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Begs she won't fret if the time should seem long; Snatches a kiss, which was "pleasant, but wrong; Mounts, and taking a fence in good fox-hunting style, Sets off for her family-seat on the Weil.

The sun went down,

The bright stars burned,

The morning came,
And the night returned;
The net he spread

O'er the giant's bed,

While eglantine and harebell blue,

And some nice green moss on the spot he threw;
Lest perchance the monster alarm should take,
And not choose to sleep from being too wide awake.
Hark to that sound!

The rocks around
Tremble-it shakes the very ground;
While Irmengard cries,

As tears stream from her eyes,

A lady-like weakness we must not despise (And here, let me add, I have been much to blame, As I long ago ought to have mentioned her name): "Here he comes! nów do hide yourself, dear Eppo,

pray;

For my sake, I entreat you, keep out of his way."
Scarce had the knight

Time to get out of sight

Among some thick bushes, which covered him quite,
Ere the giant appeared. Oh! he was such a fright!
He was very square built, a good twelve feet in height,
And his waistcoat (three yards round the waist) seemed
too tight;

While, to add even yet to all this singularity,
He had but one eye, and his whiskers were carroty.

What an anxious moment!

Will he lie down?

Ah, how their hearts beat! he seems to frown,——
No, 'tis only an impudent fly that's been teasing
His snublime proboscis, and set him a sneezing.

Attish hu! attish hu!

You brute, how I wish you

Were but as genteel as the Irish lady,
Dear Mrs. O'Grady,

Who, chancing to sneeze in a noble duke's face,
Hoped she hadn't been guilty of splashing his Grace.
Now, look out! Yes, he will! No, he won't! By the
powers!

I thought he was taking alarm at the flowers;
But it luckily seems, his gigantic invention

Has at once set them down as a little attention
On Irmengard's part,-done by way of suggestion
That she means to say "Yes," when he next pops the
question.

There! he's down! now he yawns, and in one minute

more

I thought so, he's safe-he's beginning to snore;
He is wrapped in that sleep he shall wake from no more.
From his girdle the knight takes a ponderous key;
It fits and once more is fair Irmengard free.

From heel to head, and from head to heel,

They wrap their prey in that net of steel,
And they croché the edges together with care,
As you finish a purse for a fancy-fair,

Till the last knot is tied by the diligent pair.

At length they have ended their business laborious, And Eppo shouts, "Bagged him, by all that is glorious!” No billing and cooing,

You must up and be doing.

Depend on't, Sir Knight, this is no time for wooing;
You'll discover, unless you progress rather smarter,
That catching a giant's like catching a Tartar:
He still has some thirty-five minutes to sleep.
Close to this spot hangs a precipice steep,

Like Shakspeare's tall cliff which they show one at
Dover;

Drag him down to the brink, and then let him roll

over;

As they scarce make a capital crime of infanticide,
There can't be any harm in a little giganticide.

"Pull him, and haul him! take care of his head!
Oh, how my arms ache-he's as heavy as lead!
That'll do, love—I'm sure—I can move him alone,
Though I'm certain the brute weighs a good forty

stone.

Yo! heave ho! roll him along

(It's exceedingly lucky the net's pretty strong);
Once more-1
-that's it-there, now, I think
He's done to a turn, he rests on the brink;
At it again, and over he goes

To furnish a feast for the hooded crows;
Each vulture that makes the Taurus his home
May dine upon giants for months to come."

Lives there a man so thick of head
To whom it must in words be said,
How Eppo did the lady wed,
And built upon the giant's bed
A castle, walled and turreted!
We will hope not; or, if there be,
Defend us from his company!

(From "Mirth and Metre," F. Warne and Co.)

THE FALL OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.

EDMUND BURKE.

(Considered the most elegant Passage in BURKE's "Reflections on the French Revolution.")

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the

elevated sphere she had just begun to move in; glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant man, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers; I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is bility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt that sensigone, a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

ALEXANDER'S FEAST; OR THE POWER OF MUSIC:
AN ODE ON ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

JOHN DRYDEN.

[Dryden was He was educated at Winchester School and Trinity College, born at Aldwinkle, Northampton, in 1631. Cambridge. He came to London in 1654, and acted as secretary to his relation, Sir Gilbert Pickering, who was one of Cromwell's council. Like the celebrated Vicar of Bray, Dryden shifted his politics in conformity with the ins and outs of that stirring

period he wrote a laudatory ode on the death of the Protector, and a panegyric on the restoration of Charles II. In 1667 he was appointed poet-laureate, with a salary of 2001. a-year. None of his plays have kept the stage, and his numerous satires are to the now popular literature of his country as if they had never been written, but his translation of Virgil is undying and has immortalized him. As he was a weathercock in his politics so he was in his religion. On the accession of James II. he became a Roman Catholic, and, like all perverts, was loudest in the abuse of his old faith. It was not until the abdication of James, when he was obliged to write for bread, that his finest compositions were written. The freedom, grace, and strength of his compositions have never been supassed. He died in 1700, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]

"Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won,

By Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The god-like hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were plac'd around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound:
So should desert in arms be crown'd.

The lovely Thais by his side

Sat, like a blooming eastern bride,

In flow'r of youth and beauty's pride.

Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus plac'd on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touch'd the iyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove;
Who left his blissful seats above,
(Such is the pow'r of mighty love!)
A dragon's fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spheres he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press'd,

*

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