Then might all people well discern
The bottles he had slung;

A bottle swinging at each side,
As hath been said or sung.

The dogs did bark, the children scream'd, Up flew the windows all;

"Well done!"

And ev'ry soul cry'd out,
As loud as he could bawl.

Away went Gilpin-who but he!
His fame soon spread around-
"He carries weight!-he rides a race!
"'Tis for a thousand pound!"

And still, as fast as he drew near,
'Twas wonderful to view,
How, in a trice, the turnpike-men
Their gates wide open threw.

And now, as he went bowing down
His reeking head full low,
The bottles twain behind his back,
Were shatter'd at a blow.

Down ran the wine into the road,
Most piteous to be seen,
And made his horse's flanks to smoke,
As he had basted been.

But still he seem'd to carry weight,
With leathern girdle brac'd;
For all might see the bottle necks
Still dangling at his waist.

Thus, all through merry Islington,
These gambols he did play,

Until he came unto the Wash

Of Edmonton so gay.

And there he threw the wash about
On both sides of the way;
Just like unto a trundling mop,
Or a wild goose at play.

At Edmonton, his loving wife,

From the balcony spied

Her tender husband, wond'ring much

To see how he did ride.

"Stop, stop, John Gilpin! here's the house!" They all at once did cry;

"The dinner waits, and we are tir'd!"

Said Gilpin-" So am I!"

But, ah! his horse was not a whit
Inclin❜d to tarry there;

For why?-his owner had a house

Full ten miles off, at Ware.

So like an arrow swift he flew
Shot by an archer strong;
So did he fly-which brings me to
The middle of my song.

Away went Gilpin, out of breath,
And sore against his will,

Till at his friend Tom Callender's
His horse at last stood still.

Tom Callender surpris'd to see
His friend in such a trim,

Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate,

And thus accosted him-

"What news, what news!-the tidings tell:

"Make haste and tell me all !

"Say, why bare headed you are come, "Or why you come at all?"

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,
And lov'd a timely joke;
And thus unto Tom Callender,

In merry strains, he spoke—

"I come because your horse would come; "And if I well forebode,

'My hat and wig will soon be here;
66 They are upon the road."

Tom Callender, right glad to find
His friend in merry pin,

Returned him not a single word,

But to the house went in.

Whence straight he came with hat and wig,
A wig that flow'd behind,

A hat not much the worse for wear;
Each comely in its kind.

He held them up, and in his turn,
Thus shew'd his ready wit-
My head is twice as big as yours,
They therefore needs must fit.

66

« But let me scrape the dirt away
"That hangs upon your face;
"And stop and eat-for well you may
"Be in a hungry case!"

Said John—“ It is my wedding day;
"And all the world would stare,
"If wife should dine at Edmonton.
"And I should dine at Ware."

So turning to his horse, he said, "I am in haste to dine;

"'Twas for your pleasure you came here, "You shall go back for mine."

Ah! luckless word and bootless boast,
For which he paid full dear;
For, while he spoke, a braying ass
Did sing most loud and clear:

Whereat his horse did snort, as he
Had heard a lion roar;
And gallop'd off, with all his might,
As he had done before.

Away went Gilpin-and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig;
He lost them sooner than at first:
For why? They were too big.

Now, Mrs. Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down
Into the country far away,

She pulled out half-a-crown:

And thus, unto the youth she said
That drove them to the Bell,
"This shall be yours, when you bring back
"My husband safe and well."

The youth did ride, and soon did meet :
John coming back amain;
Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin-and away
Went post-boy at his heels;

The post-boy's horse right glad to miss
The lumb'ring of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear,
They rais'd the hue and cry.

"Stop thief!-stop thief!—a highwayman!"

Not one of them was mute,
And all and each that pass'd that way,

Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking, as before,
That Gilpin rode a race:

And so he did, and won it too;
For he got first to town:

Nor stopp'd, till where he had got up,
He did again get down.

Now let us sing-Long live the king;
And Gilpin, long live he;

And when he next doth ride abroad,

May I be there to see.

The facetious History of John Gilpin" illustrates most forcibly The adage of the poet,

Great wit to madness sure is near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

and proves to a demonstration that melancholy and mirth are, frequently, if not inmates, very near neighbours. The outlines of the story were told by Lady Austen to the author, William Cowper, to divert one of those fits of gloomy despondency, to which he was for a great part of his life, daily subjected, and which finally laid the noble fabric of his genius in ruins, and the effect upon his faculties was such, that he told her next morning, he had been in convulsions of laughter through the whole night, and had already turned her history of John Gilpin into a Ballad. Perhaps no work of a similar kind was ever more widely circulated, or more generally admired. It is indeed, for genuine simplicity and exquisite humour, without a parallel in the language, though, no doubt, its celebrity has been increased by the extraordinary circumstances of the author's life, and the pre-eminent excellence of his more serious productions.

Of the history of his life, which appears to us the most singular and the most instructive of any recorded in English literature, we can only afford