"Look at him! that is the unwise old man, who gave all to one child and left nothing to himself." A person stood beside him with paper, pen, and ink, and to this purpose the old man spoke: "Write down what I say. I Hugh Edomson, called Hugh of the Tower, with a spirit crushed by the cruelty of my youngest, and a heart almost burst with the kindness of my eldest daughter, yet sound in mind, make this my Will, to which all present are witnesses. To my faithful child Ann, whom I called a Bitter Gourd, but who has proved a Honeycomb, I bequeath the Mains of Mossop, with ten thousand sheep, and this box with five hundred pieces of gold. I was thought poor, but behold I am rich; I was thought weak in mind, I shall be found strong in spirit. To my daughter Ellen, who was as the apple of mine eye, and who wound herself like a serpent round my heart to sting me and rob me-she whom I thought a Honeycomb, but who has proved a Bitter Gourd, I leave six silver coins and a father's He sank down. The half formed word, which should have concluded the sentence, was lost in his expiring groan. No one's heart throbbed so sorely as that of Ann, and no one wept so loudly as Ellen. But whether the latter mourned for the death of her father, or the loss of the Mains of Mossop, was not distinctly known. THE TRAVELLED MONKEY. A MONKEY whom the glassy brooks A kind of Nature's lucky hit; Left his wild palace in the wood, The untrod hill, the unploughed flood, Is it not blazoned in records, How long he lived 'mongst two-legged lords? The nuts thrice in their husks were brown, The eagle's brood three times had flown, Three times the leaves had left the trees, Their cells three times had filled, the bees, And three times bright and three times black Had nature been ere he came back. These lines are copied, word for word, Suppose three years are flown then. See! Yon high green hill and broad green tree; Yon shaggy and dishevelled forest, Where nuts are brown and plums are hoarest, Where fountains glide and gush the sheenest, Flowers sweeter smell, and grass grows greenest; Where sings the wild bird loud and louder, Deer browze nor dread the smell of powder, Nor arrow whistling from the nerve Of lordly apes 'tis the preserve. I'll change my tense. Five monkeys rambled Cracked walnuts, then with smothering yells, Now there came to them, patched and painted; All padded, puffed, and stayed and scented; |