His accounts, I ween, with rectitude teem,
I see by his open face;

This brazen Millwood will make her case good,
Though it cost eternal disgrace!

Too lenient he's been, it is easily seen,

To want his money so long,

Then bring her to Court to make public sport
And paid at last with a song!

The Sheriff, he says (in his hackneyed phrase),
"Your accounts are over three years,
And all I can spare, the woman must swear
That she owes you no arrears."

(And that she will do, most readily too,

And swallow a perjured oath.)

"Come, hold up your hand! do as I command,

And swear-though ever so loth."

She swallowed ten pound, and then looked around,

But gave no sign of a swoon;

She chuckled with glee, I could easily see,

At gaining her case so soon;

While he, the poor devil! was scarcely so civil

At being so neatly-done!

He swore at the Sheriff, and would have struck her if
The "Bobs" had 'nt bracelets thrust on.

Now, all my good friends, my story thus ends-
"Go! get your money when won;

Keep most correct books-but, trust not the looks
Of angel or angel's son,-

Nor let your arrears lie over three years,

Then trust to a Sheriff Court;

Too many can swear to God I declare,

And make of an oath but sport!

"An oath! an oath! I have an oath in Heaven:
Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?

No! not for Venice!"-Merchant of Venice.

"We must not make a scare-crow of the law: setting it up for birds of prey, and let it keep one shape, till custom make it their perch, and not their terror.' ---Measure for Measure.

For "In time the rod becomes more mocked than feared, so our decrees, dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, and liberty plucks justice by the nose.' Ibid.

"Hebrew roots are often found

To flourish most in barren ground."-Hudibras.
"My tongue pads slowly under this new language,
And starts and stumbles at their uncouth phrases,
They may be great in worth and weight, but hang
Upon the native glibness of my language,

Like Saul's plate armour on the shepherd's boy,
Encumbering, but not arming him."-J. B.

"Articles are borrowed of the pronoun; and be thus declined, Singulariter, nominativo, hic, hæc, hoc. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog;-pray you, mark: genitivo, hujus. Well, what is your accusative case? It is qui, qua, quod; if you forget your quies, your ques, and your quods, you must be preeches. Go your ways, and play; go."-Merry Wives of Windsor.

"What's a' your jargon o' your schools,

Your Latin names for horns an' stools?
If honest nature made you fools,

What sairs your grammars?

Ye'd better taen up spades an' shools,

Or knappin'-hammers."-Burns.

TWO fish together through the ocean swam,

The one was wrinkled as Medea's ram,

The other was as plain as common sense,

(Which, Fish, like Men, oft find their best defence);
And, as they jogged together through the ocean,

Says Folly unto Sense, "It is my notion

That this same ocean first began to flow
And teem with life five thousand years ago;
I've been at College, and professors there
Can tell its age and depth unto a hair;
And I, myself, with 'Essays and Reviews,'
Have awed ev'n Neptune with immortal news,
I've spouted Greek and Latin like a whale,
And ope'd the gates of Science with my tail,
And, as for Art, I've searched her spacious halls,
And swallowed every volume on her stalls;

I've dredged the Deep, from Greenland up to Cadiz,
Yea! even more-the dreaded lake of Hades.
I've mastered Clio's old majestic page,—
With Thalia laughed, seen Pelpomene rage,
With Erato, and Calliope, and Euterpe,
I've blown the conch and sung in harmony.
I've studied Coptic, Hebrew, and Chaldee,
Yea! gathered Fossils in our deepest sea,
And classed them all according to their kind,
With care sublime of a discerning mind.
There's nought within the Ocean but I know,
E'en tell when it shall cease to ebb and flow;

R

Can tell, i' faith! where we shall go when dead,
To join the angels pure which reign o'erhead.
Geology! Ye Gods, her faithful page

Hath told the secrets of each bygone age!
Made Time disgorge, and ope his envious jaws,
To tell the progress of Creation's laws.
First, we have specimens of extinct whales,
With neither heads nor bodies, ribs nor tails,—
For ocean then in faith was boiling hot,
And tumbled whales like peas within a pot,
With crusts of worlds, and splintered Geneis,
Hylæosaurus, Tetragonolepis,

Beleminites, and Ichthyolites,

Ammonites, Carollines, and Encrinites,

Echino-derms, Saurus, and Trilobites,"—

(Jaw-breaking names,-which pedants love so well, The words they mouth, though meaning cannot tell),— "Even Berry-bones and Buckler-head

Are found in sandstones-old and red;

Then we have crabs with neither claws nor shell;
Then rooted lizards waving to the swell,

Then fish are found with embryo fins and tail,
And envious Nautilus begin to sail;

Next came ourselves, the noblest work of each,—
Lord of the crab, the solen, and the beach!
From Age to Age, I can exactly trace,
The various wrinkles on old Neptune's face,
Can tell you too when he shall go to sleep
And close the workings of the Mighty Deep."
"But," (timidly, at length, remarked the other),
"Please, tell me this, my very learned brother,
How many years it takes to form an Age?

How long each took to write your fossil page?
Who made them all? and for what purpose sent?
And who made us and why our lives are lent?
Shall we be reckoned fossil fish when dead,
Perhaps by greater fish above our head?"

"Oh! silly fool you are," then cries the other,

You are indeed, a poor short-sighted brother,

Each fossil age I know unto an hour,

For what they've lived, and whence our wondrous power,

We are Creation's Lord, above them all,

For we can swim, but lowly Cancers crawl,