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النشر الإلكتروني

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast!

For which he paid full dear;

For, while he spake, 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 mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down

Into the country far away,

She pull'd out half a crown;

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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 postboy at his heels,

The postboy's horse right glad to miss

The lumb'ring of the wheels.

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Six gentlemen upon the road

Thus seeing Gilpin fly,

With postboy 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.

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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!

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AN EPISTLE

TO

AN AFFLICTED PROTESTANT LADY IN FRANCE.

MADAM,

A STRANGER'S purpose in these lays
Is to congratulate and not to praise.
To give the creature the Creator's due,
Were sin in me and an offence to you.
From man to man, or ev'n to woman paid,
Praise is the medium of a knavish trade,
A coin by Craft for Folly's use design'd,
Spurious, and only current with the blind.

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown; 10 No trav❜ller ever reach'd that blest abode,

Who found not thorns and briers in his road.

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