I will say twenty pounds, and

      it can't be no less

     .

     "Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me a cow,

     Thirty geese, and two turkeys—eight pigs and a sow;

     Now if these turn out well, at the end of the year,

     I shall fill both my pockets with guineas 'tis clear.

     "Then I'll bid that old tumble-down hovel good-bye;

     My mother she'll scold, and my sisters they'll cry:

     But I won't care a crow's egg for all they can say;

     I sha'n't go to stop with such beggars as they!"

     But forgetting her burden, when this she had said,

     The maid superciliously toss'd up her head

     When alas! for her prospects—the milk pail descended!

     And so all her schemes for the future were ended.

     This moral, I think, may be safely attach'd:

     Reckon not on your chickens before they are hatch'd.

      A lark

     who had her nest conceal'd,

     Says Esop, in a barley field;

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