The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels

Giles Gaussen accosts old Sir Maurice de Beevor, And puts the poor Knight in a deuce of a fever, By saying the boy, whom he took out to please him, Is come back a Captain on pur...

After dinner the Captain recounts, with much glee, All he's heard, seen, and done since he first went to sea, All his perils and scrapes, And his hair-breadth escapes, Talks of...

Miss Violet takes from the Countess her tone; She agrees to meet Norman "by moonlight alone," And slip off to his bark, "The night being dark," Though "the moon," the Sea-Captai...

Norman, now call'd Le Mesnil, instructed of all, Goes back, though it's getting quite late for a call, Hangs his hat and his cloak on a peg in the hall, And tells the proud Coun...

Now comes the catastrophe!--Ashdale, who's wrapt in The cloak, with the hat and the plume of the Captain, Leads Violet down through the grounds to the chapel Where Gaussen's con...

I abominate physic--I care not who knows That there's nothing on earth I detest like "a dose"-- That yellowish-green-looking fluid, whose hue I consider extremely unpleasant to...

There is not a nation in Europe but labours To toady itself, and to humbug its neighbours-- "Earth has no such folks--no folks such a city, So great, or so grand, or so fine, or...

Walter Tyrrel, the son of a Norman Papa, Has, somehow or other, a Saxon Mama: Though humble, yet far above mere vulgar loons, He's a sort of a sub in the Rufus dragoons; Has tra...

Sir Walter has dress'd himself up like a Ghost, And frightens a soldier away from his post; Then, discarding his helmet, he pulls his cloak higher, Draws it over his ears and pr...

King Rufus is cross when he comes to reflect, That as King, he's been treated with gross disrespect; So he pens a short note to a holy physician, And gives him a rather unholy c...