One day as she was sitting down Beside the porter-pump-- He came, and knelt with all his fat, And made an offer plump.
Said she, my taste will never learn To like so huge a man, So I must beg you will come here As little as you can.
But still be stoutly urged his suit, With vows, and sighs, and tears, Yet could not pierce her heart, altho’ He drove the Dart for years.
In vain he wooed, in vain he sued; The maid was cold and proud, And sent him off to Coventry, While on his way to Stroud.
He fretted all the way to Stroud, And thence all back to town; The course of love was never smooth, So his went up and down.
At last her coldness made him pine To merely bones and skin; But still he loved like one resolved To love through thick and thin.
Oh, Mary, view my wasted back, And see my dwindled calf; Tho’ I have never had a wife, I’ve lost my better half.
Alas, in vain he still assailed, Her heart withstood the dint; Though he had carried sixteen stone He could not move a flint.
Worn out, at last he made a vow To break his being’s link; For he was so reduced in size At nothing he could shrink.
Now some will talk in water’s praise And waste a deal of breath, But John, tho’ he drank nothing else-- He drank himself to death.
The cruel maid that caused his love, Found out the fatal close, For, looking in the butt, she saw The butt-end of his woes.
Some say his spirit haunts the Crown, But that is only talk-- For after riding all his life, His ghost objects to walk.
[Illustration: THE SUBLIME AND THE RIDICULOUS.]
“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”
_Alarming news from the country--awful insurrection at Stoke Pogis--The Military called out--Flight of the Mayor._
We are concerned to state, that accounts were received in town at a late hour last night, of an alarming state of things at Stoke Pogis. Nothing private is yet made public; but report speaks of very serious occurrences. The number of killed is not known, as no despatches have been received.
Nothing is known yet; papers have been received down to the 4th of November, but they are not up to anything.
_Further further Particulars_ (_Private Letter_).
It is scarcely possible for you, my dear Charles, to conceive the difficulties and anarchical manifestations of turbulence, which threaten and disturb your old birth-place, poor Stoke Pogis. To the reflecting mind, the circumstances which hourly transpire afford ample food for speculation and moral reasoning. To see the constituted authorities of a place, however mistaken or misguided by erring benevolence, plunging into a fearful struggle with an irritated, infuriated, and I may say, armed populace, is a sight which opens a field for terrified conjecture. I look around me with doubt, agitation, and dismay; because, whilst I venerate those to whom the sway of a part of a state may be said to be intrusted, I cannot but yield to the conviction that the abuse of power must be felt to be an overstep of authority in the best intentioned of the Magistracy. This even you will allow. Being on the spot, my dear Charles, an eye-witness of these fearful scenes, I feel how impossible it is for me to give you any idea of the prospects which surround me. To say that I think all will end well, is to trespass beyond the confines of hope; but whilst I admit that there is strong ground for apprehending the worst, I cannot shut my eyes to the conviction, that if firm measures, tempered with concession, be resorted to, it is far from being out of the pale of probability that serenity may be re-established. In hazarding this conclusion, however, you must not consider me as at all forgetting the responsibilities which attach to a decidedly formed opinion. Oh, Charles! you who are in the quiet of London, can little dream of the conflicting elements which form the storm of this devoted village. I fear you will be wearied with all these details; but I thought at this distance, at which you are from me, you would wish me to run the risk of wearying you rather than omit any of the interesting circumstances. Let Edward read this; his heart, which I know beats for the Parish, will bleed for us.