has more goodness in his little finger than you have in your whole body:  My master is a personable man, and not a spindle-shank hoddy doddy.  And now, whereby I find you would fain make an excuse, Because my master, one day, in anger, call’d you a goose:  Which, and I am sure I have been his servant four years since October, And he never call’d me worse than sweet-heart, drunk or sober:  Not that I know his reverence was ever concern’d to my knowledge, Though you and your come-rogues keep him out so late in your wicked college.  You say you will eat grass on his grave:[1] a Christian eat grass!  Whereby you now confess yourself to be a goose or an ass:  But that’s as much as to say, that my master should die before ye; Well, well, that’s as God pleases; and I don’t believe that’s a true story:  And so say I told you so, and you may go tell my master; what care I?  And I don’t care who knows it; ’tis all one to Mary.  Everybody knows that I love to tell truth, and shame the devil:  I am but a poor servant; but I think gentlefolks should be civil.  Besides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was here; I remember it was on a Tuesday, of all days in the year.  And Saunders, the man, says you are always jesting and mocking:  Mary, said he, (one day as I was mending my master’s stocking;) My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school—­ I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool.  Saunders, said I, I would rather than a quart of ale He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dish-clout to his tail.  And now I must go, and get Saunders to direct this letter; For I write but a sad scrawl; but my sister Marget she writes better.  Well, but I must run and make the bed, before my master comes from prayers:  And see now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming up stairs; Whereof I could say more to your verses, if I could write written hand; And so I remain, in a civil way, your servant to ’command,
     MARY.

[Footnote 1:  See ante, p. 349.—­W.E.B.]

A PORTRAIT FROM THE LIFE

Come sit by my side, while this picture I draw: 
In chattering a magpie, in pride a jackdaw;
A temper the devil himself could not bridle;
Impertinent mixture of busy and idle;
As rude as a bear, no mule half so crabbed;
She swills like a sow, and she breeds like a rabbit;
A housewife in bed, at table a slattern;
For all an example, for no one a pattern. 
Now tell me, friend Thomas,[1] Ford,[2] Grattan,[3] and Merry Dan,[4]
Has this any likeness to good Madam Sheridan?

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Thos.  Sheridan.]

[Footnote 2:  Chas. Ford, of Woodpark, Esq.]

[Footnote 3:  Rev. John Grattan.]

[Footnote 4:  Rev. Daniel Jackson.]

ON STEALING A CROWN, WHEN THE DEAN WAS ASLEEP