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REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE.

BLACK-EYED

SUSAN.

၅)

[JOHN GAY, born at Barnstaple in 1688. Apprenticed in youth to a silk-mercer.

Subsequently secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth and envoy to Hanover. Died December 4, 1782, of inflammatory fever.]

ALL in the downs the fleet was moored,
The streamers waving in the wind,
When black-eyed Susan came aboard:

"Oh! where shall I my true love find? Tell me, ye jovial sailors, tell me true,

If my sweet William sails among the crew?"
William, who high upon the yard

Rocked with the billow to and fro,
Soon as her well-known voice he heard,

He sighed, and cast his eyes below;

The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands, And, quick as lightning, on the deck he stands.

So sweet the lark, high poised in air,

Shuts close his pinions to his breast
(If chance his mate's shrill call he hear),
And drops at once into her nest;
The noblest captain in the British fleet
Might envy William's lips those kisses sweet.

"Oh! Susan! Susan! lovely dear!

My vows shall ever true remain;
Let me kiss off that falling tear-
We only part to meet again.
Change as ye list, ye winds! my heart shall be
The faithful compass that still points to thee.

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Believe not what the landsmen say,

Who tempt with doubts thy constant mind; They'll tell thee sailors, when away,

In every port a mistress find;

Yes, yes, believe them when they tell thee so,
For thou art present wheresoe'er I go.

"If to fair India's coast we sail,

Thy eyes are seen in diamonds bright, Thy breath in Afric's spicy gale,

Thy skin in ivory so white;

Thus every beauteous object that I view,
Wakes in my soul some charm of lovely Sue.
"Though battle call me from thy arms,

Let not my pretty Susan mourn;
Though cannons roar, yet, safe from harms,
William shall to his dear return.

Love turns aside the balls that round me fly,
Lest precious tears should drop from Susan's eye."
The boatswain gave the dreadful word,

The sails their swelling bosom spread;
No longer must she stay aboard;

They kissed-she sighed, he hung his head Her lessening boat unwilling rows to land; "Adieu!" she cries, and waved her lily hand

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[WILLIAM COWPER, born at Great Berkhampstead, November 15, 1731. Educated at Westminster. insanity. Lived chiefly at Olney. Died April 25, 1800.]

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Was subject to fits of

"Again, would your lordship a moment suppose"Tis a case that has happened, and may be again

That the visage or countenance had not a nose, Pray who would, or who could, wear spectacles then?

VI.

"On the whole, it appears, and my argument shows,

With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them."

VII.

Then, shifting his side (as a lawyer knows how),
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes;
But what were his arguments few people know;
For the court did not think they were equally
wise.

VIII.

"Your lordship observes they are made with a So his lordship decreed, with a grave, solemn tone,

straddle

As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,

Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.

Decisive and clear, without one if or but, That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on— By daylight or candlelight-Eyes should be shut:

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ALEXANDER POPE, born in London, May 22, 1688; resided near Windsor Forest. Subsequently removed to a villa at Twickenham, where he died on May 30, 1744.]

I HAVE a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impression upon me. I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. .. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one -let it sound as it will-was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five-and-twenty; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that she had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed (it was on the last of July), a

terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sank on a haycock; and John, who never separated from her, sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if heaven had bursted asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another. Those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no answer, stepped to the place where they lay; they first saw a little smoke, and after this the faithful pair-John with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, where my Lord Harcourt, at my request, has erected a monument over them.

Upon the whole, I cannot think these people unhappy. The greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree could have, was to be remembered on a little monument.

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[JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, born at Boston, U.S., 1819.
PROPT on the marsh, a dwelling now I see-
The humble school-house of my A B C,
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire,
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire:
Then all together, when the signal came,
Discharged their a b-abs against the dame,
Who, 'mid the volleyed learning, firm and calm,
Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm;
And, to our wonder, could detect at once

Chiefly known in England as the author of the "Biglow Papers."]
So that the weather, or the ferule's stings,
Colds in the head, or fifty other things,
Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week
To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek;
The vibrant accent skipping here and there
Just as it pleased invention or despair.
No controversial Hebraist was the dame-
With or without the "points" pleased her the

Who flashed the pan, and who was downright
dunce.

There young Devotion learned to climb with ease
The gnarly limbs of Scripture family trees;
And he was most commended and admired
Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired.
Each name was called as many various ways,
As pleased the reader's ears on different days;

same.

If any tyro found a name too tough,
And looked at her, pride furnished skill enough;
She nerved her larynx for the desperate thing,
And cleared the five-barred syllables at a spring.
Ah, dear old times! there once it was my hap,
Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eared cap;
From books degraded, there I sat at ease,
A drone, the envy of compulsory bees.

JOHNNY IN HOSPITAL.

[MR. CHARLES DICKENS, in the following passage from "Our Mutual Friend," refers to that excellent institution, the Children's Hospital, in Great Ormond Street, which owes so much to his constant support. If any of our readers desire to give their mites to the Hospital, the Secretary, at the Hospital, will no doubt be glad to receive them.]

PUNCTUAL to the time, appeared the carriage and the secretary. He sat on the box, and Mr. Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the "Three Magpies," as before, where Mrs. Boffin and Miss 6-VOL. I.

Bella were handed out, and whence they all went on foot to Mrs. Betty Higden's.

But, on the way down, they had stopped at a toy-shop, and had bought that noble charger, a

description of whose points and trappings had on the last occasion conciliated the then worldlyminded orphan, and also a Noah's ark, and also a yellow bird with an artificial voice in him, and also a military doll, so well dressed that if he had only been of life-size his brother officers in the Guards might never have found him out. Bearing these gifts, they raised the latch of Betty Higden's door, and saw her sitting in the dimmest and furthest corner, with poor Johnny in her lap.

"And how's my boy, Betty?" asked Mrs. Boffin, sitting down beside her.

“He's bad! he's bad!" said Betty; "I begin to be afeerd he'll not be yours any more than mine. All others belonging to him have gone to the Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they're drawing him to them-leading him away."

"No, no, no!" said Mrs. Boffin.

"I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had hold of a finger that I can't see. Look at it," said Betty, opening the wrappers in which the flushed child iay, and showing his small right hand lying closed upon his breast. "It's always so. It don't mind me." "Is he asleep?"

to remove Johnny from this cottage to where he can be taken better care of."

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Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old woman started up with blazing eyes, and rushed at the door with the sick child. Stand away from me, every one of ye!" she cried out wildly. "I see what ye mean now. Let me go my way, all of ye. I'd sooner kill the pretty, and kill myself."

"Stay, stay!" said Rokesmith, soothing her, "you don't understand.”

"I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've run from it too many a year. No, never for me, nor for the child, while there's water enough in England to cover us!"

The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, firing the worn face and perfectly maddening it, would have been quite a terrible sight, if embodied in one old fellow-creature alone. Yet it "crops up "-as our slang goes-my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in other fellow-creatures, rather frequently.

"It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor mine alive!" cried old Betty. "I've done with ye. I'd have fastened door and window, and starved out afore I'd ever have let ye

"No, I think not. You're not asleep, my in, if I had known what ye came for." But, Johnny?"

catching sight of Mrs. Boffin's wholesome face, she

"No," said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for relented, and crouching down by the door and himself, and without opening his eyes.

"Here's the lady, Johnny, and the horse." Johnny could bear the lady with complete indifference, but not the horse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly broke into a smile on beholding that splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in his arms. As it was much too big, it was put upon a chair, where he could hold it by the mane and contemplate it, which he soon forgot to do. But, Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs. Boffin not knowing what, old Betty bent her ear to listen, and took pains to understand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had said, he did so two or three times, and then it came out that he must have seen more than they supposed when he looked up to see the horse, for the murmur was, "Who is the boofer lady?

Now the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella; and whereas this notice from the poor baby would have touched her of itself, it was rendered more pathetic by the late melting of her heart to her poor little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So Bella's behaviour was very tender and very natural when she kneeled on the brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child, with a child's admiration of what is young and pretty, fondled the "boofer " lady.

"Now, my good, dear Betty," said Mrs. Boffin, hoping that she saw her opportunity, and laying her hand persuasively on her arm; we have come

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bending over her burden to hush it, said, humbly, "Maybe my fears has put me wrong. have so, tell me; and the good Lord forgive me! I'm quick to take this fright, I know, and my head is summat light with wearying and watching."

"There, there, there!" returned Mrs. Boffin. "Come, come, say no more of it, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake! Any one of us might have made it in your place, and felt just as you do.”

"The Lord bless ye!" said the old woman, stretching out her hand.

"Now, see, Betty," pursued the sweet, compassionate soul, holding the hand kindly, “what I really did mean, and what I should have begun by saying out, if I had only been a little wiser and handier. We want to move Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a place set up on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, touch none but children, comfort and cure none but children.”

"Is there really such a place?" asked the old woman, with a gaze of wonder.

it.

"Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see If my home was a better place for the dear boy, I'd take him to it; but indeed, indeed it's not."

"You shall take him," returned Betty, fervently kissing the comforting hand, "where you will, my

JOHNNY IN HOSPITAL.

deary. I am not so hard, but that I believe your face and voice, and I will, as long as I can see and hear."

This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for he saw how woefully time had been lost. He dispatched Sloppy to bring the carriage to the door; caused the child to be carefully wrapped up; bade old Betty get her bonnet on; collected the toys, enabling the little fellow to comprehend that his treasures were to be transported with him; and had all things prepared so easily that they were ready for the carriage as soon as it appeared, and in a minute afterwards were on their way. Sloppy they left behind, relieving his overcharged breast with a paroxysm of mangling.

At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, the yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were made as welcome as their childowner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, "This should have been days ago. Too late!"

However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or a swoon, or whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform over his breast, on which were already arranged, to give him heart and urge him to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble steed, and the yellow bird; with the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as much to the satisfaction of his country as if he had been upon Parade. And at the bed's head was a coloured picture beautiful to see, representing as it were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel, surely, who loved little children. And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at, Johnny had become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds (except two playing dominoes in little arm-chairs at a little table on the hearth): and on all the little beds were little platforms whereon were to be seen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not very dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers, wooden tea-things, and the riches of the earth.

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministering woman at his bed's head asked him what he said. It seemed that he wanted to know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his. So they told him yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had brought them all together there. So they told him yes again. They made out then, that he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain. So they answered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand that the reply included himself.

Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very imperfectly developed, even in a

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state of health, that in sickness they were little more than monosyllabic. But he had to be washed and tended, and remedies were applied, and though those offices were far, far more skilfully and lightly done than ever anything had been done for him in his little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and tired him but for an amazing circumstance which laid hold of his attention. This was no less than the appearance on his own little platform in pairs, of all creation, on its way into his own particular ark: the elephant leading, and the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely bringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next bed with a broken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his delight exalted its enthralling interest; and so came rest and sleep.

"I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty," whispered Mrs. Boffin.

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'No, ma'am. Most willingly, most thankfully, with all my heart and soul."

So they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come back early in the morning, and nobody but Rokesmith knew for certain how that the doctor had said, "This should have been days ago. Too late!"

But Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in mind would be acceptable thereafter to that good woman who had been the only light in the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead and gone, resolved that late at night he would go back to the bedside of John Harmon's namesake, and see how it fared with him.

The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light, womanly tread and a pleasant, fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itself up into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face went byfor these little patients are very loving-and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. The mite with the broken leg was restless and moaned; but after a while turned his face towards Johnny's bed, to fortify himself with a view of the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them when they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent grotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood for the children's dreams.

The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he and Rokesmith stood together, looking down with compassion on him.

"What is it, Johnny ?" Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm round the poor baby as he made a struggle.

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