%images;]> lchtml-003503 Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. ...: a machine readable transcription. Lewis Carroll Scrapbook, Library of Congress Selected and converted. American Memory, Library of Congress.

Washington, DC, 2003.

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 Rare Book & Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Public Domain

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 2004/05/18
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February 1, 1862.] PUNCH,

THE SHEPHERD OF SALISBURY PLAIN.

(“I passed a small Cot.”)

I Passed a small Court where the lawyers abound, And a singular change met my view; Uncommonly pious their faces I found, And their studies remarkably new. They seemed Catechumens who'd come to repeat Their task from the Testaments twain: And who, I exclaimed has accomplished this feat? “The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”

For one on the Thirty-nine Articles gazed, A second the Pentateuch bore, A third (who I own looked excessively dazed) Was conning the Fathers of yore. Another compared Doctors Hooker and Lowth, While his friend worked at Watts and Romaine; But the name that I found was in every one's mouth, Was “The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”

And what is the work that the Shepherd has set, That leads to the scene I behold? Cried one, on whose forehead was written To Let, “To hunt out a sheep from his fold. The sheep has been bleating and breaking the peace An orthodox sheep should maintain, So we'll soon have him out, and he'll forfeit his fleece To the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”

My heart it waxed soft, I was ready to weep, “That seems a severe thing to do, Suppose the kind Shepherd had thrown the poor sheep Controversialist carrots to chew. If those didn't silence his noises, old man, He'd deserve castigation and pain:”— “That's not, Sir,” he answered, “the pastoral plan Of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.

“Our Shepherd's a piper—his sheep, if they bleat, Must bleat to the tune of his pipe; Or the sheep-dog you see on that well-cushioned seat Will give them a snap and a gripe.” Then a whistle was heard, and away they all bowled, To hunt the schismatic again; And I said, “I am glad that I'm not of the fold Of the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”