The poem, addressed to the Duke of Dorset, takes the form of a tour of his house:
At length, I've gained, as Men will guess,What not great Cunning, nor Address,But Fortune in my Way has thrown,A House, that I may call my own: . . .
We move from a description of the floor plan and elevation to an account of its interior, where Welsted shows an engaging poetic self-deprecation:
pass the Entry, which we callSometimes, in Raillery, a Hall; . . .
As Welsted proceeds through his dwelling, the plainness and lack of ornament evokes the modesty of his family background, coming as he did from ancestors "Who, gravely, nothing made their Care,/But to leave nothing to their Heir!"
However there is one particular part of the house which is not so much plain as deserted — namely the cellar, which Welsted makes the climax of his poem:
The only Place, the humble Grief,That of your Grace implores Relief,Is yet unsung — all wan it lies,And, deep, beneath the Azure Skies;Here, oft, to nourish Spleen I go,A darksome Path! descending low;Here, Fate so will'd, the Scene begins;Fit Penance for a Life of Sins!Aid me, great Shades, Milton and Kneller,To paint the Horrors of the Cellar; . . .
This is plainly "a Cellar, but in outward Plan! / As Senesino is a Man"-the reference, topical enough in its day, is to the celebrated castrato contralto, Francesco Bernardi (1686-1758), known as "Senesino" because of his birth and upbringing in Siena. In 1725 Senesino was five years into what would be (until they fell out) a 16-year collaboration in London with Handel.
Welsted proceeds to list the wines that are currently absent from his cellar but which he'd like to find there. The first vacancy he mentions, however, is not a wine at all, but rather an item of early modern cellar equipment:
Lo! a sad Void! and void of Cheer!No Bellarmine, my Lord, is here;Elisa none, at hand to reach,A Betty call'd in common Speech!
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