Jock entered the Life-Guards-bade Scotland adieu— An' his conduct was such that, e'er five years had passed, THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS. By kind Permission of Messrs. R. Bentley & Son. THE Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair! With a great many more of lesser degree, In sooth a goodly company; And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee. Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams, Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims ! In and out through the motley rout," That little Jackdaw kept hopping about; Over comfits and cates, and dishes and plates, Where, in state, the great Lord Cardinal sat The feast was over, the board was clear'd, Marching that grand refectory through! As any that flows between Rheims and Namur, Of the best white diaper, fringed with pink, The great Lord Cardinal turns at the sight There's a cry and a shout, and an awful rout, The Cardinal rose with a dignified look, He call'd for his candle, his bell, and his book! He solemnly cursed that rascally thief! He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed; From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; He cursed him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright; He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking, He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking; He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying; He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, He cursed him living, he cursed him dying! Never was heard such a terrible curse! But what gave rise to no little surprise, Nobody seemed one penny the worse! The day was gone, the night came on, The monks and the friars they search'd till dawn; Come limping a poor little lame Jackdaw! No longer gay, as on yesterday; His feathers all seem'd to be turn'd the wrong way ;— His eye so dim, so wasted each limb, That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, "THAT'S HIM !— And turn'd his bald head, as much as to say, 66 'Pray, be so good as to walk this way !" Slower and slower he limped on before, Till they came to the back of the belfry door, 'Midst the sticks and the straw, Was the RING in the nest of that little Jackdaw! Then the great Lord Cardinal call'd for his book, The mute expression served in lieu of confession, And, being thus coupled with full restitution, -When those words were heard, that poor little bird Or slumber'd in prayer-time and happen'd to snore, When, as words were too faint his merits to paint, MISCELLANEOUS PROSE SELECTIONS. LEARNING BY HEART.-Vernon Lushington.) TILL he has fairly tried it, I suspect a reader does not know how much he would gain from committing to memory passages of real excellence; precisely because he does not know how much he overlooks in merely reading. Learn one true poem by heart, and see if you do not find it so. Beauty after beauty will reveal itself, in chosen phrase, or happy music, or noble suggestion, otherwise undreamed of. It is like looking at one of Nature's wonders through a microscope. Again: how much in such a poem that you really did feel admirable and lovely on a first reading, passes away, if you do not give it a further and much better reading!-passes away utterly, like a sweet sound, or an image on the lake, which the first breath of wind dispels. If you could only fix that image, as the photographers do theirs, so beautifully, so perfectly! And you can do so! Learn it by heart, and it is yours for ever! I have said a true poem ; for naturally men will choose to learn poetry-from the beginning of time they have done so. To immortal verse the memory gives a willing, a joyous, and a lasting home. However, some prose is poetical, is poetry, and altogether worthy to be learned by heart; and the learning is not so very difficult. It is not difficult or toilsome to learn that which pleases us; and the labour, once given, is forgotten, while the result remains. Poems and noble extracts, whether of verse or prose, once so reduced into possession and rendered truly our own, may be to us a daily pleasure-better far than a whole library unused. They may come to us in our dull moments, to refresh us as with spring flowers; in |