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'J'ai servi my sire le Roy, en pees e en guere,
En Flaundres, en Escoce, en Gascoyne sa terre ;
Mes ore ne me sai je point chevisaunce fere,
Tot mon temps ay mis en veyn, pur tiel home plere.

'Si ses maveis jurours ne se vueillent amender,
Qe je pus a mon pais chevalcher e aller,
Si je les pus ateindre, la teste lur froi voler,
De touz lur menaces ne dorroi un dener.

Vous qy estes endite je lou venez a moy
Al vert bois de Bel-regard, la n'y a nul ploy,
Forsque beste savage e jolyf umbroy
Car trop est dotouse la commune loy.

Si je soi compagnoun, e sache de archerye, Mon veisyn irra disaunt,-cesti est de compaignie, De aler bercer a bois, e fere autre folye. Que ore vueille vivre come pork merra sa vye.

'Si je sache plus de ley, qe ne sevent eux,

Yl dirrount, cesti conspyratour comence de estre faus.
E le Heyre n'aprocheroy de dix lywes ou deus;
De tous veysinages hony-scient ceux !

'Je prie tote bone gent qe pur moi vueillent prier
Qu je pus a mon pais aler e chyvaucher,
Unqe ne fu homicide, certes a moun voler,
Ne male robberes pur gent damager.

'C'est rym fust fet al bois desouz un lorer,
La chaunte merle, e russinole, e eyre l'esperver.
Escrit estoit en parchemyn pur mout remembrer,
E gitte en haut chemyn qe um le dust trover.'

TRANSLATION.

'Tis forty pennies that they ask, a ransom fine for me; And twenty more, 'tis but a score, for my lord sheriff's

fee:

Else of his deepest dungeon the darkness I must dree; Is this of justice, masters ?-Behold my case and see.

For this I'll to the greenwood,-to the pleasant shade away;

There evil none of law doth wonne, nor harmful per

jury.

I'll to the wood, the pleasant wood, where freely flies

the jay;

And, without fail, the nightingale is chaunting of her

lay.

But for that cursed dozen, God shew them small pitie; Among their lying voices they have indicted me,

Of wicked robberies and other felonie,

That I dare no more, as heretofore, among my friends to be.

In

peace and war my service my Lord the King hath

ta'en,

In Flanders and in Scotland, and Gascoyne his do

main;

But now I'll never, well I wiss, be mounted man

again,

To pleasure such a man as this I've spent much time in vain.

But if these cursed jurors do not amend them so,
That I to my own country may freely ride and go,

The head that I can come at shall jump when I've my

blow,

Their menacings, and all such things, them to the winds I throw.

All ye who are indicted, I pray you come to me, To the green wood, the pleasant wood, where's neither suit nor plea;

But only the wild creatures, and many a spreading tree; For there's little in the common law but doubt and

misery.

If meeting a companion, I shew my archery,

My neighbour will be saying, "he's of some com

pany

He goes to cage him in the wood, and worke his old

foléye;

For men will hunt me like the boar, and life's no life

for me.

If I should seem more cunning about the law than

they,

"Ha! ha! some old conspirator, well train'd in tricks,” they'll say ;

O whereso'er doth ride the Eyre, I must keep well away::

Such neighbourhood I hold not good, shame fall on such I pray.

I pray you all, good people, to say for me a prayer ; That I in peace may once again to my own land repair : I never was a homicide, not with my will I swear, Nor robber, Christian folk to spoil, that on their way did fare.

This rhyme was made within the wood, beneath a broad bay-tree;

There singeth merle and nightingale, and falcon soareth free.

I wrote the skin, because within was much sore

memory,

And here I fling it by the wood, that found my rhyme

may be.

THE HISTORY OF ALISCHAR AND SMARAGDINE.

No

[The following is one of the tales of The Thousand and one Nights lately recovered in Egypt by M. von Hanmer, and translated by Professor Zinserling into the German language. English version of the stories thus regained has as yet been published; but a friend of ours is at present occupied in preparing one for the press, and has kindly permitted us to print a specimen of his labours.

“The classical reader," says Von Hanmer, “will perhaps be surprised with meeting the word Nepenthe in the translation of an oriental tale. He will be still more so when he learns that that is the very word in the original. Bendsh is one name of the wellknown soporiferous plant, the Hyoscyamus, and the plural of this in Coptic is Nibendsch. Recollecting that Helen brought her Nepenthe from Egypt, and finding that the Bendsch is still in high credit as an opiate in that very country, can we doubt that we have at last found the true etymon of a word which has ever puzzled the commentators of Homer, and indeed all the Greek lexicographers?—It remains for some future inquirer to discover, probably from some similar source, what the root Moly was.”

THERE lived once on a time, in the province of Khorassan, a rich merchant, to whom, in his sixtieth year, a son was born, and he called his name Alischar. Fifteen years afterwards the father died, but not without giving his son, in the hour of death, many excellent advices and moral instructions as to his conduct through life. Alischar buried his father,

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