So might a thousand folks; therefore (the reader may say) how does this establish the individuality of Giles Scroggins, or give an insight to the character of the chosen hero of the poem? Mark the next line, and your doubts must vanish. He courted her; but why? Ay, why? for the best of all possible reasons--condensed in the smallest of all possible space, and yet establishing his perfect taste, unequalled judgment, and peculiarly-heroic self-esteem--he courted her because she was "The fairest maid in all the town." Magnificent climax! overwhelming reason! Could volumes written, printed, or stereotyped, say more? Certainly not; the condensation of "Aurora's blushes," "the Graces' attributes," "Venus's perfections," and "Love's sweet votaries," all, all is more than spoken in the emphatic words-- "The fairest maid in all the town." Nothing can go beyond this; it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness. The _fairest_ maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and--beautiful poetic contrivance!--we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches--soils no satin paper--vows no vows--no, he is above such humbug. His motto is evidently deeds, not words. And what does he do? Send a flimsy epistle, which his fair reader pays the vile postage for? Not he; he "_Gave_ a ring with _posy_ true!" Think of this. Not only does he "give a ring," but he annihilates the suppositionary fiction in which poets are supposed to revel, and the ring's accompaniment, though the child of a creative brain--the burning emanation from some Apollo-stricken votary of "the lying nine," imbued with all his stern morality, is strictly "true." This startling fact is not left wrapped in mystery. The veriest sceptic cannot, in imagination, grave a fancied double meaning on that richest gift. No--the motto follows, and seems to say--Now, as the champion of Giles Scroggins, hurl I this gauntlet down; let him that dare, uplift it! Here I am-- "If you _loves_ I, as I _loves_ you!" Pray mark the syncretic force of the above line. Giles, in expressing his affection, felt the singular too small, and the vast plural quick supplied the void--_Loves_ must be more than love. "If you loves I, as I loves you, No knife shall cut our loves in two!"