text: " One of his best ballads in which he describes the bickerings which even in the best-regulated families will at times take place between man and wife and in which various domestic missiles come into play contains the following very excellent line-- "_The stools pass the best o' their time i' the air_"-- than which no sort of life appertaining to a stool can be more disagreeable we should imagine--to the head which it is about to come in contact with