roll.

"The 'Crown' stands in a quiet yard, yet near the noisy street;
'Tis their local habitation--in its dining-room they meet.
The massive table, brightly spread, groans with the mighty feast.
The viands change. To-day 'tis beef with Yorkshire pudding dressed;
Next week perchance the dish that Hodge will grinningly define
As 'leg o' mutton, boiled, with trimmings.' Heartily they dine.
Here flows the Double X, and flows the Barclay-Perkins brew;
Nor is there lack of modern sack that best is known to you
When waiters call it 'off-n-off'--which waiters mostly do."

Here it was that the wits of pen and pencil first laid their heads
together in the service of Mr. Punch; and when they left for more
private, if not more venerable, quarters, the room was occupied, first,
by comrades of the same order of wit--among whom Augustus Mayhew, James
Hannay, Watts Phillips, and others started a short-lived comic
broad-sheet called "The Journal for Laughter;" and then by "The Reunion
Club"--a coterie which, in 1857, was to become far more widely known
under the style and title of the "Savage Club." It was situated next
door to the "Whistling Oyster," and faced a side entrance to Drury Lane
Theatre--a fairly large first-floor room, looking larger by reason of
its low ceiling, but well lighted by its three high windows. When I
visited it in 1893, the wooden staircase had been replaced by a steep
stone-way; but the approach and the ascent were still steep enough to
make one wonder how the portly Lemon could, without difficulty or fear
of accident, scale the classic heights, and twist his bod