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That coach might be well called a casket
Of learning and brotherly love :
There were parsons in boot and in basket;
There were parsons below and above.

There were Sneaker and Griper, a pair
Who stick to Lord Mulesby like leeches ;
A snug chaplain of plausible air

Who writes my Lord Goslingham's speeches. Dr. Buzz, who alone is a host,

Who with arguments weighty as lead, Proves six times a week in the Post

That flesh somehow differs from bread.

Dr. Nimrod, whose orthodox toes

Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup;
Dr. Humdrum, whose eloquence flows,
Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup;
Dr. Rosygill puffing and fanning,

And wiping away perspiration;
Dr. Humbug, who proved Mr. Canning,
The beast in St. John's Revelation.

A layman can scarce form a notion

Of our wonderful talk on the road; Of the learning, the wit, and devotion Which almost each syllable showed; Why divided allegiance agrees

So ill with our free constitution;
How Catholics swear as they please,
In hope of the priest's absolution;

How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered
His faith for a legate's commission;
How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd,
Had stooped to a base coalition;
How Papists are cased from compassion
By bigotry, stronger than steel;
How burning would soon come in fashion,
And how very bad it must feel.

We were all so much touched and excited
By a subject so direly sublime,

That the rules of politeness were slighted,
And we all of us talked at a time;

And in tones which each moment grew louder,
Told how we should dress for the show,
And where we should fasten the powder,
And if we should bellow or no.

Thus from subject to subject we ran,
And the journey passed pleasantly o'er,

Till at last Dr. Humdrum began;

From that time I remember no more.

At Ware he commenced his prelection,
In the dullest of clerical drones;
And when next I regained recollection

We were rumbling o'er Trumpington stones."

MR. MACAULAY AND THE BALLAD BOY.

In a paper on "Ballads for the People," in the Westminster Review, it was stated that our most brilliant historian, being lately desirous of obtaining information upon this subject as material for his new volumes, took his way from the Albany to Whitechapel, and bought a roll of London ballads from a singing boy; happening to turn round as he reached home again, he perceived the youth, with a circle of young friends, was keeping close on his heels. Have I not given you your price, sir?' was the great man's indignant remonstrance. 'All right, guv'ner,' was the response, 'we're only waiting till you begin to sing.'

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Mr. Carruthers, in the Inverness Courier, however, gives the following more correct version of the above incident, as he heard it related at one of Mr. Rogers's breakfast-parties, in St. James's-place. Mr. Macaulay had set off on a long solitary walk (an ordinary occurrence) from the Albany, and about Islington fell in with a singing boy, and purchased for 1s. or 1s. 6d. his stock of ballads. Dipping into the collection, and reading aloud to himself with energy, as is his wont, the warlike and military strains of the street minstrels, Mr. Macaulay observed that the boy still accompanied him. He stopped, and asked why he followed him? "I do like, sir," replied the urchin, "to hear you read the ballads-you read them so grand and fine." The historian pursued his journey, and the thought occurred-" What, if we had ballads of this kind respecting the old heroic deeds of Greece and Rome?" The idea gathered force, and ultimately a resolution was formed to attempt embodying in ballad poetry some of the legends related by Livy, and alluded to by Cicero and others. The result was The Lays of Ancient Rome.

Talking of Ballads, Mr. John Hill Burton, author of the Book Hunter, tells the following sad example of the way in which some ancient ballads have come into existence. Some mad young wags, wishing to test the critical powers of an experienced collector, sent him a new-made ballad, which they

had been able to secure only in a fragmentary form. To the surprise of the fabricator it was duly printed; but what naturally raised his surprise to astonishment, and revealed to him a secret, was, that it was no longer a fragment, but a complete ballad—the collector, in the course of his industrious inquiries among the peasantry, having been so fortunate as to recover the missing fragments! This ballad has been printed in more than one collection, and admired as an instance of the inimitable simplicity of the genuine old versions!

A GOOD TALKER.-MR. BUCKLE.

At Cairo, Miss Marguerite Power had the good fortune to meet, a few weeks before his premature death, in 1862, Mr. Buckle, who, in his researches for fresh materials for his History of Civilization, was now on his way back from a journey up the Nile. He had, on his arrival in Egypt, brought letters of introduction to the R-'s, so that as they were already acquainted he came almost immediately to call, and was asked to dinner on an early day. "I have known, (says Miss Power,) most of the celebrated talkers of—I will not say how many years back-of the time, in a word, when Sydney Smith rejoiced in his green bright old age; and Luttrell, and Rogers, and Tommy Moore were still capable of giving forth an occasional flash; and when the venerable Lord Brougham, and yet more venerable Lord Lyndhurst, delighted in friendly and brilliant sparring at dinner-tables, whose hosts are now in their half-forgotten graves. I have known some brilliant talkers in Paris-Lamartine and Dumas, and Cabarrus, and brightest, or at least most constantly bright of all, the late Madame Emile de Girardin. I knew Douglas Jerrold; and I am still happy enough to claim acquaintance with certain men and women whose names, though well known, it were perhaps invidious now to mention. But, for inexhaustibility, versatility, memory, and self-confidence, I never met any to compete with Buckle. Talking was meat, and drink, and sleep to him he lived upon talk. He could keep pace with any given number of interlocutors on any given number of subjects, from the abstrusest point on the abstrusest science to the lightest jeu d'esprit, and talk them all down, and be quite ready to start fresh. Among the hundred and one anecdotes with which he entertained us I may be permitted

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ANECDOTES OF MEN OF LETTERS.

to give, say the hundred and first. 'Wordsworth,' said Charles Lamb, 'one day told me that he considered Shakspeare greatly over-rated.' 'There is an immensity of trick in all Shakspeare wrote,' he said, 'and people are taken in by it. Now, if I had a mind, I could write exactly like Shakspeare.' So you see,' proceeded Charles Lamb, quietly, it was only the mind that was wanting!' We met Buckle on several subsequent occasions, and his talk and his spirits never flagged; the same untiring energy marked all he said, and did, and thought, and fatigue and depression appeared to be things unknown to him."

DIDEROT AND THE BLIND.

Diderot wrote a work, in which he said that people who are born blind have some ideas different from those who are possessed of their eyesight. This assertion is by no means improbable, and it contains nothing by which any one need be startled. The men, however, who then governed France, discovered in it some hidden danger. Whether they imagined that the mention of blindness was an allusion to themselves, or whether they were merely instigated by the perversity of their temper, is uncertain; at all events, the unfortunate Diderot, for having hazarded this opinion, was arrested, and without even the form of a trial, was confined in the dungeons of Vincennes.

Yet Dugald Stewart, who has collected some important evidence upon the subject, has confirmed several of the views put forward by Diderot. Since then, greater attention has been paid to the education of the blind, and it has been remarked that "it is an exceedingly difficult task to teach them to think accurately." These passages unconsciously testify to the sagacity of Diderot; and they also testify to the stupid ignorance of a Government, which sought to put an end to such inquiries by punishing the author.-Buckle's History of Civilization in England, vol. i. p. 681.

CLERICAL LIFE.

SHORT PRAYERS.

Dr. King relates that, in 1715, at a dinner-party at the Duke of Ormonde's, at Richmond, a jocular dispute arose concerning short prayers. Sir William Wyndham said, the shortest prayer he had ever heard was the prayer of a common soldier, just before the battle of Blenheim-"O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!" This was followed, indecorously, by a general laugh. But, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, who was present, addressing Sir W. Wyndham, said: "Your prayer, Sir William, is indeed very short: but I remember another as short but much better, offered up likewise by a poor soldier in the same circumstances, 'O God, if, in the day of battle, I forget thee, do thou not forget me.' This, as Atterbury pronounced it with his usual grace and dignity, was a very gentle and polite reproof, and was immediately felt by the company.

AN OLD STUDENT.

Soon after Louis XIV. had collated the celebrated Bossuet to the bishopric of Meaux, the king asked the citizens how they liked their new bishop. "Why, your majesty, we like him pretty well." "Pretty well! why, what fault have you to find with him?" "To tell your majesty the truth, we should have preferred having a bishop who had finished his education; for, whenever we wait upon him, we are told that he is at his studies."

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