In contrast to this is _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_. This shepherd was contented with his lot, and says: "David was happier when he kept his father's sheep on such a plain as this, and employed in singing some of his own psalms perhaps, than ever he was when he became king of Israel and Judah. And I dare say we should never have had some of the most beautiful texts in all those fine psalms, if he had not been a shepherd, which enabled him to make so many fine comparisons and similitudes, as one may say, from country life, flocks of sheep, hills and valleys, fields of corn, and fountains of water." The shepherd's neat cottage with its simple furnishings, his frugal wife and industrious children are described in simple and convincing language. In the stories of the poor there are many interesting details of the everyday life of that class that did not blossom into heroes and heroines of romance for nearly half a century. Mrs. Sponge, in _The History of Betty Brown, the St. Giles's Orange Girl_, is a character that Dickens might have immortalised. Mrs. Sponge kept a little shop and a kind of eating-house for poor girls near the Seven Dials. She received stolen goods, and made such large profits in her business that she was enabled to become a broker among the poor. She loaned Betty five shillings to set her up in the orange business; she did not ask for the return of her money, but exacted a sixpence a day for its use, and was regarded by Betty, and the other girls whom she thus befriended, as a benefactor. At last, Betty was rescued from the clutches of Mrs. Sponge. By industry and piety she became mistress of a handsome sausage-shop near the Seven Dials, and married a hackney coachman, the hero of one of Miss More's ballads: I am a bold coachman, and drive a good hack With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back; And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles From the narrowest alley in all broad St. Giles. Though poor, we are honest and very content, We pay as we go, for meat, drink, and for rent; To work all the week I am able and willing, I never get drunk, and I waste not a shilling; And while at a tavern my gentleman tarries, The coachman grows richer than he whom he carries, And I'd rather (said I), since it saves me from sin, Be the driver without, than the toper within.