126 



'* Consider, Fool ! wliat dire misliups attend 



Your midnight course, as through the streets you wend. 



You '11 surely make your Will, ere in the dark 



Ou new adventures rashly you embark. 



Beneath the window of some cruel Dame 



You, with your minstrels, chant her honoured name 

 ' It is the East, and Juliet is my sun.' 



Such gallivanting ere you 've well begun. 



From the fair nymph a noisome shower descends 



Which all your love and music quickly ends. 



Nay think yourself — good Sir — quite fortunate 



If pots and tiles crack not your empty pate. 



Perchance your purse and life may fall a prey 



To rohbors lurking ou your heedless way. 



Or rogues may penetrate the secret hoard 



Lock'd up at home by its now absent Lord. 



Such dire mishaps attend on those who roam 



At night on strange adventures from their home."* 



In the fifty-fifth number we have the representation of a fool 

 emptying a bucket of water upon the flames which proceed 

 from his neighbour's house^ at the very time when they are 

 bursting from his own. Behind him is a lad pulling hard at 

 his coat, and endeavouring to draw his attention to the state 

 of his own premises. The moral deduced in the verses which 

 follow, teaches us that " every man ought to he his own best 

 neighbour s" in other words, that we should not meddle with 

 other people's affairs, without being certain that our own do 

 not want looking after. The work closes with an engraving 

 of a ship over crowded with fools, busied in absurd frolics — 



•"BE PERICULIS NOCTURNIS STULTORUM. 



' Respice, stulte, nigrse diversa pericula noctis ! 

 Quod spatium tectis subliraibus ! unde cerebrum 

 Testa ferit, quotiens rimosa et curta fenestris 

 Vasa cadant in te. Possis ignarus liaberi 

 Et subiti casus improvidiis, ad coenam si 

 Intestatus eas; adeo tot fata quot ilia 

 Nocte patent vigiles te preteriunte fenestra). 

 Ergo optes votuinque feras miserabile tecum 

 Ut sit contenta; patulas eflundere pelves 

 Nee tamen hoc tantum metuas, nam qui spoliet te 

 Non deerit clausis doraibus ; postquam omnis ubiqne 

 Fixa catenate siluit compago tabcrna:. 

 Interdum et ferro subitus grassator agit rem, 

 Dum tu intempestiva cantas sub nocte puoUas." 



