The other limped as if he had been shot. One saw the Virgin soon-'peccavi' criedHad his soul whitewashed all so clever; Then home again he nimbly hied,

Made fit, with saints above, to live for ever.
In coming back, however, let me say,

He met his brother rogue about half way-
Hobbling, with outstretched neck and bending knees,
And muttering-not blessings-on the peas;

His eyes in tears, his weary limbs dead beat,
And sympathizing with his aching feet.-

'How now?' the light-toed, whitewashed pilgrim broke'You lazy lubber ?

Oh, mercy!' cried the other, ''tis no joke! My feet, once hard as any rock,

Are now as soft as blubber!

Excuse me, Virgin Mary, if I swear-
As for Loretto, I shall not go there :

No! though unshrived my sinful soul should go,
For, hang me, if I ha'nt lost every toe.

But, brother sinner, do explain

How 'tis that you are not in pain;

What power has worked a wonder for your toes;
Whilst I just like a snail am crawling,

Now swearing, now on saints devoutly calling,
Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes?
How is't that you can like a greyhound go,

Merry, as if that nought had happened, burn ye?' 'Why,' said the other, grinning, 'you must know, That just before I ventured on my journey,

To walk a little more at ease,

I took the liberty to boil my peas.'

Wolcot.

Ex. 222.

The Jackdaw of Rheims.

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop and abbot, and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,-
In sooth a goodly company;

And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.

Never, I ween,

Was a prouder seen,

Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims !

In and out

Through the motley rout,

That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;
Here and there

Like a dog in a fair,

Over comfits and cakes,
And dishes and plates,

Cowl and cope, and rochet and pall,
Mitre and crosier! he hopped upon all !
With saucy air,

He perched on the chair

Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat
In the great Lord Cardinal's great red hat;
And he peered in the face

Of his Lordship's Grace,

With a satisfied look, as if he would say,
'We two are the greatest folks here to-day !'
And the priests, with awe,

As such freaks they saw,

Said, 'The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!'

The feast was over, the board was cleared
The flawns and the custards had all disappeared,
And six little Singing-boys,-dear little souls!
In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,

Came, in order due,

Two by two,

Marching that grand refectory through!
A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
Embossed and filled with water as pure
As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,
Which a nice little boy stood ready to catch
In a fine golden hand-basin made to match.
Two nice little boys, rather more grown,
Carried lavender-water and eau de Cologne ;
And a nice little boy had a nice cake of soap,
Worthy of washing the hands of the Pope,
One little boy more

A napkin bore,

Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink,
And a Cardinal's Hat marked in 'permanent ink.'

The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight
Of these nice little boys dressed all in white :

From his finger he draws
His costly turquoise;

And, not thinking at all about little Jackdaws,
Deposits it straight

By the side of his plate,

While the nice little boys on his Eminence wait;
Till, when nobody's dreaming of any such thing,
That little Jackdaw hops off with the ring!

There's a cry and a shout,

And a deuce of a rout,

And nobody seems to know what they're about,
But the monks have their pockets all turn'd inside out ;
The friars are kneeling,

And hunting, and feeling

The carpet, the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling.
The Cardinal drew

Off each plum-coloured shoe,

And left his red stockings exposed to the view;
He peeps, and he feels

In the toes and the heels ;

They turn up the dishes,—they turn up the plates,—
They take up the poker and poke out the grates,
-They turn up the rugs,
They examine the mugs;-
But, no!—no such thing;—
They can't find THE RING !

And the Abbot declared that 'when nobody twigged it,
Some rascal or other had popped in, and prigged it!'

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,

He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger, and pious grief,

He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!

He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed; From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; He cursed him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright; He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking, He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking ; He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying; He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying!Never was heard such a terrible curse !!

But what gave rise

To no little surprise,

Nobody seemed one penny the worse!

The day was gone,

The night came on,

The Monks and the Friars they searched till dawn,

When the Sacristan saw,

On crumpled claw,

Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw!
No longer gay,

As on yesterday;

His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way;His pinions drooped-he could hardly stand,

His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;

His eye so dim,

So wasted each limb,

That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM!That's the scamp that has done this scandalous thing! That's the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal's Ring!' The poor little Jackdaw,

When the monks he saw,

Feebly gave vent to the ghost of a caw;
And turned his bald head, as much as to say,
'Pray, be so good as to walk this way!'
Slower and slower

He limped on before,

Till they came to the back of the belfry door,
Where the first thing they saw,

'Midst the sticks and the straw,

Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw!'

Then the great Lord Cardinal called for his book,
And off that terrible curse he took;

The mute expression

Served in lieu of confession,

And, being thus coupled with full restitution,
The Jackdaw got plenary absolution!
-When those words were heard,

That poor little bird

Was so changed in a moment, 'twas really absurd,
He grew sleek, and fat;

In addition to that,

A fresh crop of feathers came thick as a mat!
His tail waggled more

Even than before;

But no longer it wagged with an impudent air,
No longer he perched on the Cardinal's chair.
He hopped now about

With a gait devout;

At Matins, at Vespers, he never was out;

And, so far from any more pilfering deeds,
He always seemed telling the Confessor's beads.
If anyone lied,- —or if anyone swore,

Or slumbered in prayer-time and happened to snore,
That good Jackdaw

Would give a great 'Caw!'

As much as to say, 'Don't do so any more!'
While many remarked, as his manners they saw,
That they never had known such a pious Jackdaw !'
He long lived the pride

Of that country side,

And at last in the odour of sanctity died;
When, as words were too faint

His merits to paint,

The Conclave determined to make him a Saint;
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It's the custom, at Rome, new names to bestow,
So they canonized him by the name of Jim Crow !
Barham.

Ex. 223.

(By special permission of Richard Bentley, Esq.)

Vat you please.

Some years ago, when civil faction

Raged like a fury through the fields of Gaul,
And children, in the general distraction,

Were taught to curse as soon as they could squall;

When common-sense in common folks was dead,
And murder showed a love of nationality,

And France, determined not to have a head,
Decapitated all the higher class,

To put folks more on an equality;

When coronets were not worth half-a-crown,
And liberty, in bonnet-rouge, might pass
For Mother Red-cap up at Camden Town;
Full many a Frenchman then took wing
Bidding soupe-maigre an abrupt farewell,
And hither came, pell-mell,

Sans cash, sans clothes, and almost sans everything!
Two Messieurs who about this time came over,

Half-starved, but toujours gai

(No weasels e'er were thinner),

Trudged up to town from Dover;

Their slender store exhausted in the way,

Extremely puzzled how to get a dinner.