Having read this admired piece, which was too long to remember any more of it, he proceeded: "Now, Sir, could the very inventor of doggerel himself have said any thing finer than this? Do but consider what a deal of mystery there is in that word _Shepherds_; it cost me about a month's hard study." I could no longer contain myself within bounds, for I was ready to burst, and so breaking out into a loud fit of laughter, I said, "It is most wonderful; but I observe you call great saint _Corpus Christi_, whereas _Corpus Christi_ is not the name of a saint, but a festival instituted in honour of the blessed sacrament." "That's a pretty fancy," replied he, scornfully, "I'll show you him in the calendar, and he is canonized, and I'll lay my head on it." I could not contend any more with him for laughing at his unaccountable ignorance, but told him his verses deserved to be highly rewarded, for I had never seen anything more comical in my life. "No?" said he; "then pray hear a little of a small book I have written in honour of the eleven thousand virgins. I have composed fifty stanzas, of eight verses each, to every one of them; a most excellent piece." For fear of being pestered with so many millions of his lines, I desired him to show me anything that was not godly; and then he began to recite a comedy, which had as many acts as there are days in a year. He told me he writ it in two days, and that was the rough draught, and might be about half a ream of paper. The name of it was _Noah's Ark_; the whole represented by cocks and mice, asses, foxes, and wild boars, like Æsop's fables. I extolled both the plot and the conduct; and he answered, "I ought not to commend it because it is my own, but the like was never made in the world, besides that it is altogether new; and if I can but get it acted, there will be nothing so fine. All the difficulty lies in that, for if it were not, could anything be so sublime and lofty? However, I have contrived to have it all acted by parrots, jackdaws, magpies, starlings, and all other sorts of birds as speak, and to bring in monkeys for the farce." "That indeed will be very extraordinary," answered I. "All this is nothing," replied the old man, "to what I have done for the sake of a woman I love. Here are nine hundred and one sonnets, and twelve rondeaux"--as if he had been reckoning up pounds, shillings, and pence--"made in praise of my mistress's legs." I asked him whether he had ever seen them? He replied he had not, on his word as a priest, but that all his conceits were by way of prophecy. Though it was a diversion to hear his nonsense, I must confess I dreaded such a multitude of barbarous verses, and therefore endeavoured to turn off the discourse another way, telling him I saw hares. "Then," cried he, "I'll begin with one, in which I compare her legs to that creature." Still to bring him off that subject, I went on, "Don't you see that star, Sir, which