O, thether gwoes my dog and I.
When I have dree zixpences under my thumb,
O, then I be welcome wherever I keum;
But when I have none, O then I pass by,
'Tis poverty pearts good company.
If I should die as it may hap,
My greauve shall be under the green yeal tap;
In voulded earmes there wool us lie,
Cheek by jowl, my dog and I.
The foregoing is a very famous old Gloucestershire ballad, corrected according to the fragments of a MS. found in the Speech-house of Dean several centuries ago, and used to be sung at the meetings of the Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand.