ever gave me any rest as I sat at dinner, with their continual humming and buzzing about my ears. Sometimes they would fix upon my nose or forehead, where they stung me to the quick. I had much ado to defend myself against these odious animals, and could not forbear starting when they came on my face. It was the common practice of the dwarf to catch a number of those insects in his hand, as schoolboys do among us, and let them out suddenly under my nose, on purpose to frighten me and divert the queen. My remedy was to cut them in pieces with my knife as they flew in the air, wherein my dexterity was much admired.

I remember one morning, when Glumdalditch had set me in a box upon a window, as she usually did in fine days to give me air, after I had lifted up one of my sashes and sat down at my table to eat a bit of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than the drones of as many bagpipes. Some of them seized my cake and carried it piecemeal away, others flew about my head and face, confounding me with the noise, and putting me in the utmost terror of their stings. However, I had the courage to rise and draw my hanger and attack them in the air. I despatched four of them, but the rest got away, and I immediately shut my window. These insects were as large as partridges. I took out their stings, which were an inch and a half long, and as sharp as needles.

I should have lived happily enough in that country if my littleness had not exposed me to several ridiculous and troublesome accidents, some of which I shall venture to relate. Glumdalditch often carried me to the gardens of the court in my smaller box, and would sometimes take me out of it and hold me in her hand, or set me down to walk. I remember before the dwarf left the queen he followed us one day into these gardens, and my nurse having set me down, he and I being close together near some dwarf apple trees, I must needs show my wit by a silly allusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold in their language as it does in ours; whereupon the malicious rogue, watching his opportunity when I was walking under one of them, shook it directly over my head, by which a dozen apples, each of them nearly as large as a Bristol barrel,

One of them hit me on the back

came tumbling about my ears. as I chanced to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face; but I received no other hurt, and the dwarf was pardoned, at my desire, because I had given the provocation.

Another day Glumdalditch left me on a smooth grass plot to divert myself while she walked at some distance with her governess. In the meantime there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail that I was immediately, by the force of it, struck to the ground; and when I was down, the hailstones gave me such cruel bangs all over my body as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls. However, I made a shift to creep on all-fours and shelter myself by lying flat on my face on the lee-side of a border of lemon-thyme, but so bruised from head to foot that I could not go abroad for ten days.

Poems to be Remembered.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS
OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

PART I.

THE poet remarks that he remembers a time when he saw natural objects in a more glorious light than he sees them now; that Nature to him is still lovely, but not so lovely as it was; and that in his walks he feels, wherever he goes, that a glory which he possessed in childhood has departed from the earth.

I.

HERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore:
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II.

The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;

The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

This feeling of a glory departed-that the meadows, woods, and rivers are not so sweet to him as they were in his childhood-brings a mournful thought into the poet's mind, which, like all mournful thoughts, is eased by utterance. He cannot indulge a sentimental sorrow while the earth is so glad, and every beast is keeping holiday in the merry month of May.

III.

Now while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound,

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep!
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng;
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity;
And with the heart of May

Doth every beast keep holiday.

Thou child of joy

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts,
Thou happy shepherd boy.

The poet, in an ecstasy of joy, addressing the animal creation, so happy in the glorious weather of May, exclaims that he cannot refuse to share their bliss. But still, looking around, everything tells him of something that is gone-even pansy at his feet is not to him what it once was; and he inquires to what place this glory, which he misses and laments, has departed.

the

IV.

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss I feel-I feel it all.
Oh, evil day! if I were sullen
While the Earth herself is adorning
This sweet May morning,

And the children are pulling,

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers, while the sun shines warm,
And the babe leaps up in its mother's arm!
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

But there's a tree, of many one

A single field, which I have looked upon-
Both of them speak of something that is gone.
The pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

[Those who appreciate this manner of opening up the meaning of poetry to children, will find the most popular poems in the language so dealt with in John Heywood's Explanatory Book of Standard Poetry, 160 pages, price One Shilling.]

The Boy Without a Genius.

R. WISEMAN, the schoolmaster, at the end of the summer vacation, received a new scholar with the following letter :

"Sir,-This will be delivered to you by my son Samuel, whom I beg leave to commit to

your care, hoping, by your well-known skill and attention, you will be able to make something of him which, I am sorry to say, none of his masters have hitherto done.

He is now eleven, and yet can do nothing but read his mothertongue, and that but indifferently. We sent him at seven to a grammar school in our neighbourhood; but his master soon found that his genius was not turned to learning languages. He was then put to writing, but he set about it so awkwardly that he made nothing of it. He was tried at accounts, but it was found that he had no genius for that either. He could do nothing in geography for want of memory. short, if he has any genius at all, it does not yet show itself. But I trust to your experience in cases of this nature to discover what he is fit for, and to instruct him accordingly. I beg to be favoured shortly with your opinion about him, and remain, sir, your obedient servant, "HUMPHREY ACRES."

In

When Mr. Wiseman had read this letter he shook his head and said to his assistant, "A pretty subject they have sent us herea lad that has a great genius for nothing at all. But perhaps my friend Mr. Acres expects that a boy should show a genius for a thing before he knows anything about it-no uncommon error ! Let us see, however, what the youth looks like. I suppose he is a human creature at least."

Master Samuel Acres was now called in. He came, hanging down his head, and looking as if he was going to be flogged.

"Come hither, my dear!" said Mr. Wiseman, " and stand by me, and do not be afraid. Nobody will hurt you. How old are you?"

"Eleven last May, sir."

"A well grown boy for your age, indeed. You love play, I dare say?"

"Yes, sir."

"What are you a good hand at-marbles?"

"Pretty good, sir.”

"And can spin a top, and drive a hoop, I suppose?"

66

Yes, sir."

"Then you have the full use of your hands and fingers?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can you write, Samuel?"

"I learned a little, sir, but left it off again."

"And why so?"