In it he melted lead for bullets,

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To shoot at foes and sometimes pullets;

To whom he bore so fell a grutch,

He ne'er gave quarter t' any such.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack

Of some body to hew and hack.

The peaceful scabbard where it dwelt,
The rancour of its edge had felt;
For of the lower end two handful
It had devoured, 'twas so manful,

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mon principle which I find adopted by all the ancient writers, (namely, that of conceiving the same thing to represent many different things, according to the resemblances to different objects which fancy may ascribe to it) is the governing principle also throughout this Poem. The basket-hilt of the Knight's sword, for instance, represented in

Fig. 5.

And so much scorn'd to lurk in case,
As if it durst not shew its face.

This sword a dagger had his page,
That was but little for his age;
And therefore waited on him so,
As dwarfs upon knights errant do.
It was a serviceable dudgeon,
Either for fighting or for drudging.
When it had stabb'd, or broke a head,

It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread;
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were
To bait a mouse trap, 'twould not care.
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth
Set leeks and onions, and so forth.

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386

is assigned by the Poet to various uses, according to such fancied resemblances; thus, likewise, the trencher-scraper, the knife, the pistol,

Fig. 6.

and the dagger of the Poem, are to be ascribed to the same prototype in the moon, situate a little to the right of the basket-hilted sword, before drawn in fig. 5. So again, the

In th' holsters at his saddle-bow
Two aged pistols he did stow,
Among the surplus of such meat

As in his hose he could not get.

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These would inveigle rats with th' scent, 395
To forage when the cocks were bent ;

trencher itself, the mouse-trap, the pieces of cheese and bacon, the owl,

Fig. 7.

and the shoe, are all to be referred to another and the same prototype there, situate under the pistol just now pointed out, and introduced in fig. 6: and thus too, (if I may go out of my present subject for a moment,) it may be conceived to be not without foundation, that Hamlet, in his dialogue with Osric (in the play), compares the same cloud to a camel, an owzel, and a whale. This likewise is a proper occasion to mention another principle (if indeed it be not the same), which is likewise universally acted upon by the ancient writers, viz., that of making the same thing or country to represent, by subdivision or by union, many different things, characters, or personages, as is evidenced by the horses of the Knight and his Squire, which

And sometimes catch them with a snap,
As cleverly as th' ablest trap.

are made up reciprocally of the Squire and Knight themselves, as may be seen in figs. 3 and 8;

99701 Fig. 8.9mm me

the various other dramatis persona, with whom the reader will become better acquainted in the next Canto, are evidences likewise of the truth of those remarks.

They were upon hard duty still,
And ev'ry night stood sentinel,
To guard the magazine i' th' hose

From two-legg'd and from four-legg'd foes.
Thus clad and fortify'd, Sir Knight
From peaceful home set forth to fight.
But first with nimble active force
He got on th' outside of his horse;
For having but one stirrup ty'd
T'his saddle, on the further side,
It was so short, h' had much ado
To reach it with his desp'rate toe.

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410

But, after many strains and heaves,

He got up to the saddle-eaves;

From whence he vaulted into th' seat,

With so much vigour, strength, and heat,

That he had almost tumbled over

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With his own weight; but did recover,

By laying hold on tail and mane,
Which oft he us'd instead of rein.

But now we talk of mounting steed,
Before we further do proceed,

It doth behove us to say something

Of that which bore our valiant bumpkin.
The beast was sturdy, large, and tall,
With mouth of meal, and eyes of wall ;
I would say eye; for h' had but one,
As most agree, though some say none.

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