When I am nigh, entranced and mute;
Whose daily tinklings through the year For none can hope to vie with me,
The peasants hardly gave an ear To that small bell.
A vocalist of such repute!
* A term employed by modern corrupters of our language, when they affect to ridicule those who speak it with purity.-YRIARTE.
"What virtue is more lovely than Fidelity in brute or man? The dog, who guards his master's
" I grant thy fame in former years," The linnet answer'd; but, as thou Art never heard by modern ears, Thy song is deem'd a fiction now, And, like the music of the spheres, A tale which moderns disallow.
"But give me, sweet one, I beseech,
A sample of that olden lay."
The swan, too flatter'd by the speech,
To answer with a churlish nay,
Began to sing-but gave a screech :
The linnet laugh'd, and flew away.
Thus many a coxcomb, with a name
For talents which he ne'er possess'd,
On turning author finds his fame
Unequal to the trying test,
And like the swan, exposed to shame,
Becomes a byword and a jest.
X. THE MOUSE AND THE CAT.
What modern fables can compare with
Of Esop, whose sublime invention chose
And drives the robber from the door,
Deserves the praise of every mouse
That has an interest in the house!"
A cat replied, "Thy praise should
be
Bestow'd as readily on me;
For like the dog, and with a zeal
As watchful for my master's weal,
Throughout the night I keep aloof
A host of robbers from his roof,
And guard from thee and thine the
hoard
Of dainties that should crown his board."
On this the mouse withdrew again Into its hole, and answered then, "Henceforth, since thou art faithful, mice
Shall call fidelity a vice."
'Tis ever thus for we commend The smallest virtue in a friend; While in a foe we should abhor it, And even damn the fellow for it.
The noblest incidents for each, and then
What think you, honest reader? Is not this
Express'd them in inimitable prose! Well, since I want a subject for my pen,
A clever little fable? "Oh! divine!
'Tis quite in Esop's style, and only his;
And have his book at hand, I'll even choose
You see his mighty mind in every line."
One morning, as they chanced to meet at sea,
A chest of sage address'd a chest of tea,
"Ho! brother, whence and whither art thou sailing?"
And in a speech emitted or exprest-
As speeches ever must be from the chest,
The tea return'd an answer to the hailing-
"I'm journeying from the east unto the west,
From China unto Europe's distant land,
Where I'm an article in high demand."
"And I," rejoin'd the sage, "unlike to thee,
Am from the west, and sailing eastwardly
To China, where, for wholesomeness and flavour,
As food or physic, I'm in mighty favour;
For though my countrymen, I blush to say,
My European countrymen, despise
And fling me as a worthless weed away,
The Chinaman is, Heaven be praised! more wise.
He has a sage tooth in his head, and knows
The pleasure and relief my leaf bestows;
In fact, I take precedence over thee,
And hit his taste, friend Tea, unto a T.
"But fare-thee-well! and speed thee with the gale
To Europe, where the tables will be turn'd;
Where young and old will hail thee, and inhale,
And thou wilt be adored as I was spurn'd;
For every nation, howsoever loth
To praise an article of native growth,
Is prompt enough to purchase and applaud
Whatever comes unto it from abroad."
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* Garcilasso de la Vega, one of the most celebrated poets of Spain. An elegant translation of his works into English verse, has appeared from the pen of Mr Wiffen.
From their dwelling in a bog,
Cried a frogling to a frog:
"Mother, see, on yonder banks
How the canes, in even ranks,
Lift their leafy heads on high
Till they seem to touch the sky.
Tell me, have you ever seen
Any trees so tall and green-
Any that in stalk or stem
Would deserve to vie with them?"
But the words had scarcely past,
When an unexpected blast
Rush'd, and with a mighty blow
Struck the grove and laid it low.
Then, retorting from the bog,
To the frogling cried the frog:
"Look, my child-a child may gain
Wisdom even from a cane-
Look, and learn no more to prize
Objects for their gloss and size.
For each trunk that seem'd to thee
Massy as a forest tree,
Is as empty, frail, and thin,
As the vilest reed, within."
Many bardlings in a strain
Just as fugitive and vain-
Never terse and never strong,
But inordinately long,
And, despite of much pretence,
Quite without the sap of sense-
Flourish for a day, and then
Vanish from the eyes of men.
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