said, with look of wonder,
"Holloa, old Death--another blunder!
You may go back again: you see
You promised me three warnings--three;
Keep word of honour, Death!"
"Ay, ay," said Death, and raised his veil,
"I'm joyed to see you stout and hale;
I'm glad to see you so well able
To stump about from farm to stable,
All right in limb and breath."
"So, so--so, so!"--old Dobson sighed--
"A little lame though." Death replied:
"Ay, lame; but then you have your sight?"
But Dobson said--"Not quite, not quite."
"Not quite; but still you have your hearing?"
But Dobson said, "Past all repairing,
Ears gone downright!"
Death on his brow then dropped the awnings,
And said--"Friend you can't stay behind:
If you are lame, and deaf, and blind,
You have had your three sufficient warnings."

POSTSCRIPT.

The moralist, my dear niece, has said that--

"The man of sense will read a work of note
In the like humour as the author wrote."

To which end we must try to identify the reign of King George I. and the
manners of that era with these fables; for manners change with every
age, and every age has its transitions of political and social manners:

"Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times."

It was in the era of the two first Georges that Gay wrote and applied
these fables, filled with diatribes against ministers, courtiers, and
misers, and inveighing against court corruption and bribery.

It was a period of transition, such as had before occurred, from feudal
to monarchial, and now from monarchial to ministerial rule. We had
entered into another phase--one of civil and religious liberty; but, at
the same time, the royal court was a scene devoid of any graces: the
kings could not speak our language, and their feminine favourites were
the reverse of fair or virtuous; whilst domestic hate ruled in the
palace. Power then ran into a new groove of corruption and bribery; and
the scene, vile in itself, was made viler by exaggeration and the
retaliations of one political party on the other, whilst either side was
equally lauded by its own party. Therefore we may reasonably conclude
that matters were not so bad as they were painted, and moreover that it
was but a change and transition of evils, to play a part and disappear.
The advent of the third George to the throne, a