LUCRETIUS, De Rerum Natura, lib.5
THE ARGUMENT.
The Village Register considered, as containing principally the Annals of the Poor - State of the Peasantry as meliorated by Frugality and Industry - The Cottage of an industrious Peasant; its Ornaments - Prints and Books - The Garden; its Satisfactions - The State of the Poor, when improvident and vicious - The Row or Street, and its Inhabitants - The Dwellings of one of these - A Public House - Garden and its Appendages - Gamesters; rustic Sharpers &c. - Conclusion of the Introductory Part.
BAPTISMS.
The Child of the Miller’s Daughter, and Relation of her Misfortune - A frugal Couple; their Kind of Frugality - Plea of the Mother of a natural Child; her Churching - Large Family of Gerard Ablett: his apprehensions: Comparison between his state and that of the wealthy Farmer his Master: his Consolation - An Old Man’s Anxiety for an Heir: the Jealousy of another on having many - Characters of the Grocer Dawkins and his Friend; their different Kinds of Disappointment - Three Infants named - An Orphan Girl and Village School-mistress - Gardener’s Child: Pedantry and Conceit of the Father: his botanical Discourse: Method of fixing the Embryo-fruit of Cucumbers - Absurd Effects of Rustic Vanity: observed in the names of their Children - Relation of the Vestry Debate on a Foundling: Sir Richard Monday - Children of various Inhabitants - The poor Farmer - Children of a Profligate: his Character and Fate - Conclusion.
The year revolves, and I again explore
The simple Annals of my Parish poor;
What Infant-members in my flock appear,
What Pairs I bless’d in the departed year;
And who, of Old or Young, or Nymphs or Swains,