 | The Ingoldsby Legends |  |
“Count Stephen”
(of Blois) “was a worthy Peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown,
He held them sixpence all too dear,
And so he call'd the Tailor lown!”—
Had it been the Bishop instead of the Count,
And he'd overcharged him to half the amount,
He had knock'd that Tailor down!—
Not for himself!— He despised the pelf;
He dress'd in sackcloth, he dined off delf;
And, when it was cold, in lieu of a surtout,
The good man would wrap himself up in his virtue,
Alack! that a man so holy as he,
So frank and free in his degree,
And so good and so kind, should mortal be!
His breeches cost him but a crown,
He held them sixpence all too dear,
And so he call'd the Tailor lown!”—
Had it been the Bishop instead of the Count,
And he'd overcharged him to half the amount,
He had knock'd that Tailor down!—
Not for himself!— He despised the pelf;
He dress'd in sackcloth, he dined off delf;
And, when it was cold, in lieu of a surtout,
The good man would wrap himself up in his virtue,
Alack! that a man so holy as he,
So frank and free in his degree,
And so good and so kind, should mortal be!
Teste Messire Iago, a distinguished subaltern in the Venetian service, circiter, a.d. 1580. His Biographer, Mr. William Shakspeare, a contemporary writer of some note, makes him say “King Stephen,” inasmuch as the “worthy peer” subsequently usurped the crown of England. The anachronism is a pardonable one.— Mr. Simpkinson of Bath.
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