'How now,' the light-toed, white-wash'd pilgrim broke,

"You lazy lubber!'

'Odds curse it !' cried the other, ''tis no joke;

My feet, once hard as any rock,

Are now as soft as blubber.

'Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear :
As for Loretto, I shall not go there;
No! to the Devil my sinful soul must go,
For hang me if I ha'n't lost every toe.

'But, brother sinner, do explain

How 'tis that you are not in pain?

What power hath work'd a wonder for your toes?
Whilst I, just like a snail, am crawling,

Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling,
Whilst not a rascal comes to ease my woes?

'How is't that you can like a greyhound go,

Merry as if nought had happen'd, burn ye?'
'Why,' cried the other, grinning, 'you must know,
That, just before I ventured on my journey,
To walk a little more at ease,

I took the liberty to boil my peas.'

SAINT ANTHONY'S SERMON TO THE FISHES.

'Ulrich Megerle, a barefooted Augustine friar of the seventeenth century, adopted the affectation about names then in fashion, and called himself Abraham à Sancta Clara. He was a preacher, of the dramatic and picturesque order, enlivening his pulpit scenes

with such bursts of humour as are found attractive even in the present day. The poem here given is from Megerle's "Judas the Arch-Rogue," and was translated by an anonymous writer in The Knickerbocker a Magazine published in New York.'-Wills.

SAINT ANTHONY at church
Was left in the lurch,

So he went to the ditches
And preach'd to the fishes.

They wriggled their tails,

In the sun glanced their scales.

The carps, with their spawn,

Are all thither drawn ;
Have open'd their jaws,
Eager for each clause.

No sermon beside

Had the carps so edified.

Sharp-snouted pikes,

Who keep fighting like tikes,

Now swam up harmonious

To hear Saint Antonius.

No sermon beside

Had the pikes so edified.

And that very odd fish,

Who loves fast-days, the cod-fish,

The stock-fish, I mean,—

At the sermon was seen.

No sermon beside

Had the cods so edified.