Mr. Walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help wishing You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a fishing! There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing, And all thro’ those devilish angling works--the Lord forgive me for swearing! I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle! For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!” It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words--whose blood wouldn’t chill in their veins To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains?[16] And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I give her, “How dare you,” says I, “for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?” ’Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the Bagots’,-- But it wasn’t breeding no fever--not it! ’twas my son a-breeding of maggots! I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and going, And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing; Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live things in their craniums; Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums. [Illustration: “THE GREAT GLOBE ITSELF, YEA, ALL WHICH IT INHERIT, SHALL DISSOLVE!”]