’Now Lent is come, let us refrain
  From carnal creatures, quick or slain;
  Let’s fast and macerate the flesh,
  Impound and keep it in distress.’

Here there came a wonderful, unspellable choking sound, partly through the mouth, partly through the nose, from several of the officers; and old General Chattesworth, who was frowning hard upon his dessert-plate, cried, ‘Order, gentlemen,’ in a stern, but very tremulous undertone.  Lord Castlemallard, leaning upon his elbow, was staring with a grave and dreamy curiosity at the songster, and neither he nor his lordship heard the interruption, and on went the pleasant ditty; and as the musician regularly repeated the last two lines like a clerk in a piece of psalmody, the young wags, to save themselves from bursting outright, joined in the chorus, while verse after verse waxed more uproarious and hilarious, and gave a singular relief to Loftus’s thin, high, quavering solo:—­

  (Loftus, solo.)

  ’But to forbear from flesh, fowl, fish,
  And eat potatoes in a dish,
  Done o’er with amber, or a mess
  Of ringos in a Spanish dress

  (Chorus of Officers.)

  ’Done o’er with amber, or a mess
  Of ringos in a Spanish dress.’

‘’Tis a good song,’ murmured Doctor Walsingham in Lord Castlemallard’s ear—­’I know the verses well—­the ingenious and pious Howel penned them in the reign of King James the First.’

‘Ha! thank you, Sir,’ said his lordship.

  (Loftus, solo.)

  ’Or to refrain from all high dishes,
  But feed our thoughts with wanton wishes,
  Making the soul, like a light wench,
  Wear patches of concupiscence.

  (Chorus of Officers.)

  ’Making the soul, like a light wench,
  Wear patches of concupiscence

  (Loftus, solo.)

  ’This is not to keep Lent aright,
  But play the juggling hypocrite;
  For we must starve the inward man,
  And feed the outward too on bran.

  (Chorus of Officers.)

  ’For we must starve the inward man,
  And feed the outward too on bran.’

I believe no song was ever received with heartier bursts of laughter and applause.  Puddock indeed was grave, being a good deal interested in the dishes sung by the poet.  So, for the sake of its moral point, was Dr. Walsingham, who, with brows gathered together judicially, kept time with head and hand, murmuring ‘true, true—­good, Sir, good,’ from time to time, as the sentiment liked him.