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134 THE DRAGON OF WANTLET. |
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Sobbing and tearing, cursing and swearing, Out of his throat of leather ;
" More of More-Hall! 0 thou rascal I mo
"Would I had seen thee never; With the thing at thy foot, thou hast prick'd my a . . . gut,
And I am quite undone forever."
" Murder, murder," the dragon cry'd, i«
" Alack, alack, for grief; Had you but mist that place, you could Have done me no mischief." Then his head he shaked, trembled and quaked,
And down he laid and cry'd ; iso
First on one knee, then on back tumbled he, So groan'd, kickt, s . . ., and dy'd. |
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*#* In the improved edition of the Rehques, a most extraordinary attempt to explain the foregoing burlesque as an allegory (!) is made in a " Key " appended to the ballad, and said to be " communicated by Godfrey Bosville, Esq., of Thorp, near Malton, in Yorkshire."
" Warncliff Lodge, and Warncliff Wood (vulgarly pronounced Wantley), are in the parish of Penniston, in Yorkshire. The rectory of Penniston was part of the dissolved" monastery of St. Stephen's, Westminster; and was granted to the Duke of Norfolk's family: who therewith endowed an hospital, which he built at Sheffield, for women. The trustees let the impropriation of the great tithes of Penniston to the Wortley family, who got a great deal by it, and wanted |
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