But from a simple love of right;—­
  Which statements the Nine Worthies,
Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne,
Seth, Golley Gibber, General Wayne,
Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain,
The owner of a castle in Spain,
Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain,
(The friends aforesaid,) made more plain
  And by loud raps attested; 800
To the same purport testified
Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride
Who knew said Snooks before he died,
  Had in his wares invested,
Thought him entitled to belief
And freely could concur, in brief,
  In everything the rest did.

Eliab this occasion seized,
(Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,)
To say that he should ne’er be eased 810
Till Jenny married whom she pleased,
  Free from all checks and urgin’s,
(This spirit dropt his final g’s)
And that, unless Knott quickly sees
This done, the spirits to appease,
They would come back his life to tease,
As thick as mites in ancient cheese,
And let his house on an endless lease
To the ghosts (terrific rappers these
And veritable Eumenides) 820
  Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins!

Knott was perplexed and shook his head,
He did not wish his child to wed
  With a suspected murderer,
(For, true or false, the rumor spread,)
But as for this roiled life he led,
‘It would not answer,’ so he said,
  ‘To have it go no furderer.’ 
At last, scarce knowing what it meant,
Reluctantly he gave consent 830
That Jenny, since ’twas evident
That she would follow her own bent,
  Should make her own election;
For that appeared the only way
These frightful noises to allay
Which had already turned him gray
  And plunged him in dejection.

Accordingly, this artless maid
Her father’s ordinance obeyed, 839
And, all in whitest crape arrayed,
(Miss Pulsifer the dresses made
And wishes here the fact displayed
That she still carries on the trade,
The third door south from Bagg’s Arcade,)
A very faint ‘I do’ essayed
And gave her hand to Hiram Slade,
From which time forth, the ghosts were laid,
  And ne’er gave trouble after;
But the Selectmen, be it known,
Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 850
Where the poor pedler’s corpse was thrown,
And found thereunder a jaw-bone,
Though, when the crowner sat thereon,
He nothing hatched, except alone
  Successive broods of laughter;
It was a frail and dingy thing,
In which a grinder or two did cling,
  In color like molasses,
Which surgeons, called from far and wide. 
Upon the horror to decide, 860
  Having put on their glasses,
Reported thus:  ’To judge by looks,
These bones, by some queer hooks or crooks,
May have belonged to Mr. Snooks,
But, as men deepest read in books
  Are perfectly aware, bones,
If buried fifty years or so,
Lose their identity and grow
  From human bones to bare bones.’