Of scarlet cloth! Papa cried, "Pish !" "Good luck," said he, "this cloth will dip, 'Twas thus that I went back to school, A jolly child, I plunged in debt But, no! my schoolmates soon began And made me hate 'em! Long sitting will broadcloth abrade; To both my parents then I flew- He'd still some cloth; so Snip was bid And then the boys, despite my wails, O, weak mamma! O, wrathful dad! Good friends, our little ones (who feel Need sympathy in deed and word; Beside their fellows, My wife, who likes the things I've doft, She'll take, and-air them! (By permission of the Author.) YORICK'S, DEATH. LAWRENCE STERNE, A FEW hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in, with an intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick, looking up in his face, took hold of his hand, and after thanking him for the many tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their fate to meet hereafter, he would thank him again and again; he told him he was within a few hours of giving his enemies the slip for ever. "I hope not," answered Eugenius, with tears trickling down his cheeks, and with the tenderest tone that ever man spoke,-"I hope not, Yorick," said he. Yorick replied with a look up, and a gentle squeeze of Eugenius's hand-and that was all-but it cut Eugenius to his heart. "Come, come, Yorick !" quoth Eugenius, wiping his eyes, and summoning up the man within him; "my dear lad, be comforted; let not all thy spirits and fortitude forsake thee at this crisis when thou most wantest them. Who knows what resources are in store, and what the power of God may yet do for thee?" Yorick laid his hand upon his heart, and gently shook his head. "For my part," continued Eugenius, crying bitterly as he uttered the words, "I declare, I know not, Yorick, how to part with thee; and would gladly flatter my hopes," added Eugenius, cheering up his voice, "that there is still enough of thee left to make a bishop, and that I may live to see it." "I beseech thee, Eugenius," quoth Yorick, taking off his night-cap as well as he could with his left hand-his right being still grasped close in that of Eugenius-"I beseech thee to take a view of my head." "I see nothing that ails it," replied Eugenius. "Then, alas! my friend," said Yorick, "let me tell you that it is so bruised and mis-shaped with the blows which have been so unhandsomely given me in the dark, that I might say with Sancho Panza, that should I recover, and 'mitres thereupon be suffered to rain down from heaven as thick as hail, not one of them would fit it.'" Yorick's last breath was hanging upon his trembling lips, ready to depart, as he uttered this; yet still it was uttered with something of a Cervantic tone, and as he spoke it, Eugenius could perceive a stream of lambent fire lighted up for a moment in his eyes-faint picture of those flashes of his spirit, which (as Shakspeare said of his ancestor) 66 were wont to set the table in a roar!" Eugenius was convinced from this that the heart of his friend was broke. He squeezed his hand, and then walked softly out of the room, weeping as he walked. Yorick followed Eugenius with his eyes to the door; he then closed them, and never opened them more. He lies buried in a corner of his churchyard, under a plain marble slab, which his friend Eugenius, by leave of his executors, laid upon his with no grave, more than these three words of inscription, serving both for his epitaph and elegy Alas, Poor YORICK! Ten times a day has Yorick's ghost the consolation to bear his monumental inscription read over, with such a variety of plaintive tones as denote a general pity and esteem for him. A footway crossing the churchyard close by his grave, not a passenger goes by without stopping to cast a look upon it, and sighing as he walks on, ALAS, POOR YORICK! THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT ST. PRAXED'S CHURCH. ROBERT BROWNING. VANITY, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews-sons mine. Ah, God, I know not! wellShe, men would have to be mother once, your Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! Dead long ago, and I am bishop since. And as she died, so must we die ourselves, In this state chamber, dying by degrees, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse- Put me where I may look at him! Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close that conflagration of my church What then? So much was saved if ought were missed! My sons ye would not be my death? Go dig The white grape vineyard where the oil-press stood; And if ye find .. Ah, God, I know not, I!.. ... For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, |