We have suitors and briefs for our payment,
While so long as a Court shall hold pleas,
We talk moonshine, with wigs for our raiment,
Not sinking the fees.
This “J. S.” was a mythical person introduced for the purposes of illustration, and constantly met with in old law books and reports. His devotion to Rome is shown by his desperate attempts to get there in three days: “If J. S. shall go to Rome in three days,” was then a standing example of an impossible condition, which modern science has robbed of most of its point.
——:o:——
THE BALLAD OF BURDENS.
This poem will be found on page 144 of Mr. Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads (first series). It is one of his best known ballads, and in 1879 it was chosen by the editor of The World as the model on which to found parodies describing the wet and gloomy summer of that year.
The successful poems in the competition were printed in The World, July 16, 1879. The first prize was won by a well known London Architect, the second by a Dublin gentleman who has since published several amusing Volumes of light poems.
First Prize.