Old Cumberland Pedlar.

A summer afternoon. ¹ The Solitary (i.e. author) seats himself on a bank of buttercups with Johanna, ² Goody Blake, ³ Tims, ⁴ Stokes, and some others beside him; informs them that he shall not drink tea till half past eight, and that as it is now only seven o’clock, he has got one hour and a half left for conversation. Solitary accordingly describes his excursion some years ago among the mountains, where he saw Warren’s name engraved upon the rocks. Philosophical reflections upon Warren’s Blacking. Solitary then commences the tale of Peter Bell; describes how he blew his nose among the mountains, and how the mountains sent back an echo – Catalogue of mountains engaged in the chorus. Solitary proceeds to detail the particulars of his interview with Bell, who, it seems, was a travelling pedlar to the firm of Robert Warren, 30, Strand. Eulogium on Robert and his Blacking. Solitary goes on to say that Bell and himself walked together towards Rydal, but that on the road he was bitten on the nose by a gnat. Meditations on a gnat-bite. Solitary closes his account of the Pedlar, and gives good advice to his little friends, Goody Blake, Johanna, Stokes & Co. Stokes indecent. ⁽²⁾ Solitary admonishes him to tie up the knee-strings of his breeches, and informs him that Goody Blake has been peeping for the last / half-hour. Stokes ties up his knee-strings, and the poem is concluded by the Solitary exhorting his juvenile audience to “buy Warren’s Blacking.”