THE VILLAGE : IN AND ABOUT IT 117 



he had been put into the Rectory of Byfleet 

 under St. George's Hill ; then, a few years later, 

 only fifty years old, he drowned himself in a fit 

 of dejection. But for the merit of being able 

 "to burst his life's invidious bar," he hardly 

 deserved patronage, his verses being a mere echo 

 of the epithetical commonplaces of a generation 

 whose rhyming shepherds hardly knew a crook 

 from a flail. Perhaps the most readable of his 

 effusions is The Threshers Labour, an account 

 of a farm-servant's life, in which now and then 

 he drops pseudo-Arcadianism for touches of 

 human nature and actual experience. 



Soon as the rising Sun has drank the Dew, 



Another Scene is open to our View : 



Our Master comes, and at his heels a Throng 



Of prattling Females, armed with Rake and Prong ; 



Prepared, whilst he is here, to make his Hay ; 



Or, if he turns his Back, prepared to play ; 



But here, or gone, sure of this comfort still, 



Here's Company, so they may chat their Fill. 



Ah ! were their hands so active as their Tongues, 



How nimbly then would move the Rakes and Prongs ! 



Ill 1769, the Kew Chapel of ease was promoted 

 to be a parish Church. Some ten years before 

 this, Kew had another rise in life by the building 

 of a bridge, under an Act of Parliament obtained 

 by the owner of the ferry. There had also been 



