"While young Greek sculptors gazing on the child "In easy tomes a life's experience: “In one breath and one hand-sweep, all their art, "Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne, -Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the same. New reign, same date. The scribe goes on to say How that same year, on such a month and day, 66 John the Pannonian, groundedly believed "A blacksmith's bastard, whose hard hand reprieved "The Empire from its fate the year before,— "Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore "The same for six years, (during which the Huns Kept off their fingers from us) till his sons "Put something in his liquor"—and so forth. Then a new reign. Stay-"Take at its just worth" "As hearsay. Some think, John let Protus live "He wrote the little tract 'On worming dogs,' "Is extant yet. A Protus of the race "Is rumoured to have died a monk in Thrace,"And, if the same, he reached senility." Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye, Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can To give you the crown-grasper. What a man! MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA. I. HIST, but a word, fair and soft! Forth and be judged, Master Hugues ! Answer the question I 've put you so oft: What do you mean by your mountainous fugues? See, we're alone in the loft,— I, the poor organist here, II. Hugues, the composer of note, Dead though, and done with, this many a year: III. See, the church empties apace : Fast they extinguish the lights. Hallo there, sacristan! Five minutes' grace! Baulks one of holding the base. IV. See, our huge house of the sounds, Hushing its hundreds at once, Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds! -O you may challenge them, not a response Get the church-saints on their rounds! V. (Saints go their rounds, who shall doubt? VI. Aloys and Jurien and Just Order things back to their place, Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust, VII. Here's your book, younger folks shelve! Played I not off-hand and runningly, Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve? Here's what should strike, could one handle it cunningly : Help the axe, give it a helve! VIII. Page after page as I played, Every bar's rest, where one wipes Sweat from one's brow, I looked up and surveyed, O'er my three claviers, yon forest of pipes Whence you still peeped in the shade. IX. Sure you were wishful to speak, You, with brow ruled like a score, Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek, Like two great breves, as they wrote them of yore, Each side that bar, your straight beak! X. Sure you said "Good, the mere notes ! 66 Still, couldst thou take my intent, "Know what procured me our Company's votes "A master were lauded and sciolists shent, "Parted the sheep from the goats!" XI. Well then, speak up, never flinch! Quick, ere my candle 's a snuff -Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch- First you deliver your phrase -Nothing propound, that I see, Fit in itself for much blame or much praise- XIII. Straight must a Third interpose, Volunteer needlessly help; In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose, |