And left me, a rose-bud, all cover'd with weeds.' 'For all your fine speeches, a widow, in fine, Is an article madam, I mean to decline I Though wedlock's a bolus to physic and fright, A black draught--a widow! would finish me quite.” “A vile stave! Commend me to 'fonde Elderton,' * and the troop of 'metre ballad-mongers' that sleep among the dull of ancient days; but save me from that doleful doggrel of which, I shrewdly suspect, thou, Benjamin Bosky, art the perpetrator. * The following is a description of Elderton by a contemporary writer in 1582. See “Reporte of the Death and Martyr-dome of M. Campion, Jesuit, &c.” “Fonde Elderton, call in thy foolish rhime, Thy scurill balates are to bad to sell; Let good men rest, and mende thy self in time, Confesse in prose thou hast not metred well; Or if thy folly cannot chuse but fayne Write alehotise toys, blaspheme not in thy vain.” It smells woundily of thy peculiar locality, and might have befringed the walls of Bedlam and Soho. Henceforth be the _Magnus Apollo_ of thy native _Little Britain_, and divide the crown with Thomas Delony, of huck-ster-fame! Jack of Newbery, the Gentle Craft, garlands, strange histories, 'And such small deer, Had been Tom's food for many a year,' and may serve for _thine_, Benjamin; for, in poetical matters, thou hast the maw of a kite and the digestion of an ostrich.” “A sprat to catch a herring!” “A tittlebat! thou triton of the minnows!” “But the _Bull-Feather!_ Uncle Timothy, the _Bull-Feather_ 'Must not be forgotten Until the world's rotten.' Let me refresh thy memory. Once upon a time----” “Peace, babbler! If I must take the bull by the horns, it shall be without thy jockeyship. I will not ride double. 'Tis an idle tale, gentlemen; but there are charms in association that may render it interesting.” Uncle Tim regaled with a fragrant pinch his satirical nose, and began “A MIRTHFUL PAGEANT OF THE BULL-FEATHERS TO THE HORNS AT HIGHGATE. “The ancient brethren of Bull-Feathers-Hall were a club of warm citizens; 'rich fellows enough! fellows that have had losses, with everything handsome about them.' Their place of rendezvous was the Chequer-Yard in Whitechapel, every Tuesday and Thursday at seven o'clock. The intent of their meeting was to solace themselves with harmless merriment, and promote good fellowship * among neighbours. * How good fellowship had declined a century before this will be seen by the following extract from a black-letter ballad, intituled, “A balade declaryng how neybourhed loue, and trew dealyng is gone. Imprinted at London by Richard Lant.” (Circa 1560.)