Perhaps, like Liguori, AEsop has written a book for the sake of a sentence, and veils his true intent in a designed mist of all sorts of miscellaneous matter.

I shan't tell you clearly, but you may guess for yourselves." The book includes a hundred and thirty original fables, essayettes, anecdotes, tirades, songs, and musings, all of which thronged my brain as I cantered along, and were set down in black and white as soon as I got home.

Stay: some were even pencilled in the saddle,--in especial this, which became very popular afterwards, particularly in the charming musical composition thereof by Mrs.
Stafford Bush, and as sung by Mr.Fox at St.James's Hall and elsewhere.
It was printed in an earliest edition of my Ballads and Poems (Hall & Virtue), and is headed there, "Written in the saddle on the crown of my hat." I reproduce it here for the sake of that heading, though it occurs also in my extant volume of poems without it:-- _The Early Gallop._ "At five on a dewy morning, Before the blaze of day, To be up and off on a high-mettled horse, All care and danger scorning, Over the hills away,-- To drink the rich sweet breath of the gorse, And bathe in the breeze of the downs .-- Ha! man, if you can,--match bliss like this In all the joys of towns! "With glad and grateful tongue to join The lark at his matin hymn, And thence on faith's own wing to spring And sing with cherubim! To pray from a deep and tender heart With all things praying anew, The birds and the bees and the whispering trees, And heather bedropt with dew .-- To be one with those early worshippers, And pour the carol too! "Then off again with a slackened rein And a bounding heart within, To dash at a gallop over the plain Health's golden cup to win! This, this is the race for gain and grace, Richer than vases and crowns; And you that boast your pleasures the most Amid the steam of towns, Come taste true bliss in a morning like this, Galloping over the downs!" Among the most notable prose pieces (though it is of little use to refer my readers to a book hopelessly out of print) there may be selected my panacea for Ireland, to wit, a Royal Residence there to evoke the loyalty of a warm-hearted people,--I called my fable "The Unsunned Corner:" I mean to quote some of it in a future political page of this book.

Also other papers, as "Bits of Ribbon," suggesting as just and wise the more profuse distribution of honours,--in particular recommending an Alfred or an Albert Order.

Also, many of my Rifle ballads,--whereof, more anon.