How Nancy Sniggles felt her senses fail her—”
Then comes a sad dénouement—now-a-days
It is not virtue dominant that pays.
Such tales, in this, the post-octavo age,
Our novelists incontinently tells us—
Tales, wherein lovely heroines engage
With highwaymen, good-looking rogues but callous,
Who go on swimmingly till the last page,
And then take poison to escape the gallows—
Tales, whose original refinement teaches