'THE GRAVE-DIGGER.'

'OLD man! old man! for whom digg'st thou this

grave?'

I ask'd as I walk'd along;

For I saw in the heart of London streets

A dark and a busy throng.

'Twas a strange wild deed!--but a wilder wish Of the parted soul, to lie

'Midst the troubled number of living men,

Who would pass him idly by!

So I said, 'Old man! for whom digg'st thou this

grave,

In the heart of London town?'

And the deep-toned voice of the digger replied, 'We're laying a gas-pipe down!'

ROBIN GOODFELLOW.

Robin Goodfellow, alias Hobgoblin, alias Puck, an English domestic sprite, who was, as Sir Walter Scott has written, the constant attendant upon the English fairy court, and, to the elves, acted in some measure as the clown or jester of the company, a character then to be found in the establishment of every person of quality, or, to use a more modern comparison, resembled the Pierrot of the pantomime. His jests were of the most simple, and, at the same time, of the broadest comic character; to mislead a clown on his path homeward, to disguise

himself like a stool, in order to induce an old gossip to commit the egregious mistake of sitting down on the floor when she expected to repose on a chair, were his special employments.' In the writings of Shakespeare and Milton reference is made to this spirit. The following poem is attributed to Ben Jonson, but on supposition only.

FROM Oberon, in fairy land,

The king of ghosts and shadows there,

Mad Robin I, at his command,

Am sent to view the night-sports here.

What revel rout

Is kept about,

In every corner where I go,

I will o'ersee,

And merry be,

And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightning can I fly

About this airy welkin soon,

And in a minute's space, descry

Each thing that's done below the moon.

There's not a hag

Or ghost shall wag,

Or cry, 'ware goblins! where I go;

But Robin I

Their feats will spy,

And send them home with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meet,

As from their night-sports they trudge home,

With counterfeiting voice I greet,

And call them on with me to roam :

Through woods, through lakes ; Through bogs, through brakes; Or else, unseen, with them I go, All in the nick,

To play some trick,

And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho!

Sometimes I meet them like a man,

Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;

And to a horse I turn me can,

To trip and trot about them round.

But if to ride

My back they stride,
More swift than wind away I go,
O'er hedge and lands,

Through pools and ponds,

I hurry, laughing, ho, ho, ho!

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets and with junkets fine;
Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine!
And, to make sport,

I puff and snort:

And out the candles I do blow :

The maids I kiss,

They shriek-Who's this?

I answer nought, but ho, ho, ho!

Yet now and then, the maids to pleasc, At midnight I card up their wool;