anaries
for depositing it. Apparently there is a great conflux of people, and much
business stirring. I quickly perceived, in the midst of this ever-moving
throng, my old friend the vender of rat-destroying powders--busied in the
exercise of his calling, and covered with his usual vestment of white,
spotted or painted with black rats. He found plenty of hearers and plenty
of purchasers. All was animation and bustle. In the midst of it, a man came
forward to the edge of a bank--below which a great concourse was assembled.
He beat a drum, to announce that a packet boat, would sail to Jersey in the
course of the afternoon; but the people seemed too intent upon their
occupations and gambols to attend to him. I sat upon a bench and read one
of the little chap books--_Richard sans peur_--which I had purchased the
same morning.
While absorbed in reflections upon the heterogeneous scene before me--and
wishing, for some of my dearest friends in England to be also spectators of
it--the notes of an hand-organ more and more distinctly stole upon my ear.
They were soft; and even pleasing notes. On looking round, I observed that
the musician preceded a person, who carried aloft a Virgin, with the infant
Jesus, in wax; and who, under such a sign, exhorted the multitude to
approach and buy his book-wares. I trust I was too thorough-bred a
_Roxburgher_ to remain quiet on the bench: and accordingly starting up, and
extending two sous, I became the fortunate purchaser of a little _chap_
article--of which my friend BERNARDO will for ever, I fear, envy me the
possession! The vender of the tome sang through his nose, as the organ
warbled the following
_Cantique Spirituelle_.
EN L'HONNEUR DU TRES-SAINT SACREMENT,
_Qui est expose dans la grande Eglise cathedrale de St. Pierre et
St. Paul de Rome, pour implorer la misericorde de Dieu_.
Air: du Theodore Francais.
APPROCHEZ-VOUS, Chretiens fideles,
Afin d'entendre reciter:
Ecoutez tous avec un grand zele,
Avec ferveur et piete,
Le voeu que nous avons fait,
D'aller au grand Saint Jacques;
Grace a Dieu nous l'avons accompli,
Pour l'amour de Jesus Christ.
Dieu crea le ciel et la terre,
Les astres et le firmament;
Il fit la brillante lumiere,
Ainsi que tous les autres elemens,
Il a tire tout du neant,
Ce qui respire sur la terre:
Rendons hommage a la grandeur
De notre divin Createur.
[156]Tous les jours la malice augmente, Il y a
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