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A CHAPTER OF FROISSART

(GRANDPAPA LOQUITUR)

U don't know Froissart now, young folks,
This age, I think, prefers recitals

Of high-spiced crime, with "slang" for jokes,
And startling titles;

But, in my time, when still some few

Loved "old Montaigne," and praised Pope's

Homer

(Nay, thought to style him "poet" too,

Were scarce misnomer),

Sir John was less ignored. Indeed,
I can recall how Some-one present
(Who spoils her grandson, Frank!) would read,
And find him pleasant;

For, by this copy,-hangs a Tale.

Long since, in an old house in Surrey, Where men knew more of "morning ale' Than "Lindley Murray,"

In a dim-lighted, whip-hung hall,

'Neath Hogarth's "Midnight Conversation," It stood; and oft 'twixt spring and fall, With fond elation,

I turned the brown old leaves. For there
All through one hopeful happy summer,
At such a page (I well knew where),
Some secret comer,

Whom I can picture, "Trix, like you
(Though scarcely such a colt unbroken),
Would sometimes place for private view
A certain token ;—

A rose-leaf, meaning "Garden Wall,"
An ivy-leaf for "Orchard corner,"
A thorn to say "Don't come at all,”-
Unwelcome warner!-

Not that, in truth, our friends gainsaid;
But then Romance required dissembling,
(Ann Radcliffe taught us that!) which bred
Some genuine trembling;

Though, as a rule, all used to end
In such kind confidential parley
As may to you kind Fortune send,

You long-legged Charlie,

When your time comes. How years slip on!
We had our crosses like our betters;
Fate sometimes looked askance upon
Those floral letters;

And once, for three long days disdained,
The dust upon the folio settled;
For some-one, in the right, was pained,
And some-one nettled,

That sure was in the wrong, but spake
Of fixed intent and purpose stony
To serve King George, enlist and make
Minced-meat of "Boney,"

Who yet survived-ten years at least.
And so, when she I mean came hither,
One day that need for letters ceased,
She brought this with her!

Here is the leaf-stained Chapter :- How
The English King laid siege to Calais;
I think Gran. knows it even now,—

Go ask her, Alice.

TO THE MAMMOTH-TORTOISE

OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS

"Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem

Callida nervis."

-HOR. iii. II

MONSTER Chelonian, you suggest

To some, no doubt, the calm,—

The torpid ease of islets drest

In fan-like fern and palm;

To some your cumbrous ways, perchance,
Darwinian dreams recall;

And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;

So widely varied views dispose:
But not so mine,-for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A LYRE immense, per se,

A LYRE to which the Muse might chant A truly "Orphic tale,"

Could she but find that public want,

A Bard-of equal scale!

Oh, for a Bard of awful words,

And lungs serenely strong,

To sweep from your sonorous chords Niagaras of song,

Till, dinned by that tremendous strain, The grovelling world aghast,

Should leave its paltry greed of gain, And mend its ways. . at last!