But soon a wonder came to light, That shew’d the rogues they lied, The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that dy’d.
‘A very good boy, Bill, upon my word, and an elegy that may truly be called tragical. Come, my children, here’s Bill’s health, and may he one day be a bishop.’
‘With all my heart,’ cried my wife; ‘and if he but preaches as well as he sings, I make no doubt of him. The most of his family, by the mother’s side, could sing a good song: it was a common saying in our country, that the family of the Blenkinsops could never look strait before them, nor the Huginsons blow out a candle; that there were none of the Grograms but could sing a song, or of the Marjorams but could tell a story.’—‘However that be,’ cried I, ‘the most vulgar ballad of them all generally pleases me better than the fine modern odes, and things that petrify us in a single stanza; productions that we at once detest and praise. Put the glass to your brother, Moses.—The great fault of these elegiasts is, that they are in despair for griefs that give the sensible part of mankind very little pain. A lady loses her muff, her fan, or her lap-dog, and so the silly poet runs home to versify the disaster.’
‘That may be the mode,’ cried Moses, ‘in sublimer compositions; but the Ranelagh songs that come down to us are perfectly familiar, and all cast in the same mold: Colin meets Dolly, and they hold a dialogue together; he gives her a fairing to put in her hair, and she presents him with a nosegay; and then they go together to church, where they give good