The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical

(Ah gentle birds! if this verse lasts so long,
Your names fhall live for ever in my fong.)
For "Buxom Joan" he fung the doubtful ftrife,
How the fly failor made the maid a wife.

To louder ftrains he rais'd his voice, to tell
What woeful wars in " Chevy-chace" befell,

When "Percy drove the deer with hound and horn, "Wars to be wept by children yet unborn!"

100

Ah, Witherington, more years thy life had crown'd, 105-
If thou hadft never heard the horn or hound!
Yet fhall the Squire, who fought on bloody ftumps,
By future bards be wail'd in doleful dumps.

"All in the land of Effex" next he chaunts,
How to fleek mares ftarch Quakers turn gallants :
How the grave brother stood on bank fo green
Happy for him if mares had never been !'

Then he was feiz'd with a religious qualm, And on a fudden fung the hundredth pfalm.

110.

He fung of "Taffey Welsh," and "Sawney Scot," Lilly-bullero" and the "Irish Trot."

Ver. 97.

"Fortunati ambo, fi quid mea carmina poffunt,"Nulla dies unquam memori vos eximet ævo."

VIRG.

Ver. 99. A Song in the Comedy of "Love for Love," beginning "A Soldier and a Sailor," &c.

Ver. 109. A Song of Sir J. Denham's. See his Poems.
Ver. 112.

"Et fortunatam, fi nunquam armenta fuiffent,
"Pafiphaën."

VIRG.

Why

Why should I tell of " Bateman" or of "Shore,"
Or "Wantley's Dragon" flain by valiant Moore,
"The Bower of Rofamond," or "Robin Hood," 119
And how the "grafs now grows where Troy town.
"ftood?"

His carols ceas'd: the listening maids and swams
Seem ftill to hear some soft imperfect strains.
Sudden he rofe; and, as he reels along,

Swears kisses sweet should well reward his song.
The damfels laughing fly: the giddy clown
Again upon a wheat-fheaf drops adown;

The power that guards the drunk, his fleep attends,
Till, ruddy, like his face, the fun defcends.

Ver. 117.