Save John, the younger, who, of sprightly parts,

Felt not a love for money-making arts:

In childhood feeble, he, for country air,

Had long resided with a rustic pair;

All round whose room were doleful ballads, songs,

Of lovers’ sufferings and of ladies’ wrongs;

Of peevish ghosts who came at dark midnight,

For breach of promise, guilty men to fright;

Love, marriage, murder, were the themes, with these,

All that on idle, ardent spirits seize;