Lawyers are apt to think the view
That interests them must interest you;
Hence they appear at table
Or supereloquent, or dumb,
Fluent as nightingales, or mum
As horses in a stable.

When men amuse their fellow guests
With Crank and Jones, or Justice Best's
Harangue in Dobbs and Ryal--
The host, beneath whose roof they sit,
Must be a puny judge of wit,
Who grants them a new trial.

Shun technicals in each extreme,
Exclusive talk, whate'er the theme,
The proper boundary passes:
Nobles as much offend, whose clack's
For ever running on Almack's,
As brokers on molasses.

I knew a man, from glass to delf,
Who talk'd of nothing but himself,
'Till check'd by a vertigo;
The party who beheld him "fluor'd,"
Bent o'er the liberated board,
And cried, "Hic jacet ego."

Some aim to tell a thing that hit
Where last they dined; what there was wit