"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor That ever sailed the sea."

Our king has written a broad letter,1
And sealed it with his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the strand.

"To Noroway, to Noroway,

To Noroway o'er the foam; The king's daughter of Noroway, 'Tis thou must bring her home!"

The first word that Sir Patrick read,
So loud, loud laughed he;

The next word that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his e'e.2

"O who is this has done this deed, And told the king o' me,

To send us out at this time of the year

To sail upon the sea?

"Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,

Our ship must sail the foam;

The king's daughter of Noroway, 'Tis we must fetch her home."

They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn
With all the speed they may;

They have landed in Noroway
Upon a Wodensday.

They had not been a week, a week,

In Noroway, but twae,1

When that the lords of Noroway

Began aloud to say,

"Ye Scottishmen spend all our king's goud,2
And all our queenis 3 fee." 4
"Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud!
Full loud I hear ye lie!

"For I brought as much white monie

6

As gane my men and me,

5

And I brought a half-fou o' good red goud
Out o'er the sea with me.

"Make ready, make ready, my merry men all!

They had not sailed a league, a league,
A league, but barely three,

When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud,
And gurly 10 grew the sea.

The anchors broke, and the topmasts lap,1
It was such a deadly storm,

And the waves came o'er the broken ship,
Till all her sides were torn.

And they wapped them round that good ship's side, But still the sea came in.

O loth, loth were our good Scots lords

To wet their cork-heeled shoon;

But long ere all the play was played,
They wet their hats aboon.1

And many was the feather-bed
That flattened on the foam;
And many was the good lord's son
That never more came home.

The ladies wrang their fingers white,
The maidens tore their hair;

All for the sake of their true loves,
For them they'll see nae mair.2

O long, long may the ladies sit,
With their fans into their hand,
Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the strand.

O long, long may the maidens sit,
With their goud kames 3 in their hair,
All waiting for their own dear loves,
For them they'll see nae mair.

O forty miles off Aberdeen

'Tis fifty fathoms deep,

And there lies good Sir Patrick Spens
With the Scots lords at his feet.

the quick ear, the judging taste, the keen smell, and the lively touch. Talent is power, tact is skill; talent is weight, tact is momentum; talent knows what to do, tact how to do it.

THE ACADEMY OF LAGADO

JONATHAN SWIFT

The following extract is from Part III of "Gulliver's Travels." Laputa, a flying island, was said to be located off the coast of China, and Lagado was the chief city of the kingdom. Swift's purpose in this chapter is to ridicule the claims of the "projectors" and the quack philosophers, so numerous in his day.

I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors, and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms. The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same color. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt in eight years more that he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate; but he complained that his stock was low, and entreated me to give him something as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for my lord had furnished me with money on purpose, because he knew their practice of begging from all who go to see them.

I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewise showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of fire, which he intended to publish. There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new method of building houses, by beginning