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He poised a lengthy ladder on his chin,
And whistled as he bore it up and down.
A figuranté next, with nodding plume,
Upon a rope that stretch'd across the room
He danced, unto the music of a pair

Of castanets, along its slender length,

Then headlong cast himself with all his strength,
And swung, suspended by his tail, in air :-
A sight at which his friends were so much aw'd
They hardly had the courage to applaud.
In short, as juggler, mountebank, or mime,
His style of acting was pronounced sublime;
And even when he made, by sleight of hand,
The cards to come and vanish at command,
You would have sworn, if you had seen the trick,
That he had dealt directly with old Nick.

At length the ape, ambitious to complete
His triumph, undertook the crowning feat-
His master's masterpiece-which so surpass d
The others, that the juggler, as a treat,

On all occasions kept it to the last.

A sheet was hung between his friends and him,
The lights extinguish'd and the room made dim;
When after a confused preamble, which

Awoke attention to the highest pitch,
He took a magic lantern from its place,

And drawing through the groove each pictured glass, With an exceeding gravity of face

Announced the different figures that should pass. "Here comes a king," he cried, " and there a queen;" But not a glimpse of either could be seen.

"Now stately towers," "now ships upon the main ;" But still the keenest optics stared in vain.

No mystic ring expanded in the gloom,
No form of glory flitted through the room,

But all was darkness; and the blundering ape
Had wellnigh got into a serious scrape:
For, disappointed by his incapacity,

The friends of pug proceeded in their rage
To show some striking symptoms of pugnacity,
And pelt him with derision from the stage.
But, in the very thickest of the din,

The juggler, who had luckily come in,
Rebuked the ape's stupidity, and cried,

"No wonder that the audience are benighted, And all thy boasted visions undescried;

For, lo, the magic lantern is not lighted!"

Thus let me drop into each author's ear

A piece of counsel" Keep your meaning clear,
Your statements lucid; for of this be sure,

That dulness only ever is obscure."

V. THE GOAT AND THE horse.

1.

A goat, with feet that danced and head that sway'd
In modulated measure to the sound

Of a sweet violin, which, deftly play'd,
Awoke the blandest echoes all around,
Had listen'd long, when, with an air of pride,
He thus address'd a horse which stood beside:

2

"These chords that speak so well, my humble friend,
Were borrow'd from the bowels of a goat;
And even I, when life is at an end,

May still survive, and be a thing of note;
For then some artist of harmonic skill
Shall twist my tripe into as sweet a trill."

3

The horse, as if in laughter, neigh'd aloud,

And answer'd thus: "Poor wretch! of what avail Would be the simple chords which makes thee proud, Unless I had supplied them from my tail

With many a hair to form the fiddle-bow,

Whose movement makes the hidden music flow?

4

"And though the loss may pain me, I'm content;
For, after all, it gladdens me to see,
While I am still alive, the instrument

Indebted for its harmony to me.

But say, what pleasure can its accents give
To solace thee when thou hast ceased to live ?"

5

Thus many a wretched writer, who has tried
With unsuccessful efforts to engage
Contemporary praise, appeals with pride
Unto the judgment of a future age;
As if posterity's approving breath
Could gratify" the dull cold ear of death."

VI. THE PARROTS AND THE MONKEY.

Two parrots fresh from St Domingo, Where each had learn'd a different lingo

For half that isle of sugar-cane
Belongs to France, and half to Spain-
A captain's gift to his Amanda,
Were caged within the same veranda;
And, though unable for a while
To understand each other's style,
They soon contrived (for what can
balk

A parrot's or a woman's talk?)
To find, despite their education,
A medium of conversation.
For blending, as they gabbled on,
Their French and Spanish into one,
They form'd a dialect betwixt
The two, in which the two were mixt-
A dialect that served to tell
Their parrot-news in, just as well
As if it had consisted wholly

Of French or Spanish phrases solely. But when their mistress-one whose hue

Of intellect inclined to blue;
And ah! unto a true blue-stocking
All licenses of speech are shocking-

O'erheard her brace of birds harangue
In such an incoherent slang,
A mess of words whose misalliance
Sets sense and syntax at defiance,
And might be (for they sounded oddly)
Indecent, or at least ungodly,
She parted them, in hopes that each,
When caged beyond the other's reach,
Would soon resume his own verna-
cular,

And utter nonsense less oracular.

But though the Gallic bird at once
Reform'd, and banish'd from his sconce
The Spanish tongue as incommode,
Because elle n'était pas du mode,
An idiom too precise and prim
For fashionable fowls like him ;
The Spanish bird would not retrench
A single syllable of French,
But still continued, though alone,
To jabber it, as if its tone

Enrich'd the old Castilian tongue,
As gardens are enrich'd by dung.
One day, instead of olla, he
Called for un gratin de bouillie,
When, with a face of much amazement,
A monkey, from a neighbouring case-
ment,

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A term employed by modern corrupters of our language, when they affect to ridicule those who speak it with purity.-YRIARTE.

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"What virtue is more lovely than Fidelity in brute or man?

The dog, who guards his master's

store

And drives the robber from the door,
Deserves the praise of every mouse
That has an interest in the house!"
A cat replied, "Thy praise should
be

Bestow'd as readily on me;
For like the dog, and with a zeal
As watchful for my master's weal,
Throughout the night I keep aloof
A host of robbers from his roof,
And guard from thee and thine the
hoard

Of dainties that should crown his board."

On this the mouse withdrew again Into its hole, and answered then, "Henceforth, since thou art faithful, mice

Shall call fidelity a vice."

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XI. THE TWO RABBITS.

1.

With a ravenous pack of dogs at his back,

A rabbit fled-or flew,

For his course was as fleet as if his four feet Were wing'd, like Mercury's two.

2.

Away, away, in wild dismay

He flew with all his might;

And his joy was vast, when he reach'd at last
A warren in his flight.

3.

But ere he stole into a hole,

Secure from further fear,

A comrade, who spied the trembler, cried,
"What is amiss, my dear?”

4.

"What is amiss! why, simply this,"
He replied with panting breath,
"Those greyhounds, see, have been hunting me,
Till I'm nearly run to death."

5.

"Where, where?-But hark! I hear the bark
Of dogs upon your track ;

But, i'faith, you err, for there's not, good sir,
A greyhound in the pack."

6.

"Not a greyhound?" "No! for really, though
The difference is but small,

I see them now, and the dogs, I vow,
Are beagles, one and all."

7.

"What! beagles? Pshaw! the dogs that I saw
Were greyhounds, I'll be bail;

I am not blind, I know what kind

Of dogs were at my tail."

8

"Why, but for the fright, no doubt you might
Have known them with half an eye.”

"I tell you, zounds, that they're all greyhounds,
As much as you or I."

9.

While words ran high, the dogs came nigh

And nigher, in pursuit,

Till unaware they fell on the pair,

And settled the dispute.

10.

Some authors discuss a question thus,

And, like this foolish pair,

Expend their life in wordy strife

On trifles light as air.

XII. THE CHEST OF TEA and the cheST OF SAGE.

One morning, as they chanced to meet at sea,

A chest of sage address'd a chest of tea,

"Ho! brother, whence and whither art thou sailing?"

And in a speech emitted or exprest

As speeches ever must be-from the chest, `

NO. CCLXXXVI. VOL. XLVI.

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