AN ELEGY

ON

THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.'

GOOD people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;

And, if you find it wondrous short--

It cannot hold you long.

1 From The vicar of Wakefield, 1766; with an amended line from the edition of 1773.-This third elegy too frequently deviates from its model. M. Nodier remarks that its epigrammatic conclusion is imitated from the French.-The author had made a sharp attack on plaintive elegy in his earliest work, An enquiry, etc., 1759; and it is remarkable that the sarcastic design of these elegies should have failed to attract the attention of commentators. It is quite evident from the manner in which the above specimen is introduced. The vicar, happily seated by his own fire-side, where all are busied in forming projects, or laughing at whatever folly

In Islington there was a man

Of whom the world might say,

That still a godly race he ran-
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;

The naked every day he clad--
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found:

As many dogs there be;

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.

comes uppermost, assents to the proposal of a song from his youngest boy; and thus records the previous interlocution: "Which song do you choose, The dying swan, or the Elegy on the death of a mad dog?' 'The elegy, child, by all means,' said I, 'I never heard that yet; and Deborah, my life, grief you know is dry, let us have a bottle of the best gooseberry wine, to keep up our spirits. I have wept so much at all sorts of elegies of late, that without an enlivening glass I am sure this will overcome me; and Sophy, love, take your guitar, and thrum in with the boy a little.""

This dog and man at first were friends;
But, when a pique began,

The dog, to gain some private ends,

Went mad, and bit the man.

Around, from all the neighbouring streets, The wondering neighbours ran;

And swore the dog had lost his wits,

To bite so good a man.

The wound it seem'd both sore and sad

To every christian eye;

And, while they swore the dog was mad, They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,

That show'd the rogues they lied:

The man recover'd of the bite;
The dog it was that died.

SONG.'

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds, too late, that men betray-
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,

To give repentance to her lover,

And wring his bosom, is-to die.

1 Printed in The vicar of Wakefield, 1766.-The stanzas, as introduced, have a close connexion with the tale. The vicar and family had agreed to breakfast together at the honey-suckle bankwhere Olivia first met Mr. Thornhill. Sophia favours them with a song; and poor Olivia, whose voice was always sweetest in the concert, is next called on. "She complied," says the worthy divine, "in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me.'