Poor Mungo! there he welters like
A toast at bottom of a tankard!
Next morn a publican, whose tap,
Had help'd to drain the vat so dry,
Not having heard of the mishap,
Come to demand a fresh supply,
Protesting loudly that the last
All previous specimens surpass'd,
Possessing a much richer gusto
Than formerly it ever used to,
And begging as a special favour,
Some more of the exact same flavour.

Zounds! cried the Brewer, that's a task
More difficult to grant than ask—
Most gladly would I give the smack
Of the last beer to the ensuing,

But where am I to find a Black

And boil him down at every brewing?

THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL.

The following pithy fable, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is one of the very few instances in which the most profound thinker and eminent philosopher in America has condescended to enter the ranks of light literature.

THE mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter 'Little prig;'

Bun replied,

'You are doubtless very big,

But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together

To make up a year,

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry:

I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.'

MONEY.

LORD BYRON.

An Extract from the Tenth Canto of Don Juan.

WHY call the miser miserable? as

I said before the frugal life is his,

Which in a saint or cynic ever was

The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause,—

And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities?

Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial;Then there's more merit in his self-denial.

He is your only poet ;-passion, pure,

And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure :

On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze; While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dies Of other stones, to soothe the miser's

eyes.

The lands on either side are his: the ship
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads
For him the fragrant produce of each trip;
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,
And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip;

His very cellars might be kings' abodes;
While he, despising every sensual call,
Commands-the intellectual lord of all.

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race,
An hospital, a church-and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face.
Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind

Even with the very ore which makes them base;
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,
Or revel in the joys of calculation.

But whether all, or each, or none of these

May be the hoarder's principle of action, The fool will call such mania a disease :

What is his own? Go-look at each transaction, Wars, revels, love-do these bring men more ease

Than the mere plodding through each 'vulgar fraction?' Or do they benefit mankind? Lean Miser!

Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours-who's wiser!

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests
Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins

(Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests

Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests

Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp !Yes? ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

'Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,—for love Is heaven, and heaven is love :' so sings the bard ; Which it were rather difficult to prove

(A thing with poetry in general hard).

Perhaps there may be something in 'the grove,'

At least it rhymes to 'love' but I'm prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If 'courts' and 'camps' be quite so sentimental.

ON THE OXFORD CARRIER.

JOHN MILTON.

The following epitaphs on Hobson, the Cambridge University Carrier, 'who sickened in the time of his Vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the Plague,' were written by the author of Paradise Lost. The phrase 'Hobson's Choice' derived its origin from the worthy subject of the epitaphs. He kept an inn, and let horses on hire, but he would not allow his patrons to select the horses for themselves. He compelled each customer to take the one nearest the door. Hence 'Hobson's Choice' passed into a proverb as a choice without an alternative.

HERE lies old Hobson; death hath broke his girt,
And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt;
Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that, if truth were known,
Death was half-glad when he had got him down ;
For he had, any time this ten years full,
Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;

But lately finding him so long at home,

And thinking now his journey's end was come,

And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,

In the kind office of a chamberlain,

Shew'd him his room where he might lodge that night,

Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light:

If any ask for him, it shall be said,

'Hobson has supp'd, and 's newly gone to bed.'