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 lapdog, 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 advice to young nymphs and swains to get married as fast as they can.”
“And very good advice too,” cried I, “and I am told there is not a place in the world where advice can be given with so much propriety as there; for, as it persuades us to marry, it also furnishes us with a wife; and surely that must be an excellent market, my boy, where we are told what we want, and supplied with it when wanting.”
“Yes, Sir,” returned Moses, “and I know but of two such markets for wives in Europe, Ranelagh in England, and Fontarabia in Spain. The Spanish market is open once a year, but our English wives are saleable every night.”
“You are right, my boy,” cried his mother, “Old England is the only place in the world for husbands to get wives.”—“And for wives to manage their husbands,” interrupted I. “It is a proverb abroad, that if a bridge were built across the sea, all the ladies of the Continent would come over to take pattern from ours; for there are no such wives in Europe as our own. But let us have one bottle more, Deborah, my life, and Moses give us a good song. What thanks do we not owe to heaven for thus bestowing tranquillity, health, and competence. I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth. He has no such fireside, nor such pleasant faces about it. Yes, Deborah, we are now growing old; but the evening of our life is likely to be happy. We are descended from ancestors that knew no stain, and we shall leave a good and virtuous race of children behind us. While we live they will be our support and our pleasure here, and when we die they will transmit our honour untainted to posterity. Come, my son, we wait for a song: let us have a chorus. But where is my darling Olivia? That little cherub’s voice is always sweetest in the concert.”—Just as I spoke Dick came running in. “O papa, papa, she is gone from us, she is gone from us, my sister Livy is gone from us forever!”—“Gone, child!”—“Yes, she is gone off with two gentlemen in a post chaise, and one of them kissed her, and said he would die for her; and she cried very much, and was for coming back; but he persuaded her again, and she went into the chaise, and said, ‘O what will my poor papa do when he knows I am undone!’ ”—“Now then,” cried I, “my children, go and be miserable; for we shall never enjoy one hour more. And O may heaven’s everlasting fury light upon him and his! Thus to rob me of my child! And sure it will, for taking back my sweet innocent that I was leading up to heaven. Such sincerity as my child was possessed of. But all our earthly happiness is now over! Go, my children, go, and be miserable and infamous; for my heart is broken within me!”—“Father,” cried my son, “is this your fortitude?”—“Fortitude, child! Yes, he shall see I have fortitude! Bring me my pistols. I’ll pursue the traitor. While he is on earth I’ll pursue him. Old as I am, he shall find I can sting him yet. The villain! The perfidious villain!”—I had by this time reached down my pistols, when my poor wife, whose passions were not so strong as mine, caught me in her arms. “My dearest, dearest husband,” cried she, “the Bible is the only weapon that is fit for your old hands now. Open that, my love, and read our anguish into patience, for she has vilely deceived us.”—“Indeed, Sir,” resumed my son, after a pause, “your rage is too violent and unbecoming. You should be my mother’s comforter, and you increase her pain. It ill suited you and your reverend character thus to curse your greatest enemy: you should not have cursed him, villian as he is.”—“I did not curse him, child, did I?”—“Indeed, Sir, you did; you curst him twice.”—“Then may heaven forgive me and him if I did. And now, my son, I see it was more than human benevolence that first taught us to bless our enemies! Blessed be his holy name for all the good he hath
