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Of scarlet cloth!

Papa cried, "Pish !"

Which did not mean he did not wish

He'd been more heedful.

"Good luck," said he, "this cloth will dip,
And make a famous pair. Get Snip
To do the needful."

'Twas thus that I went back to school,
In garb no boy could ridicule;
And eft becoming

A jolly child, I plunged in debt
For tarts; and promised fair to get
The prize for summing.

But, no! my schoolmates soon began
Again to mock my outward man,

And made me hate 'em!
Long sitting will broadcloth abrade;
The dye wore off-and so displayed
A red substratum !

To both my parents then I flew—
Mamma shed tears, papa cried "Pooh!
Come, stop this racket."

He'd still some cloth; so Snip was bid
To stitch me on two tails: he did,
And spoilt my jacket!

And then the boys, despite my wails,
Would slyly come and lift my tails,
And smack me soundly.

O, weak mamma! O, wrathful dad!
Although your exploits drove me mad,
Ye loved me fondly.

Good friends, our little ones (who feel
Some bitter wounds, which only heal
As wisdom mellows)

Need sympathy in deed and word;
So never let them look absurd

Beside their fellows,

My wife, who likes the things I've doft,
Sublimes her sentiments, for oft

She'll take, and-air them!
-You little Puss, you love this pair,
And yet you never seem to care
To let me wear them!

(By permission of the Author.)

YORICK'S, DEATH.

LAWRENCE STERNE.

A FEW hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in, with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand, and after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again; he told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever. "I hope not," answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke,-"I hope not, Yorick," said he. Yorick replied with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand-and that was all-but it cut Eugenius to his heart. "Come, come, Yorick !" quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him; "my dear lad, be comforted; let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wantest them. Who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee?" Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head. "For my part," continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words, "I declare, I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee; and would gladly flatter my hopes," added Eugenius,

cheering up his voice, "that there is still enough of thee left to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it." "I beseech thee, Eugenius," quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand-his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius "I beseech thee to take a view of my head." "I see nothing that ails it," replied Eugenius. "Then, alas! my friend," said Yorick, "let me tell you that it is so bruised and mis-shaped with the blows which have been so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Panza, that should I recover, and 'mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it.'" Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart, as he uttered this; yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone, and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes-faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakspeare said of his ancestor) 66 were wont to set the table in a roar!"

Eugenius was convinced from this that the heart of his friend was broke. He squeezed his hand, and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door; he then closed them, and never opened them more.

He lies buried in a corner of his churchyard, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his grave, with no more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy

Alas, Poor YORICK!

Ten times a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to hear his monumental inscription read over, with such a variety of plaintive tones as denote a general

pity and esteem for him. A footway crossing the churchyard close by his grave, not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it, and sighing as he walks on,

ALAS, POOR YORICK!

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT ST. PRAXED'S

CHURCH.

ROBERT BROWNING.

VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews-sons mine.

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Ah, God, I know not! well

your mother once,

She, men would have to be

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was !
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am bishop since.

And as she died, so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask,
"Do I live?-am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
St. Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so about this tomb of mine I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know.
Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o'the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,

With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet, where Anselm stands :
Peach-blossom marble, the rare, the ripe

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse-
Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close that conflagration of my church-
What then? So much was saved if ought were
missed!

My sons ye would not be my death? Go dig

The white grape vineyard where the oil-press stood;
Drop water gently till the surface sinks,

And if ye find .. Ah, God, I know not, I!..
Bedded in store of rotten fig leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast.
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both his hands,
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,

...

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-
'Twas ever antique black, I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my
frieze to come beneath?

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,

St. Praxed in a glory, and one Pan

Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
And Moses with the tables... but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,

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