It fell on a day that a mouse, travel-spent, To the side of a river did wearily win; Of the good house-cat he had baffled the scent, And he thirstily dipt his whiskered chin; When, crouched in the sedge by the water’s brink, A clamorous frog beheld him drink. “And tell me, fair sir, thy title and birth, For of high degree thou art surely come; I have room by my hearth for a stranger of worth, And a welcome to boot to my royal home. For, sooth to speak, my name is _Puffcheek_, And I come of _Bullfrog’s_ lordly line; I govern the bogs, the realm of the frogs, A sceptred king by right divine.” II Then up and spake the mighty mouse: “And, courteous stranger, ask’st thou, then, What’s known alike to gods and men, The lineage of _Crumplunderer’s_ house? Me Princess _Lickfarina_ bare, Daughter of good King _Nibble-the-flitch_, And she weaned me on many a dainty rare, As became great _Pie-devourer’s_ heir, With filberts and figs and sweetmeats rich. III “Never mortal mouse, I ween, Better versed in man’s cuisine; Not a bun or tartlet, graced With sweeping petticoat of paste, Not an oily rasher or creamy cheese, Or liver so gay in its silver chemise; Not a dish by artiste for alderman made, Ever escaped my foraging raid For when the mice pour on pantry and store, In foray or fight, I am aye to the fore. IV “I fear not man’s unwieldy size, To his very bedside I merrily go; At his lubberly length the ogre lies, And sleep never leaves his heavy-sealed eyes Though I pinch his heel and nibble his toe. But enemies twain do work my bane, And both from my inmost soul I hate, The cat and the kite, who bear me spite; And, third, the mouse-trap’s fatal bait; And the ferret foul I abhor from my soul, The robber! he follows me into my hole!” Wesley’s rendering of the _dénouement_ is a thoroughly good specimen of the mock-heroic style which runs through the original: The Muses knowing all things list not show The Wailings for the Dead and Funeral Rites, To blameless Æthiopians must they go To feast with Jove for twelve succeeding nights. Therefore abrupt thus end they. Let suffice The gods’ august assembly to relate, Heroic Frogs and Demigods of Mice, Troxartes’ vengeance and Pelides’ fate. Hosts routed, lakes of gore, and hills of slain, An Iliad, work divine! raised from a day’s campaign. By this time Greece was ready for definite mirth and laughter. What has come to be known as the Old Comedy was to the Athenians, we are told, what is now shown in the influences of the newspaper, the review, the Broadside, the satire, the caricature of the times and manners.