To the author, Miss Jane. Jane could not deny
But at the same time she begged leave to defy
The parson to prove she had uttered a lie.

A church meeting was called: Mr. Plum made a speech,
He said, "Friends, pray listen awhile, I beseech.
What my daughter has said is most certainly true,
For I saw the whole scene on the same evening, too;
But, not wishing to make an unpleasantness rife,
I did not tell either my daughter or wife.

But of course as Miss Jane saw the whole of the act,
I think it but right to attest to the fact."

""Tis remarkably strange!" the parson replied:
"It is plain Mr. Plum must something have spied;
Though the wife-beating story of course is denied;
And in that I can say I am grossly belied."

While he ransacks his brain, and ponders, and tries
To recall any scene that could ever give rise
To so monstrous a charge,-just then his wife cries,
"I have it, my love: you remember that night
When I had such a horrible, terrible fright.
We both were retiring that evening to rest,-
I was seated, my dear, and but partly undressed,
When a nasty large rat jumped close to my feet;
My shrieking was heard, I suppose, in the street;
You caught up the poker and ran round the room,
And at last knocked the rat, and so sealed its doom.
Our shadows, my love, must have played on the blind;
And this is the mystery solved, you will find."

MORAL.

Don't believe every tale that is handed about;
We have all enough faults and real failings, without
Being burdened with those of which there's a doubt.
If you study this tale, I think, too, you will find
That a light should be placed in the front, not behind:
For often strange shadows are seen on the blind.

109. THE MARCH TO MOSCOW.-Robert Southey.

The Emperor Nap he would set off

On a summer excursion to Moscow;
The fields were green and the sky was blue,-
Morbleu! Parbleu!

What a pleasant excursion to Moscow!

The Emperor Nap he talked so big
That he frightened Mr. Roscoe.
John Bull, he cries, if you'll be wise,
Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please
To grant you peace, upon your knees,

Because he is going to Moscow!
He'll make all the Poles come out of their holes,
And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians;
For the fields are green, and the sky is blue,-
Morbleu! Parbleu!

And he'll certainly march to Moscow!

And Counsellor Brougham was all in a fume
At the thought of the march to Moscow:
The Russians, he said, they were undone,
And the great Fee-Faw-Fum

Would presently come,

With a hop, step and jump, unto London.

But the Russians stoutly they turned to
Upon the road to Moscow.

Nap had to fight his way all through.

They could fight, though they could not parlez vous; But the fields were green, and the sky was blue,— Morbleu! Parbleu!

And so he got to Moscow.

He found the place too warm for him.
For they set fire to Moscow.

To get there had cost him much ado,

And then no better course he knew,

While the fields were green, and the sky was blue,Morbleu! Parbleu!

But to march back again from Moscow.

The Russians they stuck close to him

All on the road from Moscow.
There was Tormazow and Jemalow,
And all the others that end in ow;
Milarodovitch and Jaladovitch,
And Karatschkowitch,

And all the others that end in itch;
Schamscheff, Souchosaneff,
And Schepaleff,

And all the others that end in eff;
Wasiltschikoff, Kostomaroff,
And Tchoglokoff,

And all the others that end in off;
Rajeffsky, and Novereffsky,
And Rieffsky,

And all the others that end in effsky;
Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky,

And all the others that end in offsky;
And Platoff he play'd them off,
And Shouvaloff he shovelled them off,
And Markoff he marked them off,
And Krosnoff he crossed them off,
And Tuchkoff he touched them off,
And Boraskoff he bored them off,
And Kutousoff he cut them off,
And Parenzoff he pared them off,
And Worronzoff he worried them off,
And Doctoroff he doctored them off,
And Rodionoff he flogged them off,

And, last of all, an admiral came,

A terrible man with a terrible name,
A name which you all know by sight very well,
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.
They stuck close to Nap with all their might;
They were on the left and on the right,
Behind and before, and by day and by night;
He would rather parlez vous than fight;
But he looked white, and he looked blue,
Morbleu! Parbleu!

When parlez vous no more would do,
For they remembered Moscow.

And then came on the frost and snow,

All on the road from Moscow.

The wind and the weather he found, in that hour,
Cared nothing for him, nor for all his power;
For him who, while Europe crouched under his rod,
Put his trust in his Fortune, and not in his God.
Worse and worse every day the elements grew,
The fields were so white and the sky so blue,
Sacrebleu! Ventrebleu!

What a horrible journey from Moscow!

110. HISTORY OF JOHN DAY.-Thomas Hood.

John Day, he was the biggest man

Of all the coachman kind,

With back too broad to be conceived
By any narrow mind.

The very horses knew his weight,
When he was in the rear,
And wished his box a Christmas-box,
To come but once a year.

Alas! against the shafts of love

What armor can avail?
Soon Cupid sent an arrow through

His scarlet coat of mail.

The bar-maid of "The Crown" he loved,
From whom he never ranged;
For, though he changed his horses there,
His love he never changed.

One day, as she was sitting down

Beside the porter pump,

He came and knelt, with all his fat,
And made an offer plump.

Said she, "My taste will never learn
To like so huge a man;

So I must beg you will come here
As little as you can."

But still he stoutly urged his suit,
With vows, and sighs and tears,
Yet could not pierce her heart, although
He drove the "Dart" for years.

In vain he wooed-in vain he sued,-
The maid was cold and proud,
And sent him off to Coventry
While on the way to Stroud.

He fretted all the way to Stroud,
And thence all back to town;
The course of love was never smooth,
So his went up and down.

At last, her coldness made him pine
To merely bones and skin;
But still he loved like one resolved
To love through thick and thin.

"Oh, Mary! view my wasted back,
And see my dwindled calf!
Though I have never had a wife,
I've lost my better half!"

Alas! in vain he still assailed,
Her heart withstood the dint;
Though he had carried sixteen stone,
He could not move a flint!

Worn out, at last he made a vow,
To break his being's link,
For he was so reduced in size,
At nothing he could shrink.

Now, some will talk in water's praise,
And waste a deal of breath;

But John, though he drank nothing else,
He drank himself to death.

The cruel maid, that caused his love,
Found out the fatal close,

For looking in the butt she saw

The butt end of his woes.