Where, if his russet-friend did chance to dine,
Whether his satten-man would fill him wine?
Did he think perjury as lov'd a sin,

Himself forsworn, as if his slave had been?
Did he seek regular pleasures? Was he known
Just husband of one wife, and she his own?
Did he give freely, without pause or doubt,
And read petitions ere they were worn out?
Or should his well-deserving client ask,
Would he bestow a tilting, or a masque
To keep need virtuous? and that done, not fear
What lady damn'd him for his absence there?
Did he attend the court for no man's fall?
Wore he the ruin of no hospital?

And when he did his rich apparel don,
Put he no widow, nor an orphan on?
Did he love simple virtue for the thing?
The king for no respect but for the king?
But, above all, did his religion wait

Upon God's throne, or on the chair of state?
He that is guilty of no quæry here,

Outlasts his epitaph, outlives his heir."

Corbet's" Journey into France" is a well-known piece of drollery. It is the principal poem in the volume, (unless we except another journey, the Iter Boreale,) and for various reasons deserves to be quoted entire.

"I went from England into France,
Nor yet to learn to cringe or dance,
Nor yet to ride or fence:

Nor did I go like one of those

That do return with half a nose
They carried from hence.

But I to Paris rode along,

Much Like John Dory* in the song,
Upon a holy tide.

*This alludes to one of the most celebrated of the old English ballads. It was the favourite performance of the English minstrels, so lately as the reign of King Charles II., and Dryden alludes to it as to the most hacknied thing of the time.

But Sunderland, Godolphin, Lory,
These will appear such chits in story,

I on an ambling nag did get,
I trust he is not paid for yet;

And spurr'd him on each side.

T'will turn all politics to jests,

To be repeated like John Dory,

When fiddlers sing at feasts.

Ritson's Ancient Songs, p. 163.

It may be worth while to quote the words of this ballad, in which the taste of our ancestors so rejoiced. We would gladly hear the tune scraped by three blind fiddlers, in Aldersgate or Bishopsgate

street.

JOHN DORY.

As it fell on a holy-day,

And upon a holy-tide-a,

John Dory bought him an ambling nag,

To Paris for to ride-a.

And when John Dory to Paris was come,
A little before the gate-a,

John Dory was fitted, the porter was witted,
To let him on thereat-a.

The first man that John Dory did meet,
Was good King John of France-a;
John Dory could well of his courtesie,
But fell down in a trance-a.

A pardon, a pardon, my liege and my king,
For my merry men, and for me-a;
And all the churles in merie England,
Ile bring them all bound to thee-a.

And Nicholl was then a Cornish man,
A little beside Bohide-a;

And he mande forth a good blacke barke,
With fiftie good oares on a side-a.

Run up, my boy, unto the maine top,
And looke what thou canst spie-a.
Who, ho! who, ho! a goodly ship I do see,
I trow it be John Dory-a.

There is a lanthorn which the Jews,
When Judas led them forth, did use,

It weighs my weight downright:
But to believe it, you must think
The Jews did put a candle in't,
And then 'twas very light.

There's one saint there hath lost his nose; Another's head, but not his toes,

His elbow and his thumb.

But when that we had seen the rags,
We went to th' inn and took our nags,
And so away did come.

We came to Paris on the Seine,
"Tis wondrous fair, 'tis nothing clean,
'Tis Europe's greatest town.

How strong it is, I need not tell it,
For all the world may easily smell it,
That walk it up and down.

There many strange things are to see,
The palace and great gallery,

The Place Royal doth excel:
The new bridge, and the statues there,
At Notre Dame, Saint Q. Pater,
The steeple bears the bell.

For learning, th' University;
And, for old clothes, the Frippery;
The house the Queen did build.

Saint Innocents, whose earth devours
Dead corps in four and twenty hours,
And there the King was kill'd :

The Bastille, and Saint Dennis-street,
The Shafflenist, like London-Fleet,
The arsenal, no toy.

But if you'll see the prettiest thing,
Go to the court and see the King,
O, 'tis a hopeful boy.

He is, of all his dukes and peers,
Reverenc'd for much wit at 's years,
Nor must you think it much: