(The result of the two tweaks)

"But both so joined into conjunction,

The olfactories declined their function;

Some teeth were broke, and some were lost,

The incisores suffered most;

Much mischief done to the molares

And what a very strange affair is,

Not the least symptom could I see

Of dentes sapientiæ."

The Doctor is dismissed, and Farmer Chubb appears, at first a stolid, stupid witness, from whom it is difficult to extort a word, and who has a mind to break away :

"My lord, I wishes to be going,

For 'tis a charming time for sowing."

(Lent assizes, I presume!)

Both. Stay, Mr. Chubb; speak out, Sir, do!
Did Gull beat Gudgeon? Is that true?
Chubb. Beat him! He beat him black and blue.
I never see'd a prettier fight,

So full of malice like, and spite.

Bore. A fight! Ho! ho! the truth's come out,
A fair set-to-a boxing bout?

Both. And this you positively swear?

Chubb. Ay, sure; why Simon Trout was there.

And then it appears that the schoolmaster had done all he could to promote the affray, and had endeavored to persuade Chubb to act as bottle-holder to one of the parties. Chubb is dismissed, and Bore'um makes a most characteristic defense-cites half-adozen books-upon which Bother'um cites somewhere about a score; they hurl argument against argument, case against case, and get into a prodigious fury. Bore'um vows

"If all that I've advanced this day
Be not good law, my lord, and sound
As e'er was broached on legal ground,
Soon as to chambers I return

All my black-letter books I'll burn."

"Hold, hold," (quoth Bother'um)" 'twould be cruel

To turn your fixtures into fuel,

Those precious tomes with cobwebs spread,

Which sleep so peaceful o'er your head;

Ere yet that sentence is decreed 'em,

Do read 'em, Master Bore'um, read 'em!"

After which piece of malice both parties suddenly cool down.

Both lovingly agreed at once to draw

A special case, and save the point in law,
That so the battle, neither lost or won,
Continued, ended, and again begun,
Might still survive, and other suits succeed
For future heroes of the gown to lead,

And future bards in loftier verse to plead.

Although I am copying from the sixth edition, this pleasant poem is now so scarce, that after a long search in London, I fairly gave up all hopes of succeeding, and only obtained the volume at Bath, the birth-place of the author, who was the son of Christopher Anstey, the well-known writer of the Bath Guide.

The law of this book is said to be excellent. It is recorded of I know not what great legal luminary, that the only poem he ever read in the course of his life was "The Pleader's Guide," and that he had the triumph and satisfaction of discovering a flaw therein.

VI.

AMERICAN POETS.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race across the Atlantic-our cousins I do not know how many degrees removedhave in no way better proved their kindred than by the growing pith and substance of their literature. Of such prose writers as Channing, Norton, Prescott, Ware, Cooper, and Washington Irving, together with the many who, where there are such leaders, are sure to press close upon their footsteps, any country might be proud. But one want they had; and although not particularly fond of pleading guilty to deficiencies of any sort, they confessed it themselves the want of a great poet. Of elegant versifiers there was no lack. I doubt if, for the fifty years that preceded the first French revolution, England herself had been better off in the way of smooth and polished rhyme. But they are an ambitious race, these transatlantic kinsmen of ours, commonly called Americans; they like to have the best that can be obtained in every department, and they do not dislike to vaunt of their possessions; and now that their great literary want is supplied in the person of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, they may glorify themselves to their heart's content, certain that every lover of poetry, whether born under the red-cross banner of Queen Victoria, or the stripes and stars of the States, will join the general All Hail!

I do not know a more enviable reputation than Professor Longfellow has won for himself in this country-won too with a rapidity seldom experienced by our own native poets. The terseness of diction and force of thought delight the old; the grace and melody enchant the young; the unaffected and all-pervading piety satisfy the serious; and a certain slight touch of mysticism carries

the imaginative reader fairly off his feet. For my own part, I confess, not only to the being captivated by all these qualities (mysticism excepted), but to the farther fact of yielding to the charm of certain lines, I can not very well tell why, and walking about the house repeating to myself such figments as this:

"I give the first watch of the night

To the red planet Mars,"

as if I were still eighteen. I am not sure that this is not as great a proof of the power of the poet as can be given.

In speaking of Professor Longfellow's popularity in England, I refer chiefly to the smaller pieces, which form, however, the larger portion of his collected works. The "Spanish Student," although beautifully written, is too little dramatic, and above all, too Spanish for our national taste; and "Evangeline," with its experiments in English versification, and its strange union of a semi-ideal passion with the most real and positive of all Dutch painting, must be regarded as still upon its trial.

The shorter poems are enough. I would fain have enriched my pages with the "Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life," but they have been long enough printed to have found their way to many hearths and hearts. I prefer, therefore, quoting from the later volumes, which have only recently become known in England, although I could not resist the temptation of inserting the noble tribute to the painter and the bard, which makes the glory of the stirring lyric on Nuremberg.

NUREMBERG.

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng;

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunda's hand :

On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of art-
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;

And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of Sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.

Here, when art was still religion, with a simple reverent heart,
Lived and labored Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art.

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
Dead he is not-but departed-for the artist never dies.

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair

That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes Walked of yore the Master-Singers, chanting rude poetic strains.

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild, Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sung and laughed.

But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,

As the old man, gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.