Lxxxvii

Therefore I prize stage-play, the honest cheating; thence The impulse pricked, when fife and drum bade Fair commence, To bid you trip and skip, link arm in arm with me, Like husband and like wife, and so together see The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage. And if I started thence upon abstruser themes ... Well, 't was a dream, pricked too!