ard breeds,--
Ha--I see de knife, vile de deesh it shapens,
Vith les petits noix, of four-and-twenty capons,
Dere vere dindons, fatted poulets, fowls in plenty,
Five times nine of partridges, and of pheasants twenty;
Ten grouse, that should have had as many covers,
All in dis one deesh, with six preety plovers,
Forty woodcocks, plump, and heavy in the scales,
Pigeons dree good dozens, six-and-dirty quails,
Ortulans, ma foi, and a century of snipes,
But de preetiest of dem all was twice tree dozen pipes
Of de melodious larks, vich each did clap the ving,
And veeshed de pie vas open, dat dey all might sing!"

125. There are stiff bits of prosody in these verses,--one or two,
indeed, quite unmanageable,--but we must remember that French meter
will not read into ours. The last piece I will give flows very
differently. It is in express imitation of Scott--but no nobler model
could be chosen; and how much better for minor poets sometimes to write
in another's manner, than always to imitate their own.

This chant is sung by the soul of the Francesca of the Bird-ordained
purgatory; whose torment is to be dressed only in falling snow, each
flake striking cold to her heart as it falls,--but such lace
investiture costing, not a cruel price per yard in souls of women, nor
a mortal price in souls of birds.

Her 'snow-mantled shadow' sings:

"Alas, my heart! No grief so great
As thinking on a happy state
In misery. Ah, dear is power
To female hearts! Oh, blissful hour
When Blanche and Flavia, joined with me,
Tri-feminine Directory,
Dispensed in latitudes below
The laws of flounce and furbelow;
And held on bird and beast debate,
What lives should die to serve our state!
We changed our statutes with the moon,
And oft in January or June,
At deep midnight, we would prescribe
Some furry kind, or feathered tribe.
At morn, we sent the mandate forth;
Then rose the hunters of the North:
And all the trappers of the West
Bowed at our feminine behest.
Died every seal that dared to rise
To his round air-hole in the ice;
Died each Siberian fox and hare
And ermine trapt in snow-built snare.
For us the English fowler set
The ambush of his whirling net;
And by green Rother's reedy side
The blue kingfisher flashed and died.
His life for us the seamew gave
High upon Orkney's l