which he meant verse begged or ordered for some such desperate emergency as Lady Blessington's, was, in his eyes, an intellectual feat. It represented difficulties overcome, like those wonderful old Italian frescoes fitted so harmoniously into unaccommodating spaces. Nothing can be more charming than "Piscator and Piscatrix," and nothing can be more insipid than the engraving which inspired the lively rhymes:
As on this pictured page I look,
This pretty tale of line and hook,
As though it were a novel-book,
Amuses and engages:
I know them both, the boy and girl,
She is the daughter of an Earl,
The lad (that has his hair in curl)
My lord the County's page is.
A pleasant place for such a pair!
The fields lie basking in the glare;
No breath of wind the heavy air
Of lazy summer quickens.
Hard by you see the castle tall,
The village nestles round the wall,
As round about the hen, its small
Young progeny of chickens.
The verses may be read in any edition of Thackeray's ballads; but when we have hunted
