"Tell me whence these meek, these gentle sheep,-whence the yet meeker, the gentler shepherdess ?"

"Well bred, we were eke better fed, ere we went where reckless men seek fleeces. There we were fleeced. Need then rendered me shepherdess, need renders me sempstress. See me tend the sheep; see me sew the wretched shreds. Eve's need preserves the steers, preserves the sheep; Eve's needle mends her dresses, hems her sheets; Eve feeds the geese; Eve preserves the cheese."

Her speech melted Stephen, yet he nevertheless esteems, reveres her. He bent the knee where her feet pressed the green; he blessed, he begged, he pressed her.

"Sweet, sweet Eve, let me wed thee; be led where IIester Green, where Ellen Heber, where the brethren Vere dwell. Free cheer greets thee there; Ellen's glees sweeten the refreshment; there severer Hester's decent reserve checks heedless jests. Be led there, sweet Eve!"

"Never! we well remember the Seer. We went where he dwells-we entered the cell—we begged the decree,—

'Where, whenever, when, 'twere well

Eve be wedded? Eld Seer, tell.'

"He rendered the decree; see here the sentence decrced!" Then she presented Stephen the Seer's decree. The verses were these:

"Ere the green reed be red,
Sweet Ece, be never wed;
Ere be green the red cheek,

Never wed thee, Ere meek."

The terms perplexed Stephen, yet he jeered the terms; he resented the senseless credence, "Seers never err." Then he repented, knelt, wheedled, wept. Eve sees Stephen kneel; she relonts, yet frets when she remembers the Seer's decree. Her dress redeems her. These were the events:

Her well-kempt tresses fell; sedges, reeds, bedecked them. The reeds fell, the edges met her cheeks; her cheeks bled. She presses the green sedge where her cheek bleeds. Red then bedewed the green reed, the green reed then speckled her red cheek. The red cheek seems green, the green reed seems red. These were e'en the terms the Eld Seer decreed Stephen Vere.

HERE ENDETH THE LEGEND.

ALPHABETICAL ADVERTISEMENT.

TO WIDOWERS AND SINGLE GENTLEMEN.— WANTED by a lady, a SITUATION to superintend the household and preside at table. She is Agreeable, Becoming, Careful, Desirable, English, Facetious, Generous, Honest, In

dustrious, Judicious, Keen, Lively, Merry, Natty, Obedient, Philosophic, Quiet, Regular, Sociable, Tasteful, Useful, Vivacious, Womanish, Xantippish, Youthful, Zealous, &c. Address X. Y. Z., Simmond's Library, Edgeware-road.-London Times, 1842.

JACOBITE TOAST.

THE following remarkable toast is ascribed to Lord Duff, and was presented on some public occasion in the year 1745.

A Blessed Change.
Down Every Foreigner.
God Help James.

Keep Lord Marr.

.

Noble Ormond Preserve.

Quickly Resolve Stewart.

Truss Up Vile Whigs.

THE following couplet, in which initials are so aptly used, was written on the alleged intended marriage of the Duke of Wellington, at a very advanced age, with Miss Angelina Burdett Coutts, the rich heiress:

The Duke must in his second childhood be,
Since in his doting age he turns to A. B. C.

ENIGMAS.

THE letter E is thus enigmatically described :

The beginning of eternity,

The end of time and space,

The beginning of every end,
The end of every place.

The letter M is concealed in the following Latin enigma by un unknown author of very ancient date:

Ego sum principium mundi et finis seculorum:

Ego sum trinus et unus, et tamen non sum Deus.

THE LETTER H.

THE celebrated enigma on the letter H, commonly attributed to Lord Byron,* is well known. The following amusing petition is addressed by this letter to the inhabitants of Kidderminster, England-Protesting:

Whereas by you I have been driven

From 'ouse, from 'ome, from 'ope, from 'eaven,
And placed by your most learned society
In Hexile, Hanguish, and Ianxiety;
Nay, charged without one just pretence,
With Harrogance and Himpudence-
I here demand full restitution,

And beg you'll mend your Helocution.

Rowland Hill, when at college, was remarkable for the frequent wittiness of his observations. In a conversation on the powers of the letter H, in which it was contended that it was no letter, but a simple aspiration or breathing, Rowland took the opposite side of the question, and insisted on its heing, to all intents and purposes, a letter; and concluded by observing that, if it were not, it was a very serious affair to him, as it would occasion his being ILL all the days of his life.

When Kohl, the traveller, visited the Church of St. Alexander Nevskoi, at St. Petersburg, his guide, pointing to a cor ner of the building, said, "There lies a Cannibal." Attracted to the tomb by this strange announcement, Kohl found from the inscription that it was the Russian general Hannibal; but as the Russians have no II, they change the letter into K; and hence the strange misnomer given to the deceased warrior. #Now known to have been written by Miss Catherine Fanshawe.

The Sandwich Island alphabet has twelve letters; the Burmese, nineteen; the Italian, twenty; the Bengalese, twenty-one; the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Samaritan, twenty-two each; the French, twenty-three; the Greek, twenty-four; the Latin, twenty-five; the German, Dutch, and English, twentysix each; the Spanish and Sclavonic, twenty-seven each; the Arabic, twenty-eight; the Persian and Coptic, thirty-two; the Georgian, thirty-five; the Armenian, thirty-eight; the Russian, forty-one; the Muscovite, fortythree; the Sanscrit and Japanese, fifty; the Ethiopic and Tartarian, two hun

dred and two each.

A city knight, who was unable to aspirate the II, on being deputed to give King William III. an address of welcome, uttered the following equivocal compliment:

"Future ages, recording your Majesty's exploits, will pronounce you to have been a Nero!"

Mrs. Crawford says she wrote one line in her song, Kathleen Mavourneen, for the express purpose of confounding the cockney warblers, who sing it thus:—

The 'orn of the 'unter is 'eard on the 'ill.

:

Moore has laid the same trap in the Woodpecker :-
A 'eart that is 'umble might 'ope for 'ere.

And the elephant confounds them the other way :—
A helephant heasily beats at his hease,
Hunder humbrageous humbrella trees.

ON THE MARRIAGE OF A LADY TO A GENTLEMAN NAMED GER

Sure, madam, by your choice a taste we see:
What's good or great or grand without a G?
A godly glow must sure on G depend,

Or oddly low our righteous thoughts must end:
The want of G all gratitude effaces;

And without G, the Graces would run races.

ON SENDING A PAIR OF GLOVES.

From this small token take the letter G,
And then 'tis love, and that I send to thee.

UNIVOCALIO VERSES.

A. THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.

Wars harm all ranks, all arts, all crafts appall:
At Mars' harsh blast, arch, rampart, altar, fall!
Ah! hard as adamant, a braggart Czar
Arms vassal swarms, and fans a fatal war!
Rampant at that bad call, a Vandal band
Harass, and harm, and ransack Wallach-land.
A Tartar phalanx Balkan's scarp hath past,
And Allah's standard falls, alas! at last.

E-THE FALL OF EVE.

Eve, Eden's Empress, needs defended be;

The Serpent greets her when she seeks the tree.
Serene, she sees the speckled tempter creep;
Gentle he seems, perversest schemer deep,-
Yet endless pretexts ever fresh prefers,
Perverts her senses, revels when she errs,
Sneers when she weeps, regrets, repents she fell;
Then, deep revenged, reseeks the nether hell!

L-THE APPROACH OF EVENING.

Idling, I sit in this mild twilight dim,
Whilst birds, in wild, swift vigils, circling skim.
Light winds in sighing sink, till, rising bright,
Night's Virgin Pilgrim swims in vivid light!

0.-INCONTROVERTIBLE FACTS.

No monk too good to rob, or cog, or plot.
No fool so gross to bolt Scotch collops hot.
From Donjon tops no Oronoko rolls.
Logwood, not Lotos, floods Oporto's bowls.
Troops of old tosspots oft, to sot, consort.
Box tops, not bottoms, school-boys flog for sport.
No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons!
Bold Ostrogoths, of ghosts no horror show.
On London shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow.
To crocks of gold no dodo looks for food.

On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood.

Long storm-tost sloops forlorn, work on to port.

Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort,

Nor dog on snow-drop or on coltsfoot rolls,
Nor common frogs concoct long protocols.

U.—THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED.

Dull humdrum murmurs lull, but hubbub εtuns.
Lucullus snuffs no musk, mundungus shuns.

Puss purrs, buds burst, bucks butt, luck turns up trumps;
But full cups, hurtful, spur up unjust thumps.

A young English lady, on observing a gentleman's lane newly planted with lilacs, made this neat impromptu :

Let lovely lilacs line Lee's lonely lane.

C