Peter, the Lay-brother, meagre and thin,
Heard all the Saint was saying within;
Peter, the Lay-brother, sallow and spare,

Peep'd through the key-hole, and-what saw he there?—
Why, A BROOMSTICK BRINGING A RUSH-BOTTOM'D CHAIR!

Fytte XX.

What Shakspeare observes, in his play of King John,
Is undoubtedly right,

That "ofttimes the sight

Of means to do ill deeds will make ill deeds done."

Here's Peter the Lay-brother, pale-faced and meagre,
A good sort of man, only rather too eager

To listen to what other people are saying,

When he ought to be minding his business, or praying,
Gets into a scrape,—and an awkward one too,

As you'll find, if you 've patience enough to go through,
The whole of the story

I'm laying before ye,

Entirely from having "the means" in his view
Of doing a thing which he ought not to do!

Still rings in his ear
Distinct and clear

Abracadabra! that word of fear!

And the two which I never yet happen'd to hear.
Still doth he spy

With Fancy's eye

The Broomstick at work, and the Saint standing by;
And he chuckles and says to himself with glee,
"Aha! that Broomstick shall work for me!"

Hark! that swell

O'er flood and o'er fell,

Mountain, and dingle, and moss-covered dell!
List!-'tis the sound of the Compline bell,
And St. Dunstan is quitting his ivy'd cell ;
Peter, I wot,

Is off like a shot,

Or a little dog scalded by something that's hot,
For he hears his Master approaching the spot

Where he'd listened so long, though he knew he ought not.
Peter remember'd his Master's frown-

He trembled he'd not have been caught for a crown ;
Howe'er you may laugh,

He had rather, by half,

Have run up to the top of the tower and jump'd down.

The Compline hour is past and gone,

Evening service is over and done;

The monks repair

To their frugal fare,

A snug little supper of something light
And digestible, ere they retire for the night.
For, in Saxon times, in respect to their cheer,

St. Austin's Rule was by no means severe,

But allowed, from the Beverley Roll 'twould appear,
Bread and cheese, and spring onions, and sound table beer,
And even green peas, when they were not too dear;
Not like the Rule of La Trappe, whose chief merit is
Said to consist in its greater austerities:

And whose monks, if I rightly remember their laws,
Ne'er are suffered to speak,

Think only in Greek,

And subsist, as the Bears do, by sucking their paws.
Hence, a monk of La Trappe is as thin as a rat,
While an Austin Friar was jolly and fat;
Though, of course, the fare to which I allude,
With as good table-beer as ever was brew'd,
Was all caviare to the multitude,”
Extending alone to the clergy, together in
Hall assembled, and not to Lay-brethren.

St. Dunstan himself sits there at his post,
On what they say is
Called a Dais,

O'erlooking the whole of his clerical host,

And eating poached eggs with spinach and toast;

Five Lay-brothers stand behind his chair,

But where is the sixth? Where's Peter?-Aye, WHERE?

"Tis an evening in June,

And a little half moon,

A brighter no fond lover ever set eyes on,
Gleaming, and beaming,

And dancing the stream in,

Has made her appearance above the horizon;
Just such a half moon as you see, in a play,

On the turban of Mustapha Muley Bey,

Or the fair Turk who weds with the " Noble Lord Bateman;" -Vide plate in George Cruikshank's memoirs of that great man.

She shines on a turret remote and lone,

A turret with ivy and moss overgrown,

And lichens that thrive on the cold dank stone;

Such a tower as a Poet of no mean calibre

I once knew and loved, poor, dear Reginald Heber,
Assigns to Oblivion*-a den for a She-bear;

Within it are found,
Strew'd above and around,

On the hearth, on the table, the shelves, and the ground,
All sorts of instruments, all sorts of tools,

To name which and their uses would puzzle the Schools,
And make very wise people look very like fools;
Pincers, and hooks,

And black-letter books,

All sorts of pokers, and all sorts of tongs,
And all sorts of hammers, and all that belongs
To Goldsmiths' work, chemistry, alchymy,―all,
In short, that a Sage

In that erudite age

Could require, was at hand, or at least within cali.
In the midst of the room lies a Broomstick !-and there
A Lay-brother sits in a rush-bottom'd chair!

Fytte XXX.

Abracadabra, that fearful word,

And the two which, I said, I have never yet heard,
Are utter'd.-'Tis done!

Peter, full of his fun,

Cries" Broomstick! you lubberly Son of a gun Bring ale! bring a flagon,-a hogshead,-a tun! 'Tis the same thing to you;

I have nothing to do;

And, 'fore George, I'll sit here, and I'll drink till all's blue !"

No doubt you've remark'd how uncommonly quick
A Newfoundland puppy runs after a stick,

Brings it back to his master, and gives it him—Well,
So potent the spell,

The Broomstick perceived it was vain to rebel,

So ran off like that puppy ;-some cellar was near,
For, in less than ten seconds 'twas back with the beer.

Peter seizes the flagon; but ere he can suck

Its contents, or enjoy what he thinks his good luck,
The Broomstick comes in with a tub in a truck;
Continues to run

At the rate it begun,

And, au pied de lettre, next brings in a tun!
A fresh one succeeds, then a third, then another,
Discomfiting much the astounded Lay-brother;
Who, had he possess'd fifty pitchers or stoups,
They had all been too few, for, arranging in groups
The barrels, the Broomstick next started the hoops;
The ale deluged the floor,

But, still, through the door,

Said Broomstick kept bolting, and bringing in more.
E'en Macbeth to Macduff

Would have cried "Hold! enough!"

If half as well drench'd with such" perilous stuff,"

And Peter, who did not expect such a rough visit,

Cried lustily," Stop!

That will do, Broomstick !-Sufficit !"

A pack in full cry

To check, and call off from their headlong career,
By bawling out "Yoicks!" with one's hand at one's ear.
The longer he roar'd, and the louder and quicker,
The faster the Broomstick was bringing in liquor.

The poor Lay-brother knew

Not on earth what to do

He caught hold of the Broomstick and snapt it in two.—
Worse and worse!-Like a dart

Each part made a start,

And he found he'd been adding more fuel to fire,
For both now came loaded with Meux's Entire ;

Combe's, Delafield's, Hanbury's, Truman's-no stopping--
Goding's, Charenton's, Whitehead's, continued to drop in,
With Hodson's pale ale, from the Sun Brewhouse, Wapping.
The firms differ'd then, but I can't put a tax on
My memory to say what their names were in Saxon.
To be sure the best beer

Of all did not appear;

For I've said 'twas in June, and so late in the year
The Trinity Audit Ale" is not come-at-able,

As I found to my great grief last month when at that table.

Now extremely alarm'd, Peter scream'd without ceasing,
For a flood of Brown-stout he was up to his knees in,
Which, thanks to the Broomsticks, continued increasing;
He fear'd he'd be drown'd,

And he yell'd till the sound

Of his voice, wing'd by terror, at last reach'd the ear
Of St. Dunstan himself, who had finish'd his beer,
And had put off his mitre, dalmatic, and shoes,
And was just stepping into his bed for a snooze.

His Holiness paused when he heard such a clatter;
He could not conceive what on earth was the matter.
Slipping on a few things, for the sake of decorum,
He issued forthwith from his sanctum sanctorum,
And calling a few of the lay-brothers near him,
Who were not yet in bed, and who happen'd to hear him,
At once led the way,

Without farther delay,

To the tower where he'd been in the course of the day.

Poor Peter!-alas! though St. Dunstan was quick,

There were two there before him—Grim Death and Old Nick !—

When they opened the door out the malt-liquor flow'd,

Just as when the great Vat burst in Tot'nam Court Road;

The Lay-brothers nearest were up to their necks

In an instant, and swimming in strong double X;

While Peter, who, spite of himself, now had drank hard,
After floating awhile, like a toast in a tankard,

To the bottom had sunk,

And was spied by a monk,

Stone dead, like poor Clarence, half drowned and half drunk.
In vain did St. Dunstan exclaim" Vade retro
Strongbeerum! discede a Lay-fratre Petro!"-
Queer Latin, you'll say

That præfix of "Lay,”

And Strongbeerum!-I own they'd have call'd me a blockhead if
At school I had ventured to use such a Vocative,
'Tis a barbarous word, and to me it's a query
If you find it in Patrick, Morell, or Moreri;
But the fact is, the Saint was uncommonly flurried,
And apt to be loose in his Latin when hurried;
At a time, too, like this, you can well understand,
That he had not, like Bentley, an Ainsworth at hand.
The Brown-stout, however, obeys to the letter,
Quite as well as if talk'd to, in Latin much better,
By a grave Cambridge Johnian,
Or graver Oxonian,

Whose language, we all know, is quite Ciceronian.
It retires from the corpse, which is left high and dry;
But, in vain do they snuff and hot towels apply,
And other means used by the faculty try.

When once a man's dead

There's no more to be said,

Peter's "Beer with an e" was "his Bier with an i!!"?

Moral.

By way of a moral, permit me to pop in

The following maxims:-Beware of eaves-dropping!—
Don't make use of language that isn't well scann'd!-
Don't meddle with matters you don't understand!—
Above all, what I'd wish to impress on both sexes
Is,-Keep clear of Broomsticks, Old Nick, and three XXXs.

L'Enboye.

In Goldsmith's Hall there's a handsome glass case,
And in it a stone figure found on the place,
When, thinking the old Hall no longer a pleasant one,
They pull'd it all down, and erected the present one.
If you look, you'll perceive that this stone figure twists
A thing like a broomstick in one of its fists.

It's so injured by time, you can't make out a feature ;
But it is not St. Dunstan-so no doubt it's Peter.