A fat and wealthy burgomaster,

Who drank his hock, and smoked his k'naster,

At marketing was always apter

Than any prelate in the chapter,

And thought a pheasant in sour-krout

Superior to a turkey-poult;

But woke at times before daybreak
With heart-burn, gout, or liver-ache-
Oft heard our sky-lark of the garret
Sing to his slumber, but to mar it.

He sent for John, one day, and said: "What's your year's income from your trade?"

"Master, I never thought of counting
To what my earnings are amounting
At the year's end: if every Monday
I've paid my meat and drink for Sunday,
And something in the box unspent
Remains for fuel, clothes and rent,
I've husbanded the needful scot,

And feel quite easy with my lot.

The maker of the almanac

Must, like your worship, know no lack,
Else a red-letter earnless day

Would oftener be struck away."

"John, you've been long a faithful fellow,
Though always merry, seldom mellow.
Take this rouleau of fifty dollars,
My purses glibly slip their collars;
But before breakfast let this singing
No longer in my ears be ringing:
When once your eyes and lips unclose,
I must forego my morning doze."

John blushes, bows, and stammers thanks,
And steals away on bended shanks,
Hiding and hugging his new treasure,
As it had been a stolen seizure.

At home he bolts his chamber-door,

Views, counts and weighs his tinkling store,

Nor trusts it to the savings-box

Till he has screwed on double locks.
His dog and he play tricks no more,
They're rival watchmen of the door.
Small wish has he to sing a word,

Lest thieves should climb his stair unheard.
At length he finds, the more he saves,
The more he frets, the more he craves;
That his old freedom was a blessing
Ill sold for all he's now possessing.

One day, he to his master went
And carried back his hoard unspent.
"Master," says he, "I've heard of old,
Unblest is he who watches gold.
Take back your present, and restore
The cheerfulness I knew before.
I'll take a room not quite so near,
Out of your worship's reach of ear,
Sing at my pleasure, laugh at sorrow,
Enjoy to-day, nor dread to-morrow,
Be still the steady, honest toiler,
The merry John, the old soap-boiler."

THE HEN AND THE DIAMOND.

A HUNGRY hen, in time of dearth,
Picked up a diamond of worth,
And buried it again in earth.

She spake, "What joy were it for me,
Could but the lovely stone I see

A grain of wheat or barley be!"

Well may abundance be deplored,
When all the treasures that we hoard
No real enjoyment do afford!

THE greatest national force in German literature between Martin Luther

and Klopstock was Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715-1769). He continued Luther's hymnody, but translated the stalwart faith of the great Reformer into a gentle, rationalistic piety. His writings, as Goethe has borne decisive witness, constituted, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the foundation of moral culture in Germany. The gentle piety of this timid bachelor professor inspired affection for him in the breasts of all classes of the people, while his reasoning method caused Frederick the Great to declare of him: "Gellert is the most rational of all the German savants." Both Goethe and Schiller were among his pupils at Leipsic. He was, indeed, the harbinger of the future individualism of German literature, as exemplified in its masters from Klopstock to Goethe. Professor Kuno Francke has remarked: "Gellert combined in himself those two tendencies which had come to be the chief forms of German literature after it had turned away from public life: rationalism and sentimentalism. He appeals to us, either by his humorous smile or his sympathetic tears. He dissects his own feelings as well as those of others. . . . In his 'Lectures on Morality,' not a single word about public or patriotic duties is to be found. The battle of Rossbach, the first national victory won by a German army since the days of Maximilian, an event which sent a thrill of joy through the hearts of all who still hoped for a great future of the German state, aroused in Gellert only feelings of horror and human compassion. 'Oh, that battle of Rossbach!' he wrote, 'I have lived through it, at a distance of only a few

miles ; smitten with sickness, shaken by the roaring cannonade, with panting breast and shivering hands, in prayer for the dying-no, not in prayer, for I could neither pray nor weep, sighs only were left me.' . . . And thus Gellert, by making self-reflection and self-discipline the keynote of his life as well as of his literary work, did more than any other man of his generation to cultivate that spirit which was to find its highest expression in Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister.'" And we also see a foreshadowing of the spirit of "The Sorrows of Werther," in Gellert's actually weeping over the English "Sir Charles Grandison," and his admiring exclamation, "Richardson, thou immortal man! Pride of human kind and prince of novelists!"

Gellert was fundamentally German in ideas and sentiment. He opposed the Frenchified pedant Gottsched and his school. When Frederick the Great asked Gellert concerning his own "Fables" (written in the fashion of Gay and Lafontaine), whether he had borrowed from the French fabulist, he proudly replied: "No, your Majesty, I am an Original." These "Fables" and his "Tales" remain now his meagre title to immortality. His best hymn is "Die Ehre Gottes aus der Natur" (Praise of God in Nature).

THE CUCKOO.

A CUCKOO to a Starling said,

Who from the city's din had fled:
"What say the city's busy throng,

What say they of our melody and song?
What of the Nightingale, I pray?"
"With one accord they laud her strain."
"And of the Lark?" he cried again.

"The half at least applaud her tuneful lay."
"And of the Blackbird?" he went on.
"Is also praised by more than one."
"I pray, one question more," he cried,

66 What say they in the town of me?"

"I really cannot tell," his friend replied,
"For not a soul e'er speaks of thee."

"Then on ungrateful man my vengeance will I wreak,
And ever of myself will speak."

THE TWO HEIRS.

A FATHER left behind two heirs,

His Christopher was clever, George was dull and weak. Ere fast approaching death dissolved his cares,

With grief on Christopher he looked, then thus did speak,

My son, a melancholy thought torments my mind;

Thou'st talent, how wilt thou in future fare?

Now hear me,-in my chest thou'lt find

A little chest of jewels rare;

They shall be thine, take all, my son,

And give not to thy brother one!"

The son, alarmed, began to grieve,

"Ah! father," he replied, "If I so much receive,
How will my brother George get on?"
"He?" cried the father, "O my son,

I feel no anxious care for George's sake,
His dullness will his fortune make."

THE PAINTER AND THE CRITICS.

A PAINTER, Athens his abode,

Who painted less for love of gain,

Than crowns of laurel to obtain,

Mars' portrait to a connoisseur once showed
And his opinion of it sought.

The judge spoke freely what he thought.

'Twas wholly not unto his taste, he said,
And that, to please a practised eye,

Far less of art should be displayed,

The Painter failed not to reply,

And, though the critic blamed with skill,
Was of the same opinion still.

Then in the room a coxcomb came,
To scan the work with praise or blame.
He with a glance its worth descried,
"Ye gods! a master-piece!" he cried.
"Ah, what a foot! what skilled details,
E'en to the painting of the nails!