sighs"--their "lover's perjuries to the distracted trees they wouldn't
allow to go to sleep." In short, "there's no nonsense"--there's a broad
assertion of a thrilling fact--

"Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown."

So might a thousand folks; therefore (the reader may say) how does this
establish the individuality of Giles Scroggins, or give an insight to the
character of the chosen hero of the poem? Mark the next line, and your
doubts must vanish. He courted her; but why? Ay, why? for the best of all
possible reasons--condensed in the smallest of all possible space, and yet
establishing his perfect taste, unequalled judgment, and peculiarly-heroic
self-esteem--he courted her because she was

"The fairest maid in all the town."

Magnificent climax! overwhelming reason! Could volumes written, printed,
or stereotyped, say more? Certainly not; the condensation of "Aurora's
blushes," "the Graces' attributes," "Venus's perfections," and "Love's
sweet votaries," all, all is more than spoken in the emphatic words--

"The fairest maid in all the town."

Nothing can go beyond this; it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness.
The _fairest_ maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city
dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves
her, and--beautiful poetic contrivance!--we are left to imagine he does
"not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are
not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater,
because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel