Spoken in the Character of a Sailor, on Opening the New Theatre at North-Shields

Hollo ! my masters, where d'ye mean to stow us?
We're come to see what pastime ye can show us;
Sal, step aloft — you shan't be long without me,
I'll walk their quarter deck and look about me.

Tom and Dick Topsail are above — I hear 'em,
Tell 'em to keep a birth, and Sal — sit near 'em:
Sal's a smart lass — I'd hold a but of stingo,
In three weeks' time she'd learn the playhouse lingo:
She loves your plays, she understands their meaning,
She calls 'em — Moral Rules made entertaining:
Your Shakspeare books, she knows 'em to a tittle;
And I myself at sea have read — a little.

At London, sirs, when Sal and I were courting,
I tow'd her every night a playhouse sporting:
Mass! I could like 'em and their whole 'Paratus,
But for their fiddlers and their damn'd Sonatas;
Give me the merry sons of guts and rosin,
That play — " God save the King, " and " Nancy Dawson. "

Well — though the frigate's not so much bedizen'd,
'Tis snug enough — 'tis clever for the size on't:
And they can treat with all that's worth regarding
On board the Drury-lane or Common-garden.

Avast! — a signal for the launch, I fancy:
What say you Sam, and Dick, and Doll, and Nancy,
Since they have trimm'd the pleasure-barge so tightly,
Shan't you, and I, and Sal, come see them nightly?
The jolly crew will do their best endeavours,
They'll grudge no labour to deserve your favours:
A luckier fate they swear can ne'er behap 'em
Than to behold you pleas'd, and hear you clap 'em.