Insult had fall’n on the Prelate proud—
Heretic hands in a blanket had tost
Lay Brother Ludwig, one of the crowd
Of the Abbot’s dependents, a useful and able man,
Neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, half a friar, half stable-man.
But this shaking his brain so completely had addled,
That the next time Geraldus’s palfrey he saddled,
He forgot both the girths, an important omission,
Which occasioned a sudden and rude imposition
On our general Mamma: (we allude to the Earth,