4
Dear Martin Folkes dear scholar brother friend,
And words of like importance without end,
This comes to tell you how in Epping hundred,
Last Wednesday morning I was robbed and plunder'd
Forgive the muse, who sing what I suppose
Fame has already triumphed in Prose
But fame's a lying jade : the turn of fate,
Let poor Melpomene herself relate,
Spare the sad nymph a vacant hours' relief
To rhyme away the remnants of her grief.
On Tuesday night, you know with how much sorrow
I bid the club farewell—I go to-morrow
To-morrow came' and wishing all good-bye, then
Unto the place of rendezvous went I
"Bull" was the house and Bishopsgate the street,
The coach as full as it could cram ; to wit
Two fellow-commoners. De Aula Trin,
And eke a honest bricklayer of Lynn
And eke two Norfolk dames, his wife and cousin,
And eke my worships' self made half-a-dozen.
Now, then, as fortune had contriv'd our way,
Thro' the wild brakes of Epping Forest lay ;
With travellers, and trunks a hugeous load,
We hagg'd along the solitary road :
Where nought but thickets within thickets grew,
No house nor barn to cheer the wand'ring view,
No lab'ring hind, nor shepherd did appear,
Nor sportsman with his dog or gun was here,
A dreary landscape, bushy and forlorn,
Where rogues start up like mushrooms in a morn.
However since we none of us had yet
Such rogues, but in a sessions paper met,
We jok'd on fear ; tho as we past along
Robbing was still the burden of the song
With untry'd courage bravely we repell'd
The rude attacks of dogs—not yet beheld,
With val'rous talk still battling, till at last
We thought all danger was as good as past,
Says one, too soon alas! now let him come
Full at his head I'll sling this bottle of rum