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Look at the Caitiff's face of pride,
Look at his long and haughty stride;
Look how he bears her o'er hill and vale,
My Beauty, the Lily of Nithysdale!"

They gazed around them!-Monk and Knight Were startled at that awful sight;

They never had the smallest notion

How vast twelve feet would look in motion.

Dark as the midnight's deepest gloom,

Swift as the breath of the Simoom,
That hill of flesh was moving on;
And oh! the sight of horror won
A shriek from all our three beholders ;
He bore the maid upon his shoulders!
"Now," said the Knight, "by all the fame
That ever clung to Arthur's name,
I'll do it, or I'll try at least,

-

To win her from that monstrous Beast!”
"Sir," said the Friar to the Knight,
"Success will wait upon the right;
I feel much pity for the youth,
And though, to tell the honest truth,
I'm rather used to drink than slay,
I'll aid you here as best I may!"
They bade the minstrel blow a blast
To stop the Monster as he past;
Gog was quite puzzled!" Zounds-I'feg!
My friend piano!-let me beg!"
Then in a rage towards the place

He strode along a rattling pace;

Firm on the ground his foot he planted,

And "wonder'd what the deuce they wanted!"

No blockhead was that holy man, He clear'd his throat, and thus began :"O Pessime-that is, I pray,

Discede-signifying, stay!

Damno-that is, before you go,
Sis comes in convivio!

Abi-that is, set down the Lass;
Monstrum-that is, you'll take a glass
Oh, holy Church!—that is, I swear
You never look'd on nicer fare;
Informe-horridum-immane!
That is, the wine's as good as any;

Apage!-exorcizo te !...

That is it came from Burgundy;
We both are anxious execrande!

To drink your health-abominande!
And then my comrade means to put
His falchion through your occiput!".
The Giant stared (and who would not?)
To find a monk so wondrous hot;
So fierce a stare you never saw;
At last the Brute's portentous jaw
Swung, like a massy creaking hinge,
And then, beneath its shaggy fringe
Rolling about each wondrous eye,
He scratched his beard and made reply:-
"Bold is the Monk, and bold the Knight,
That wishes with Gog to drink, or fight,
For I have been from east to west,
And battled with King Arthur's best,
And never found I friend or foe,

To stand my cup or bear my blow!"
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"Most puissant Gog! although I burst,"
Exclaimed the Monk," I'll do the first;"
And ere a moment could be reckoned,
The Knight chimed in" I'll try the second!"

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The Giant, ere he did the job,
Took a huge chain from out his fob;
He bound his Captive to a tree:
And young Le Fraile came silently,
And marked how all her senses slept,
And leaned upon her brow, and wept;
He kissed her lip, but her lip was grown
As coldly white as a marble stone;
He met her eye, but its vacant gaze
Had not the light of its living rays;
Yet still that trembling lover prest
The maiden to his throbbing breast,
Till consciousness returned again,
And the tears flowed out like summer rain
There was the bliss of an hundred years
In the rush of those delicious tears!

The helm from off the warrior's head

Is doffed to bear the liquor red;
That casque, I trow, is deep and high,

But the Monk and the Giant shall drain it dry;

And which of the two, when the feat is done,
Shall keep his legs at set of sun?

They filled to the brim that helm of gold,
And the Monk hath drained its ample hold;
Silent and slow the liquor fell,

As into some capacious well;
Tranquilly flowing down it went,

And made no noise in its long descent;
And it leaves no trace of its passage now,
But the stain on his lip, and the flush on his brow.

They filled to the brim that helm of gold,
And the Giant hath drained its ample hold;
Through his dark jaws the purple ocean
Ran with a swift and restless motion,
And the roar that heralded on its track
Seemed like the burst of a cataract.*
Twice for each was the fountain filled,
Twice by each was the red flood swilled;
The Monk is as straight as a poplar tree,
Gog is as giddy as Gog may be!

"Now try we a buffet!" exclaimed the Knight, And rose collected in his might,

Crossing his arms, and clenching his hand,

And fixing his feet on their firmest stand.
The Giant struck a terrible stroke;
But it lighted on the forest-oak;

And bough and branch of the ancient tree,
Shook, as he smote it, wondrously:
His gauntleted hand the warrior tried;
Full it fell on the Giant's side;

He sank to earth with a hideous shock,
Like the ruin of a crumbling rock,
And that quivering mass was senseless laid
In the pit its sudden fall had made.

That stranger Knight hath gone to the tree
To set the trembling Captive free,
Thrice hath he smitten with might and main,
And burst the lock, and shivered the chain;
But the knotty trunk, as the warrior strove,
Wrenched from his hand the iron glove,

* An indifferent rhyme, but patronized by Lord Byron.

And they saw the gem on his finger's ring,
And they bent the knee to England's King,
“Up! up!” he said, "for the sun hath past,
The shadows of night are falling fast,
And still the wedding shall be to-day,
And a King shall give the bride away!"

The Abbey-bells are ringing,

With a merry, merry tone;
And the happy boors are singing

With a music all their own;

Joy came in the Morning, and fled at Noon;
But he smiles again by the light of the Moon;
That Minstrel Boy, the young Le Fraile-
Hath wedded the Lily of Nithys-dale!

PEREGRINE'S SCRAP-BOOK.

NO. VII.

June 2.—I am confident that my readers will be amused with the following Fragment, purporting to be from the pen of Mr. Swinburne and I am equally confident that they will regret with me that it is only a Fragment.

I.

I've always thought Biography the neatest
And most instructive kind of composition,
Especially if written (as is meetest)

By Literary people of condition.

I never liked the records (though completest)

Of kingdoms, battles, wars, wounds, ammunition;
Preferring Plutarch, Charles the Twelfth, Munchausen,
Robinson Crusoe, Valentine and Orson.

II.

Besides, I've lately read the life of Sully,

And Wraxall's Memoirs, written by himself;
They've both confirm'd my old opinion fully :
The latter, to be sure's a curious elf,
He often writes both nauseously and dully,
And well deserves to lie upon the shelf;
But yet he gives some pleasant information
About Lord North, Lord Nelson, and the Nation.

III.

I own too that I like a little scandal,

I like to know what heroes thought and said;

I like to hear how Pitt put out his candle,
What time exactly Fox got into bed;

And whether Burke preferr'd Mozart or Handel,

What kind of night-cap wrapt Lord Nelson's head.
One loves to see all these important facts

Elucidated by authentic tracts.

IV.

But what I own I like much more than any thing
Is the biography of learned men;

Whene'er such people condescend to pen a thing
About themselves, it reads as well again
As all that kind of rascally catch-penny thing,
Which blockheads write who live upon the pen.
But good Biography excels Orthography,
Geography, and every kind of ography.

ས.

Therefore (I follow Mr. Keats's plan,

Who in Endymion forms a like conclusion),
I will essay, as ably as I can,

To write with clearness, and without confusion,
The life of Matthew Swinburne, gentleman

Of Eton School: the name's but a delusion,
Meant my own goodly person to environ,

Just as

"Childe Harold" signifies "Lord Byron."*
VI.

These first five stanzas form an introduction,
And now to business I must straight proceed.
N. B. This work is meant for the instruction
Of all young persons who can write and read.
They should imbibe, with all the pow'rs of suction,
These very entertaining tracts indeed,

Besides, I'll paint, for grown-up people's knowledge,
The manners, customs, and affairs of College.

"Alcæus Minor" will, I am afraid, be again "a little disappointed;" but, nevertheless, I must say I think it advisable neither for him, nor for myself, to insert more of his Verses than are here subjoined. He will excuse some trifling alterations.

And is it so, and must we part?

Then be this hour to parting given!
Go! it may rend my bursting heart,
But thou shalt keep thy vows to Heaven:

Thou goest to a foreign land,

Thou goest o'er the barren water;
For look! a Father's dying hand

Is beckoning to his absent Daughter!
Alas! I will not hold thee!-go;

I yield thee to a Father's claim;
Yet when for him thy tears shall flow,
Forget not, Sweet! thy Lover's name;

* Vide vol. i. p. 328.

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