Who, while the sun shines, make our hay.
Therein is Christian philosophy with content. Watts makes his well-born Christian child an insufferable prig, who would have scorned Dibdin’s half-starved wretch; for example, in the ‘Praise for Mercies’:—
While some poor wretches scarce can tell
Where they may lay their head,
I have a home wherein to dwell
And rest upon my bed.
In Dibdin’s ‘True Courage’ Bob Bounce is ready to eat an enemy alive, but the minstrel humanises him, and inculcates the maxim that all men are brothers:—
That my friend Jack or Tom I should rescue from danger,
Or lay my life down for each lad in the mess,