The description of this legendary cock, inspired evidently by the beautiful work of Gibbon’s master-hand, still to be seen in the modern Cock Tavern in Fleet Street, might well be called classical, and shall not be withheld from our readers:—
“The Cock was of a larger egg
Than modern poultry drop,
Stept forward on a firmer leg,
And cramm’d a plumper crop,
Upon an ampler dunghill trod,
Crow’d lustier late and early,
Sipt wine from silver, praising God,
And raked in golden barley.”
