Yon poor Ape was a Prince, and he poor thing Picklock'd a faery's boudoir - now no king But ape so pray your highness stay awhile, 'Tis sooth indeed, we know it to our sorrow Persist and you may be an ape to-morrow.' While the Dwarf spake, the Princess, all for spite,

Peel'd the brown hazel twig to lily white, Clench'd her small teeth, and held her lips apart,

Try'd to look unconcern'd with beating heart.
They saw her highness had made up her mind,
A-quavering like the reeds before the wind
And they had had it, but O happy chance!
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grinn'd as all his ugliness did ache
She staid her vixen fingers for his sake,
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket-mirror and began to look
First at herself and then at him, and then
She smil'd at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this for all her pretty face
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands, or expense.
The more their beauty the more fortune too
Beauty before the wide world never knew -
So each fair reasons tho' it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the
fairies.

'My darling Ape, I wont whip you to-day, Give me the Picklock sirrah and go play.' They all three wept but counsel was as vain As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.

At the close of a letter, April 17, 1819, to his sister Fanny, Keats writes: Mr. and Mrs. Dilke are coming to dine with us to-day [at Wentworth Place]. They will enjoy the country after Westminster. O there is nothing like fine weather, and health, and Books, and a fine country, and a contented Mind, and diligent habit of reading and thinking, and an amulet against the ennui- and, please heaven, a little claret wine cool out of a cellar a mile deep with a few or a good many ratafia cakes - a rocky basin to bathe in, a strawberry bed to say your prayers to Flora in, a pad nag to go you ten miles or so; two or three sensible people to chat with; two or three spiteful folks to spar with; two or three odd fishes to laugh at and two or three numskulls to argue with instead of using dumb bells on a rainy day.'

-

Two or three Posies

With two or three simples-
Two or three Noses
With two or three pimples
Two or three wise men
And two or three ninny's-
Two or three purses
And two or three guineas-
Two or three raps
At two or three doors-
Two or three naps
Of two or three hours
Two or three Cats

And two or three mice

Two or three sprats
At a very great price
Two or three sandies
And two or three tabbies -
Two or three dandies
And two Mrs.
Two or three Smiles
And two or three frowns

Two or three Miles

mum!

To two or three towns

A PARTY OF LOVERS

Somewhere in the Spectator is related an account of a man inviting a party of stutterers and squinters to his table. It would please me more to scrape together a party of loversnot to dinner but to tea. There would be no fighting as among knights of old.' Keats to George and Georgiana Keats, September 17, 1819. The play on names seems to indicate some trifling reference to Keats's publishers of Taylor and Hessey.

ized to refer this poem to John Keats. It is not impossible that it was written by Tom Keats in 1818.

BROTHER belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength re-
gain,

Well may thy brow the placid glow retain

Of sweet content and thy pleas'd eye may speak

The conscious self applause, but should I seek To utter what this heart can feel,- Ah! vain Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o'er

My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness The being whom your cares could e'en restore, From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess

The feelings which these lips can ne'er express?

Feelings, deep fix'd in grateful memory's store.

prick Those velvet ears - but pr'ythee do not stick Thy latent talons in me- and upraise Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick: Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists For all the wheezy asthma, and for all Thy tail's tip is nick'd off-and though the fists

Of many a maid has given thee many a maul, Still is that fur as soft as when the lists

In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.