eft!
few are worth praying for, and one's self the least of all."

120 "Gay, like Goldsmith, had a musical talent. 'He could play on the
flute,' says Malone, 'and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so
happily some of the airs in the _Beggar's Opera_.' "--_Notes to_
SPENCE.

121 'Twas when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows
She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crown'd with willows
That trembled o'er the brook.

Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, venturous lover--
Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean,
And let my lover rest;
Ah! what's thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?

The merchant robb'd of pleasure,
Sees tempests in despair;
But what's the loss of treasure
To losing of my dear?
Should you some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'd find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so.

How can they say that Nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why, then, beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the rocks discover
That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,
And leave the maid to weep?

All melancholy lying,
Thus wail'd she for her dear;
Repay'd each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear;
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spy'd;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow'd her head, and died.

_A Ballad_, from the "_What d'ye call it?_"

"What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's,
Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the _What d'ye call it?_ ''Twas
when the seas were roaring'? I have been well informed, that they
all contributed."--Cowper to Unwin, 1783.

122 "Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty
sort of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try
at such a thing for some time, but afterwards thought it would be
better to write a comedy on the same plan. This was what gave rise
to the _Beggar's Opera_. He began on it, and when he first mentioned
it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the p