moves quicker, and the whole company fall into a circle and take hands; and then, at a certain sharp note, they move round and kick as kick can.  This latter performance he makes to be the representation of a free state; where, if you all mind your steps, you may go round and round very jollily, with a motion pleasant to yourselves and them you dance with:  nay, if you put yourselves out, at the worst you only kick and are kicked by friends and equals.”

But D’Urfey’s short songs and poems were his most successful productions—­sometimes he breathed martial strains in honour of Marlborough’s victories, sometimes formed adulatory addresses to members of the Royal Family.  His “Pills to purge Melancholy,” at times approached humour.  The following is taken from the “Banquet of the Gods,” and refers to Hermes visiting the Infernal regions—­

  “Fierce Cerberus, who the gate did keep,
   First with a sop he lays asleep,
   Then forward goes to th’ room of State,
   Where on a lofty throne of jet,
   The grizly King of Terrors sate,
   Discoursing with his Proserpine
   On things infernally divine. 
   To him the winged Ambassador
   His message tells, then adds to her
   How much her mother Ceres mourns
   In Sicily, till she returns;
   That now she hoped (the long half-year
   Being ended) she would see her there,
   And that instead of shrieks and howls,
   The harmony of par-boiled souls,
   She’d now divert with tunes more gay,
   And go with her to see a play.”

D’Urfey often introduces fresh and pleasing glimpses of country life.  He is more happy in this direction than in his humour, which generally drifted away into maudlin and indelicate love-making between pseudo-Roman Corydons and Phyllises.  The following effusion is very characteristic of the times,—­

  “One April morn, when from the sea
     Phoebus was just appearing! 
   Damon and Celia young and gay,
     Long settled Love indearing;
   Met in a grove to vent their spleen,
     On parents unrelenting;
   He bred of Tory race had been,
     She of the tribe Dissenting.

  “Celia, whose eyes outshone the God,
     Newly the hills adorning,
   Told him mamma wou’d be stark mad,
     She missing prayers that morning;
   Damon, his arm around her waist,
     Swore tho’ nought should ’em sunder,
   Shou’d my rough dad know how I’m blest,
     T’would make him roar like thunder.

  “Great ones whom proud ambition blinds,
     By faction still support it,
   Or where vile money taints the mind,
     They for convenience court it;
   But mighty Love, that scorns to show,
     Party should raise his glory;
   Swears he’ll exalt a vassal true,
     Let it be Whig or Tory.”

The following is a song from “The Country Miss and her Furbelow.”