So, having had some quarters of school breeding, Began, as other children have begun,— Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,- But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con, Reading, and wept Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage. Thus reading on-the longer They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim,— If talking Trees and Birds reveal'd to him, She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly-waggons, And magic fishes swim In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons.- As the old man sat a-feeding Beside his open street-and-parlour door, Proclaim'd a drove of beasts was coming by the way. Long-horned, and short, of many a different breed, With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,- Only in some enthusiastic moment,— Back'd his beef-steaks against the wooden gable, Just then was spelling some romantic fable. The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce, At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft; But most unluckily enclosed a morsel And bolting off with speed increased by pain, Just then, by fortune's whimsical decree, And quaintly wondering if magic shifts Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail, Nor turn'd, till home had turned a corner, quite Gone out of sight! At last, conceive her, rising from the ground, Where rest was to be found, There was no house-no villa there—no nothing! No house! The change was quite amazing; It made her senses stagger for a minute, Explain'd the horrid mystery;-and raising "Well! this is Fairy Work! I'll bet a farden, Little Prince Silverwings has ketch'd me up, And set me down in some one else's garden!" THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY. GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. A MAN, in many a country town, we know, Arm'd with a mortar and a pestle. Yet some affirm no enemies they are, A member of the Esculapian line, Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister, And with " a twister." His fame full six miles round the country ran In short, in reputation, he was All the old women call'd him " a solus;" fine man." His name was Bolus. And cultivated the Belles Lettres. And why should this be thought so odd? Apollo patronizes physic. Bolus lov'd verse, and took so much delight in't, Of writing the directions on his labels, He had a patient lying at death's door, Some three miles from the town-it might be four; To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article In pharmacy, that's called cathartical; And, on the label of the stuff, He wrote a verse, Which one would think was clear enough, And terse: "When taken, to be well shaken." Next morning early, Bolus rose, Who a vile trick of stumbling had : It was, indeed, a very sorry hack; For what's expected from a horse, Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance, One loud, and then a little one behind, As if the knocker fell by chance Out of their fingers. The servant lets him in with dismal face Long as a courtier's out of place, Portending some disaster; John's countenance as rueful look'd and grim, And not his master. "Well, how's the patient ?" Bolus said; John shook his head. "Indeed!-hum!-ha!-that's very odd: He took the draught?"-John gave a nod. "Well, how?-what then-speak out, you dunce.' "Why then," says John, we shook him once." "Shook him!-how ?"-Bolus stammer'd out "We jolted him about.” "What? shake a patient, man—a shake won't do." "No, sir-and so we gave him two." |