“This head in a crown, and that without ears,
Is the pleasure of prelates, of courtiers, and peers.
Dance, revel, and sing, ye butterflies gay;
The time is at hand you shall weep, fast, and pray.
One holdeth the war-dogs, all ready to slip;
Pleasure’s cup shall be spilled, and dashed from the lip.
To me is committed this message of woe:
The tears of the proud ones unpitied shall flow.”
He no sooner read it, than, quitting his supper, he went out into the village to ascertain if any copy of it had been left at any other place; and found, to his vexation, that one had been fastened to the May-pole, and had been taken down and read to half the people. Determined, however, that the customary sports should be neither hindered nor damped, he took home with him the village carpenter, set fairly to work, and in two hours, by the aid of lath, and pasteboard, and Dutch gilding, they finished off a crown far more splendid than the one stolen; and he wrote underneath it, with prompt good humour,—