I would with _Jockeys_ from _Newmarket_ dine,
And to _Rough-riders_ give my choicest wine ...
My ev'nings all I would with _sharpers_ spend,
And make the _Thief-catcher_ my bosom friend.
In _Fig_, the Prize-fighter, by day delight,
And sup with _Colly Cibber_ ev'ry night.

At which point--and probably in his cups--we leave our misguided fine
gentleman of 1733, doubtless a fair sample of many of his class under
the second George, and not wholly unknown under that monarch's
successors--even to this hour. _Le jour va passer; mais la folie ne
passera pas!_

A parting quotation may serve to illustrate one of those changes of
pronunciation which have taken place in so many English words. Speaking
of his villa, or country-box, the Man of Taste says--

Pots o'er the door I'll place like Cits balconies,
Which _Bently_ calls the _Gardens of Adonis_.

To make this a peg for a dissertation on the jars of lettuce and fennel
grown by the Greeks for the annual Adonis festivals, is needless. But it
may be noted that Bramston, with those of his day,--Swift
excepted,--scans the "o" in balcony long, a practice which continued far
into the nineteenth century. "Contemplate," said Rogers, "is bad enough;
but balcony makes me sick."[17] And even in 1857, two years after
Rogers's death, the late Frederick Locker, writing of _Piccadilly_,
speaks of "Old Q's" well-known window in that thoroughfare as
"Primrose balcony."