BOL

SMAY 153

LIBRARY

THE

BOOK OF BALLADS.

EDITED BY

BON GAULTIER.

ILLUSTRATED BY

ALFRED CROWQUILL AND RICHARD DOYLE.

London:

WM. S. ORR AND CO. AMEN CORNER.

MDCCCXLIX.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY PETTER, DUFF, AND PETTER,
CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET.

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Come, buy my lays and read them if you list; My pensive public, if you list not, buy.

Come, for you know me. I am he who sung

Of Mister Colt, and I am he who framed

Of Widdicomb the wild and wond'rous song.

Come, listen to my lays, and you shall hear

How Wordsworth, battling for the laureate's wreath, Bore to the dust the terrible Fitzball;

How N. P. Willis for his country's good,

En complete steel, all bowie-knived at point,
Took lodgings in the Snapping Turtle's womb.
Come, listen to my lays, and you shall hear
The mingled music of all modern bards
Floating aloft in such peculiar strains,
As strike themselves with envy and amaze;
For you "bright-harpèd” Tennyson shall sing,
Macaulay chant a more than Koman lay;
And Bulwer Lytton, Lytton Bulwer erst,
Unseen amidst a metaphysic fog,
Howl melancholy homage to the man:

For you once more Montgomery shall rave
En all his rapt rabidity of rhyme;

Nankeen'd Cockaigne shall pipe its puny note,
And our Young England's penny trumpet blow.