To sneer and reprove, For he had no money

THE NEGLECTED POET.

A poet sat musing

One night on his stool,
Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool; The cold wind was high

And his cold fire low,

And closer he crouched

With a sorrowful "Oh!"

As silently o'er it

Each little coal drew

Its hood of grey ashes
And bade him adieu!
And sad was his musing
That night on his stool,
Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool.

The snow was descending,

He heard now and then,
Again,

And still now and then,
A little flake's foot

Stepping spitefully on The few coals, as though

It wished them all gone! 'Twas so like the voices

Of triumph and scorn Coming angrily down

On the meek and forlorn! And sad was his musing That night on his stool, Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool.

His garret was open

And through the cracks walked,
And talked,

Through every crack walked

The cold cruel winds,

That seemed with a hiss

And a laugh to cry out

Here he is! Here he is!

Yet thought he not so much
Of cold winds and snows,
As man's icy charity

Colder than those!
And sad was his musing
That night on his stool,
Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool.

In sickness and sorrow
He suffered alone,
Unknown.

He bore all alone,

And often he turned

On his pillow to lean

His thin fevered cheek

Where the tears hadn't been But ah! it was dampened

So thoroughly o'er,

At last he lay quiet

And worried no more!

And sad was his musing

That night on his stool,
Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool.

His sweet songs had moved them, Moved millions to tears, Through years,

To joy and to tears.
But there in his garret
So cheerless and dim,
None ever came near

To shed one for him;
All coldly they passed him

And they had no love! And sad was his musing That night on his stool, Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool.

Yet still he continued
To tune his great heart,
Apart,

To tune his great heart

In unison with

The solemn sad roar

That ever comes up

From time's sounding shore.

To brood over nightly,

Brood over each morrow,
Each poor brother's measure
Of sadness and sorrow,

And sad was his musing
That night on his stool,
Poor fool!

On his three-legged stool,

MY FIRST LOVE.

C. W. A.

THERE are probably but few men among us (to say nothing of the women!) who have not some pleasing recollections of a school-boy passion. For my part I frankly confess that I am not of that few. With the memory of the time when I used to study at night, that I might devote the day, school hours and all, to innocent amusements, such as playing "fox and geese," and "tick-tack-tow," behind the teacher's back, and sliding down-hill, snapping the whip, and playing ball during the intermission-with the memory of that happy time, I say, is associated the reminiscence of a boyish love. had my Mary, and I was as devoted to her as ever Byron was to his. I was her companion, her servant, and her poet. We went together to pick up beech-nuts, and to dig roots in the woods. I used to go for water when she was thirsty, and to hold her bonnet, when she wished to crawl through holes in the fence. I was with her continually, whether it was her pleasure to see-saw, to jump the rope, or to wander across the fields.

I

During the school hours I was not the less attentive to my "Mary." I was thinking of her when I should have been thinking of my lessons, and when I should have been writing "copies," I was sending billets-doux to her across the school-house, or keeping up a tender correspondence with her on slates. Of course, my first attempts at poetry consisted of "Verses to Mary.'

The teachers sometimes used to let us go out doors and study, during the pleasant weather, either because they believed us when we asserted that we could learn our lessons quicker in the open air, or, what is more probable, because they were anxious to get as many of the noisy ones as possible out of the way. At any rate they used to permit the girls, two or three in number, to take their books and sit on the grass on one side of the schoolhouse, and the boys to enjoy the same privilege on the other. It is needless to say, that the girls and boys had an unaccountable yearning to disobey the teachers, and get together; and that on such occasions I was always to be found on the wrong side of the school-house, chatting "pretty sentiments" to my Mary.

That I loved my Mary, with all the strength and purity of which the young and untaught heart is capable, is my sincere belief; and I have not a doubt but that she reciprocated my tenderness. But she was fond of mischief, and delighted to torment me with jealousy. This she was well able to do, for I had a rival who was almost as assiduous as myself. Fred B-was a gay young

spark, and I was horribly jealous of him, the more so when Mary would sometimes leave my society for his, One night there was a "spelling-school." Mary had promised me that she would be at the school-house early, and of course I went to meet her, and enjoy a short season of tenderness before the evening exercises began. But I was destined to suffer some chagrin. Fred Bwas there before me, and when I arrived, I found him and Mary on quite too intimate terms to suit my jealous

nature.

The candles were lighted. Mary sat on one of the front seats, with a broad table directly before her, and Fred was at the extremity of the table, by which he was prevented from making any very near approaches to the object of our joint attachment.

to

While the few scholars who had arrived were enjoying themselves exceedingly, before the evening exercises commenced, I sat apart, gloomy and sullen, watching with a jealous, angry eye, the movements of my rival. At length, my infinite relief, Fred ran to join the sports of his fellow-pupils, and Mary was left alone. She beckoned | to me to come and sit with her, but I meant to make her feel my resentment; and much as I wished to speak to her, I scrupulously turned my eyes to another quarter of the house.

Soon the candles were blown out by some mischievous scholars, and the room was involved in total darkness.

now

"Now," thought I, forgetting my resentment, is the time to make up with Mary." In a moment I was by her side. The table prevented me from approaching too closely, but I whispered her name, and, reaching over, succeeded in getting hold of her hand. I heard a shuffling-I felt that she was removing my hand from the one I held of hers to the other; and then I felt a gentle squeeze. My heart leaped to my throat with pleasurable emotions. I returned the pressure, and was delighted to feel her fair hand squeeze mine with greater ardour than before. I forgot Fred B- in a moment.

"Do you love me?" I whispered passionately. "Dearly!" was the reply.

"Oh! I am but too happy!" I sighed.

"But you do not love me," I heard in another whisper.

"You know I do!" I exclaimed, almost speaking aloud -"you know I do!"

The fair hand which held my own, squeezed it harder than ever. I returned the pressure more ardently than before. Indeed, I was about pushing the table aside, that I might approach my Mary more nearly, and embrace her, when-a candle was lighted.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed a light, ringing voice, directly behind me.

I started in surprise-for that was Mary's voice! I looked for her in the seat she had occupied a moment before, but she was not there; and the hand I had been squeezing so ardently-that hand, reader, was the hand of my rival!

Like myself, he had flown to Mary's side the moment the lights were extinguished; and she had managed, after placing my hand within that of my rival, to glide out of her seat unobserved. And thus she had left us, whispering love to each other, and squeezing each other's hand across the table!

THE TOWN MUSICIANS OF BREMEN.
FROM THE GERMAN.

AN ass, wno for many long years had faithfully served his master, became at length weak with age, and unfit for toil. Then food and shelter were begrudged him, and the useless servant was looked on with an evil eye. He left

He had not proceeded far on his journey, when he saw by the road-side a hound who panted for breath. "How now, Hold-fast?"

"Alas!" said the Hound, "I am old; each day I get weaker, and lag in the chase; therefore, my master wishes to kill me. I have fled, but how shall I now gain my bread?"

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Friend," replied the Ass, "I am going to try my fortune in Bremen, as town musician; come with me, I will play the lute, you shall beat the kettle-drum.”

The hound jumped at the proposal, and the partners went on together. Not long after they came to a cat, sitting at the foot of a tree, with an aspect as dismal as three days of rain.

"How goes it with you, old Beard-wiper?" cried the Ass.

"Who can be merry," returned the Cat," when the stone is ready for his neck? Because I am somewhat advanced in years, my teeth are not as sharp as they have been, and I would rather sit behind the stove and purr than hunt the mice; therefore, my old woman wants to drown me. I have run away, but how shall I live

now?"

"Go with us to Bremen; you understand serenading; join our band of town musicians."

The desponding cat consented, and the three wanderers journeyed on until they arrived at a farm-yard, upon the gate of which was perched an old cock, who crowed with all his might.

"Your shrieks pierce my bones and marrow," said the Ass, "what ails you?"

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Alack-a-day!" replied the Cock, "although I prophesied fine weather, that the mistress might wash her god-child's little shirts, and dry them well, her heart is hard; she has no pity: to-morrow guests are coming, and she has told the cook to make soup of me; to-night my head is to be cut off. I will scream while breath is left in me!"

"Poor Red-head," said the Ass, "go with us to Bremen; you will certainly find something there better than death. You have a good voice-it only wants style."

The Cock was pleased with the proposal, and they all four went on together. Bremen, however, was too distant to be reached that day, so they resolved to pass the night in a wood, at which they arrived about evening. The Ass and the Hound stretched themselves beneath a widespreading tree, the Cat climbed half-way up, and the Cock flew to the top. Before he composed himself to sleep, he looked towards the four winds of heaven, and thought he perceived far away a little glimmering spark. He gave the alarm, and they all roused up, and looked around. "Here," said Grey-coat, "is poor accommodation; let us go on."

Truly," cried Hold-fast, "a few bones, with a little meat on them, would do me good."

They hastily set off for the dwelling whence shone the light; it beamed brightly as they approached; at last they stood before a house belonging to robbers. Ass, being the tallest, peeped in at the window.

The

"What see you, Grey-coat?" asked the Cock. "Hurrah," cried the Ass, "I see a well-covered table, and some right merry robbers around it!"

"I wish we were there!" quoth Red-head."

"

I wish we were there!" whined the Hound. The hungry musicians held a council, as to how they should bring the men forth and get in themselves; at length they devised the means. The Ass placed himself at the window, with his fore-feet on the sill, the Hound mounted on the Ass's back, the Cat clambered on top of

was aroused by the hand which touched it, and caressing it, and nestling to it, with a marvellous fondness and tameness, which was almost human, flew out on to her bosom. When there, it nestled again, rubbing its little bill full twenty times up and down, till, at last, it perked it up, and looked quaintly, keenly, half wistfully, into the seamstress's worn, corpse-like face.

"My Sweet," she said again, "love has saved you many times, but to-night you must go, for Lawrence can no longer hear the pretty notes he taught you, and Nelly's gone, and I am starving, without even a candle or thread to finish that which will bring a meal. So you must go though if -." Sweet gave here such a chirp of love and goodness, which so plainly said, "sell me, or pluck me, or even stop my little cheerful notes for ever, so that it be for your good," that something new of hope and strength of resolution sprung up instantly within the woman's soul; and so, caressing the bird anew, she replaced it in the cage, tied the latter carefully up in the apron, and pinning together the corners so as to exclude the wind, was again returning to the door, when the scene from the attic window struck her sight. From this, through the gully of a narrow street, the Thames, off Lambeth, could be seen; and now on this, the broad light of the splendid wintry moon, pouring itself far down within the water's liquid depth, showed clearly upon the surface a little boat or skiff, which, urged by one rower up against the tide, seemed, whilst within such shadows as lay upon the water, to make its way slowly, and by monstrous toil; but once within the fulness of the light, though the tide roared against it, even still it shot ahead, and was easy to the rower and his scull.

Though as yet the analogy had had no birth, still some inward impulse of the soul made the haggard, starving seamstress gaze long and earnestly; and when she moved away with the bundle of needlework, and locked her attic-door, her steps were quicker and firmer than they often were.

Though the sharp frosty night-wiad must have been bitterly felt by one so poorly clad, the woman, after crossing Westminster Bridge, carefully avoided the more sheltered thoroughfares, and keeping along such narrow streets as were little frequented, did not emerge from out them, except when no way lay more direct. That she had some strong reason for doing this was evident by the timid, wistful, half-pitying, half-stern glances she cast before her, when any woman's lightsome step approached, or when any crowd blocked up the thoroughfare. At last, upon reaching a narrow street, lying on the eastern side of the Temple, she slackened her hitherto rapid steps, for herein was the bird-fancier's shop, where she thought, as many times as the last year's extreme penury had made her think of parting with the bird, she might find it a kind master, as, in passing by, she had often observed a comfortable, smooth-looking little old man upon the door step, and in the windows such an array of clean cages, sparkling tiny fountains, such lumps of sugar and ladies' fingers, such seedy plantain, and such yellow-flowered groundsel, and such a merry, pecking, pert, hopping, flitting, impudent, and roguish set of linnets, blackbirds, bulfinches, thrushes, larks, and canaries, as to show that this was a sort of bird's Paradise, where carolled notes of fields and sunny skies brought summer often there, with scented flowers, with rippling brooklets, and with waving leaves.

With a beating heart, and not till she had more than once surveyed the tiny, roosting, apparently headless family of Mr. Twiddlesing, for such was the name above the door, in this wise-"Brutus Twidddlesing's British and Foreign Aviary.-N. B. Birds taught Popular Airs," did the seamstress venture in, to behold Twiddlesing in person, leaning forward leisurely on his counter, a fairsized snuff-box, in the shape of a bird's nest, just beside his right thumb and forefinger, into which he now and

then dipped, or “took an egg," as he said, whilst he duly listened to a tall, thin, barber-like looking man, who, dressed in a rusty black dress-coat, monstrously wide for him in the back, whilst very short in both the arms and flaps, sat on a high stool, and graced the "Twiddlesing Aviary" with his parts in speech.

After some timely patience, the unhappy needlewoman was enabled here and there to drop in a word or two, which in a while were in amount sufficient to inform Twiddlesing that she had got a bird with her and wanted to sell it. Whereupon the cage was set on the counter, beside the snuff-box, the apron unpinned, and Sweet seen. Brutus looked gravely, but at last he said, after he had glanced at his tall friend,

"But it's an edicated one-and I rarely wentur upon old birds, for you can do nothing with em in a singing way."

"Sing!" and the woman ejaculated this, as if a goddess had been asked where her beauty lay, or a rich rose its perfume. "Why, not one amongst hundreds could sing like it; for a poor brother I had, who was a genius in organ-building, and taught it with infinite pains, said that not one in a hundred would be found like it; and he died of decline last spring, it is therefore destitutionthe last stage of destitution-which forces me to part with it; but I want bread, and such is a sad want

Twiddlesing was about to say something, but the tall man lifted up his finger, and asked the woman what she was.

"A needlewoman-that is a shirt, a slop, or a waistcoat-maker, just as I can get it to do, though by trade I am a better sort of dressmaker; but in winter time that sort of work is slack; and, even if not so, now I have no decent clothes in which I could seek it. Though it is only five years since I came up a healthy girl, with a mother, three sisters, and a brother, from a distant part of Cornwall to London, for the lad had a genius for mechanics, and wished to be apprenticed to an organ-builder; and now all that is left of us is me, and one — -." She said no more, but stopped abruptly, and bent her face upon her rusty shawl.

"The old tale, the old tale," said the tall man parenthetically, rubbing as he spoke the old stained, powdered collar of his rusty coat, with a nervous sort of movement of his right thumb and forefinger-" and have, of course, been helped a bit by humane people, and are now worse off than before."

"But once only have I been helped," the woman replied, "and that was to bury my mother. But I know those who have been helped, only to feel poverty more sorely when need came again."

"Of course, of course," addded the tall man, with a triumphant wave of his hand across the counter to Brutus Twiddlesing, "dear old precious master is again right; never knew him to fail, sir, never; and this is what he said when a man called one morning (knowing his bounty, God bless him) to ask his aid, and I went in and explained the thing. Indeed, O'Flanagan! well, just feel if I have got a button to my pocket, and, if I have, button it, for not one guinea shall go to make needles rustier with human tears. No, no; but if it were twenty guineas, or if even a hundred guineas, to build ships with, to send these human women to lands where they are needed, where they might become mothers, and be blessed by the hand of nature; where they might be happy, and eat of the blessed bread of this blessed earth, they should go; but to put one penny angle in for the needful fishing of a mighty ocean, Robert Fortescue never will: so button up my pocket, O'Flanagan.' This is jist what my dear old master said," continued the tall man, "and he is a good and great lawyer living hard by, and it is emigration he means-a-going to other lands, where fewer folks are, and there working, and marrying, and being happy. Did you never hear o' this?"

Something," rejoined the woman, hopelessly and vacantly, "of dreary voyages and desert countries at the end. No, I know little of this matter; some Cornish people of my native village went out across the seas I know, but, since I have been in London, life has been too sore a struggle to think of anything but bread. And if I even did, what hope is there that one like me could change the lot of earning fourpence a day by twelve hours' work, and a parish coffin at the close. Hope! I have ceased to think of that." And the woman laughed with the laugh of a broken, desperate heart.

"To look at your face," said the honest wearer of the noble lawyer's rusty black,-and here, as he was a bit philosophic, he looked profoundly at Twiddlesing, and dipt his thumb and finger in the "bird's nest," "you ain't one that ought to say that, for there's a deal in this face of yours which says you could work through a hard way, if you saw hope at the end of it; and so

"Well," she interrupted nim, somewhat impatiently, "at least this talk won't serve me now. And so (turning to Twiddlesing) will you buy the bird or not

"I must have time to think of sich a piece of importance, as taking into my aviary a grown-up and edicated bird?" spoke Brutus gravely, "for bad notes is bad things ma'am, and I must have time to try his woice; for, of

"Try?" and there was something Siddonian in the voice with which the downcast woman spoke the word, "because I am poor, I do not necessarily lie! But keep it till I return, for I have some further way to go, and recollect that, in parting with him I part with my life'sblood." So saying, she hurried out into the cold bleak night air again, leaving Mr. Twiddlesing and his friend, O'Flanagan, to take such an amazing amount of "eggs" out of their bird's nest as to be incredible.

In a street close upon Aldgate, the needlewoman, after speaking to one or two women, ill clad and wretched like herself, who came out from the open doorway of a mean house, entered through a narrow, dirty-looking passage, into a large room lighted by a gas-jet, and across which ran some few yards from the door, a very wide counter, worn and greasy, like a tailor's board. It was piled up with made and unmade work, rolls of calico, hanks and reels of sewing cotton, waistcoating, yard measures, a great leaded pincushion, pairs of scissors, and strips of parchment. In front of this counter, four or five miserable women were grouped in the various positions of waiting for, receiving, and giving in work, whilst Mrs. Moss, a monstrously fat jewess, very gaudily attired, was not only concluding with these women the business of the day, but casting also now and then a watchful regarding eye to a huge fire-place at the rear of the room, over which a little shrimp of a drabbled servant was frying a great pan full of fish, whilst before it, to keep hot, stood a heaped-up dish of beef-steaks and onions, previously fried. In front of this fire stood a three-legged table, covered by a dirty cloth, wiped knives, Britannia-metal forks and spoons of a sickly yellow hue, a jar of pickles, a loaf of bread, and a pewter-pot of stout; whilst, as the viands were not yet put on, nor Mrs. Moss yet ready, her only son-and-heir, Mr. Moses Moss, shopwalker in a cheap tailoring establishment near at hand, had placed his feet, whilst swinging his body back with much ease and elegance in a low chair, he showed himself off conspicuously to his admiring mother, her hungry workers, or the little wretched cowering fryer of

the fish.

This young gentleman, thus elegant and self-indulgent, was beguiling the time till the herrings were done, and Mrs. Moss at liberty, by the varied divertisements of an occasional glance at a small journal or magazine he held in his hand, on every finger of which was a bright stoned ring, by pulling the hair, or viciously nipping the bare arms of the miserable little servant; whilst the labour

attending on such divertisements, as they came round in rotation, was refreshed by a taste of the contents of the pewter pot. Just as his mother dismissed the other women, and turned to the last comer, the before-mentioned cheap book or pamphlet was the object of this young gentleman's attention, and a certain passage therein greatly exciting his risibility, he read it aloud, in a voice strongly nasal, and with a Jewish accent.

"Vell," he said, when he had arrived at the conclusion, "this is jolly, eh! eh! Hope and advice to needlevimen, and creturs like this fryer here-happy and prosperous lands for 'em all-husbands, and no end to tea; and peaches by the bushel. Vell, Missis Moss, the sooner you put by yard measures and needles the better, with such adwice to be had for three halfpence; vell, the end 'll be, I suppose, gents 'll have to make their own shirts, or else go vith-hout." And, so commenting, Mr. Moses gave an additional pull at the stout, and nipped the little servant's arm till she shrieked with pain. Now, vat's it you vant," spoke Mrs. Moss, addressing the woman, "I thought the dozen fine-fronted Irish vas enough for von veek, eh? or, are you come to say they're pawned? You'd best not," and Mrs. Moss, the middlewoman, shook her head in a way which accurately illustrated from whence Mr. Moss inherited his vicious nature.

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'And vat's that to me," said Mrs. Moss, "ain't it al'lays the old tale; ain't yer al'lays here?"

But twice, ma'am," replied the woman, 66 once when my mother died, and once when"she stopped abruptly here, and burying her face again in her rusty shawl, burst into passionate tears.

"Oh! oh! oh!" laughed Mrs. Moss, with the breadth and depth of the lungs of a Dutch boor, "thy pretty sister, eh! But tears ain't the coin wanted here, so march, the shirts 'll be safe till thee bring the rest, eh! eh! So put out the fish, Peg" (here she turned and spoke to her small servant in a voice like a trumpet) and my sweet Moses (here she uttered the most dulcet treble) get out the case-bottle, I'm tired, and shall have rum to-night!" So saying, the middlewoman cast the two finished shirts on to a shelf at her right hand, and waving her huge fat red hand peremptorily as a sign for the woman to go, locked up her till, pocketed the key, and turned towards her ample fire-place, and the graces of her bewitching heir.

The woman had moved slowly to the door, closed it after her, and gone thoughtfully onward some few paces along the pavement, when she felt her arm touched, and turning round, beheld the miserable little object of Mr. Moss's spite at her elbow, and who, stuttering out some such remark as, "she knowed what it was to be bad off for wittles," thrust one of the fried herrings and a potatoe into the woman's hand, and disappeared as quickly back again as she had come.

This touch of pity in a creature so miserably used, as to be more like a hounded dog than one possessing human flesh and blood, begot anew the needlewoman's tears, but these not lasting ones, for her thoughts were busy with what the Jew had read, and which so strongly bore relation to the conversation in Brutus Twiddlesing's shop.