On Sundays she was always melancholy and anything but good society, For that day in her household was a day of sighings and sobbings and wringing of hands and shaking of heads: She wouldn't hear of a button being sewn on a glove, because it was a work neither of necessity nor of piety, And strictly prohibited her servants from amusing themselves, or indeed doing anything at all except dusting the drawing-rooms, cleaning the boots and shoes, cooking the dinner, waiting generally on the family, and making the beds. But BLAKE even went farther than that, and said that, on Sundays, people should do their own works of necessity, and not delegate them to persons in a menial situation, So he wouldn't allow his servants to do so much as even answer a bell. Here he is making his wife carry up the water for her bath to the second floor, much against her inclination,-- And why in the world the gentleman who illustrates these ballads has put him into a cocked hat is more than I can tell. [Illustration] After about three months of this sort of thing, taking the smooth with the rough of it (Blacking her own boots and peeling her own potatoes was not her notion of connubial bliss), MRS. BLAKE began to find that she had pretty nearly had enough of it, And came, in course of time, to think that BLAKE'S own original line of conduct wasn't so much amiss. And now that wicked person--that detestable sinner ("BELIAL BLAKE" his friends and well-wishers call him for his atrocities), And his poor deluded victim whom all her Christian brothers dislike and pity so, Go to the parish church only on Sunday morning and afternoon and occasionally on a week-day, and spend their evenings in connubial fondlings and affectionate reciprocities, And I should like to know where in the world (or rather, out of it) they expect to go! [Illustration] THE DUKE OF PLAZA-TORO In enterprise of martial kind, When there was any fighting, He led his regiment from behind (He found it less exciting). But when away his regiment ran, His place was at the fore, O- That celebrated, Cultivated, Underrated Nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro! In the first and foremost flight, ha, ha! You always found that knight, ha, ha! That celebrated, Cultivated, Underrated Nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro!