I'm going now for to tell;
And as how by gallant Maynard
He soon was sent to hell—
With a down, down, down derry down."
The reader will, I suppose, agree with Ben in his criticism, many years afterwards, on this poetry, that it was "wretched stuff; mere blind men's ditties." But fortunately for Ben, the poor people of Boston were at that time no judges of poetry. The silver-tongued Watts had not, as yet, snatched the harp of Zion, and poured his divine songs over New-England. And having never been accustomed to any thing better than an old version of David's Psalms, running in this way—
"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,
Your Maker's praises spout!
Up from your sands ye codlings peep,
And wag your tails about."—
The people of Boston pronounced Ben's poetry mighty fine, and bought them up at a prodigious rate; especially the Light-house Tragedy.