dower, just throw a cursory
Glance in, at times, when you go near the Nursery.
Perhaps it's as well to keep children from plums,
And from pears in the season,--and sucking their thumbs!

4_to._ To sum up the whole with a "saw" of much use,
Be _just_ and be _generous_,--don't be _profuse!_--
Pay the debts that you owe, keep your word to your friends,
But--DON'T SET YOUR CANDLES ALIGHT AT BOTH ENDS!!--
For of this be assured, if you "go it" too fast,
You'll be "dished" like Sir Guy,
And like him, perhaps, die
A poor, old, half-starved Country Parson at last!

A LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS

"Statim sacerdoti apparuit diabolus in specie puellae pulchritudinis
mirae, et ecce Divus, fide catholica, et cruce, et aqua benedicta armatus
venit, et aspersit aquam in nomine Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis, quam,
quasi ardentem, diabolus, nequaquam sustinere valens, mugitibus
fugit."--ROGER HOVEDEN.

"Lord Abbot! Lord Abbot! I'd fain confess;
I am a-weary, and worn with woe;
Many a grief doth my heart oppress,
And haunt me whithersoever I go!"

On bended knee spake the beautiful Maid;
"Now lithe and listen, Lord Abbot, to me!"--
"Now naye, fair daughter," the Lord Abbot said,
"Now naye, in sooth it may hardly be.

"There is Mess Michael, and holy Mess John,
Sage penitauncers I ween be they!
And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine's cell,
Ambrose, the anchorite old and gray!"

--"Oh, I will have none of Ambrose or John,
Though sage penitauncers I trow they be;
Shrive me may none save the Abbot alone--
Now listen, Lord Abbot, I speak to thee.

"Nor think foul scorn, though mitre adorn
Thy brow, to listen to shrift of mine!
I am a maiden royally born,
And I come of old Plantagenet's line.

"Though hither I stray in lowly array,
I am a damsel of high degree;
And the Compte of Eu, and the Lord of Ponthieu,
They serve my father on bended knee!

"Counts a many, and Dukes a few,
A suitoring came to my father's Hall;
But the Duke of Lorraine, with his large domain,
He pleased my father beyond them all.

"Dukes a many, and Counts a few,
I would have wedded right cheerfullie;
But the Duke of Lorraine was uncommonly plain,
And I