disport."

In the second Eclogue, a good son invokes blessings on his father, who
is gone with the crusaders to Palestine. He describes with much
animation the voyage, the landing in Syria, the warring Saracens, King
Richard of lion's heart, and anticipates victory and the return to
England.

"Thus Nigel said, when from the azure sea
The swollen sail did dance before his eyne.
Swift as the wish he to the beach did fly,
And found his father stepping from the brine.
Sprites of the blest, the pious Nigel said,
Pour out your pleasance on my father's head!"

The third Eclogue, if divested of certain exuberances--for Chatterton
was precocious in every thing, and many of his fancies want the Bowdler
pruning-knife--might be seasonably transferred to some of the penny
publications for the benefit of Mr Frost's disciples. A poor man and
woman, on their way to the parson's hayfield, complain to each other of
their hard lot in being obliged to earn their bread by the sweat of
their brows. "Why," asks the woman, "should I be more obligated to work
than the fine Dame Agnes? What is she more than me? The man, unable to
solve so knotty a point, says he doesn't see how he himself is not as
good as a lord's son, but he will ask Sir Roger the parson, whom he
consults accordingly.

"_Man_.--By your priestship now say unto me,
Sir Godfrey the knight, who liveth hard by,
Why should he than me
Be more great
In honour, knighthood, and estate?

"_Sir Roger_.--If thou hast ease, the shadow of content,
Believe the truth, none happier is than thee.
Thou workest well; can that a trouble be?
Sloth more would jade thee than the roughest day.
Could'st thou the secret minds of others see,
Thou would'st full soon see truth in what I say.
But let me hear thy way of life, and then
Hear thou from me the lives of richer men.

"_Man_.--I rise with the sun,
Like him to drive the wain,
And, ere my work is done,
I sing a song or twain.
I follow the plough-tail
With a bottle of ale.
On every saint's day
With the minstrel I'm seen,
All footing away
With the