fore them, and Nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts and the clearest charge which judge had ever given, to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters and all present, without leaving the box or any manner of consultation whatever they brought in a simultaneous verdict of "Not guilty."

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision, and when the court was dismissed went privily and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days His Lordship's town-house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fire in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insuranceoffices, one and all, shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world.

Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a discovery that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked (burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string or spit came in a century or two later-I forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious, arts make their way amongst mankind.

CHARLES LAMB.

him-once

His father's white-haired

joy :

A grand old gentleman was he

(Luff, Jack, lad!-Ship ahoy!),

But he is dead now, and

poor Jack

Is only a sailor-boy.

Anon the boom of the minute-gun

Rang low through the breezes' roar, And the lifeboat plunged through the plunging foam,

And a lantern from the shore Showed Jack at the stern with his rough brave hand

Clutching the strong stroke-oar.

"Steady!" he cried. "Head her, my lads, Where the thundering billows break; Out where the red lamps blaze, my boys: Let the broken sea boil in our wake; And save him, save him, save him, lads, For Gertrude Marmion's sake!"

grave

So passed the spring; and when the fields Were green with summer corn,

She and the noble lord were wed

And when the next May morn Gleamed sweetly on the waveless sea, Her first boy-babe was born.

And the husband stooped and laid his arms About his pale wife's neck.

"We'll call our son," he said, "to bring My father's dead name back, Eustace Fitzharding."

Nay," she said, "We'll call his name plain JACK."

And night by night (the old folks say)
There comes a wild sea-gull,
And sitteth like a great white dove,

Moaning and beautiful,

Above the wreck and the body of Jack, On the reef of Innishtrahull.

SAMUEL K. COWAN.

UNDER THE WILLOWS.

UNDE

NDER the willows that grow by the river

Our little bark glides on its musical way; The wavelets are flecked with the tremulous quiver

Of sunshine and shadow at riotous play. We float past a tangle of whispering rushes Asway 'neath each zephyr that steals through the glade,

And noiselessly glide through the dim, silent

hushes

That brood in the cool, dewy coverts of

shade.