A few, perhaps more orthodox Or torn, were tumbled in a box 'All these a penny. I open'd one at hazard, but Its leaves tho' soil'd were still uncut ; And yet before I'd read a page, I felt indeed A wish to cut that leaf, and read Some pages more. A poet sang of what befel When, years before, he'd paced Pall Mall : While walking thus A boy—he'd met a maiden. (Then They oft had met, he wonder'd why ; No word had pass'd, but if he smiled Her eyes had seem'd to say (poor child!) 'I don't resent it? And then this poet mused and grieved, Then he, with sad, prophetic glance, Bethought him she, ere then, perchance, Had found her rest. 1878. Then I was minded how my Joy Sometimes had told me of a boy With curly head 'You know,' she'd laugh—(she then was well!) Ere I was wed.' And then, in fun, she'd vow, 'Good lack, I'll go there now and fetch thee back At least a curl !' She once was here, now she is gone! And so, you see, my wife was yon Bright little girl. I am not one for shedding tears— That boy's now dead, or bow'd with years- He'd thought of Her!-that made me weep; His book of rhymes. MEN. THE TWO RACES OF MEN. According to Charles Lamb there are two races of men, the borrowers and the lenders. "Your borrowers belong to the great race. What a careless even deportment hath your borrower ! what rosy gills! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he manifest, taking no more thought than lilies ! What contempt for money—accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than dross! Your borrower makes use of his money while it is yet fresh; a good part he drinks away, some he gives away, the rest he throws away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him.' 'Ah,' says Charles Lamb,' when I compare your borrower with the companions with whom I have associated lately, I grudge the saving of a few idle ducats, and regret that I am now fallen into the society of lenders and little men.' The versatile Richard B. Sheridan was of course an illustrious example of the great race. He was for ever borrowing and hurling money violently from him; and yet, considering the innumerable sources from which he drew his supplies, it was remarkable, and indeed a wonderful proof of his ability, that he somehow contrived to keep his treasury always empty. When he heard the rumour that the lost ten tribes of Israel had turned up he was immensely elated. 'What luck!' said the light-hearted being, rubbing his hands cheerily, 'I had well-nigh exhausted the patience of the other two.' 'WHAT AILS HIM AT THE LASSIE?' A friend tells me a funny little story of Mrs. (the grandmother of Colonel M -), who was shown a picture of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, in which of course the patriarch exhibited his usual desire to withdraw himself from her society. Mrs. looked at it for a little while, and then said, 'Eh, now, and what ails him at the lassie?' I am sorry I cannot give the lady's name, as the story says so much for her naïve simplicity. QUAKERS, 'Though I reverence the philanthropy of the Quakers, I cannot but remember that if the taste of one of that body could have been consulted at the Creation, what a silent and drab-coloured Creation it would have been! not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been permitted to sing.' GREEK, 'The best Greek linguist now living does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian ploughman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and, with respect to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cow she milked.' A MIRACLE. 'The account of the whale swallowing Jonah, though a whale may have been large enough to do so, borders greatly on the marvellous ; but it would have approached nearer to the just idea of a miracle if Jonah had swallowed the whale.' Thomas Paine (1737-1809). EPITAPH IN THE CATACOMBS. 'I was born sickly, poor, and mean, A slave; no misery could screen I fought with beasts, and three times saw At last my own release was earn'd; I was sometime in being burned, But, at the close, a hand came through Robert Browning, |