FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

"Good heaven! Why even the little children in France speak French!"

NEVER go to France

Unless you know the lingo,

If you do, like me,

You will repent by jingo.

Staring like a fool,

And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,

A nation with a dummy:

Chaises stand for chairs,

They christen letters Billies,
They call their mothers mares,
And all their daughters fillies;
Strange it was to hear,

I'll tell you what's a good 'un,
They call their leather queer,

And half their shoes are wooden.

Signs I had to make,

For every little notion,
Limbs all going like

A telegraph in motion,

For wine I reeled about,

To show my meaning fully

And made a pair of horns,

To ask for "beef and bully."

Moo! I cried for milk;

I got my sweet things snugger,

ADDISON,

When I kissed Jeannette,

"T was understood for sugar. If I wanted bread,

My jaws I set a-going, And asked for new-laid eggs, By clapping hands and crowing!

If I wished a ride,

I'll tell you how I got it; On my stick astride,

I made believe to trot it; Then their cash was strange, It bored me every minute, Now here's a hog to change, How many sows are in it!

Never go to France,

Unless you know the lingo; If you do, like me,

You will repent, by jingo; Staring like a fool,

And silent as a mummy, There I stood alone,

A nation with a dummy!

OUR VILLAGE.

"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.”—GOLDSMITH.

I HAVE a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I do not know that I can make an easier commencement of the character, than by attempting a description of our village. It will be found, as my friend the landlord over the way says, that "things are drawn mild."

I live opposite the Green Man. I know that to be the sign, in spite of the picture, because I am told of the fact in large gilt letters, in three several places. The wholelength portrait of "l'homme verd" is rather imposing. He stands plump before you, in a sort of wrestling attitude, the legs standing distinctly apart, in a brace of decided boots, with dun tops, joined to a pair of creole-colored leather breeches. The rest of his dress is peculiar; the coat, a two-flapper, green and brown, or, as they say at the tap, half-and-half; a cocked hat on the half cock; a short belt crossing the breast like a flat gas-pipe. The one hand stuck on the greeny-brown hip of my friend, in the other a gun with a barrel like an entire butt, and the butt like a brewer's whole stock. On one side, looking up at the vanished vision of his master, is all that remains of a liver-and-white pointer-seeming now to be some old dog from India, for his white complexion is turned yellow, and his liver is more than half gone!

The inn is really a very quiet, cozy, comfortable inn, though the landlord announces a fact in larger letters, methinks, than his information warrants, viz., that he is "Licensed to deal in Foreign Wines and Spirits." All innkeepers, I trust, are so licensed; there is no occasion to make so brazen a brag of this sinecure permit.

I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters of the Green Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt; and on looking upwards, I perceived that a sort of sky-light had been opened in the clouds, giving entrance to a bright gleam of sunshine, which glowed with remarkable effect on a yellow post-chaise in the stable-yard, and brought the ducks out beautifully white from the black horse-pond. Tempted by the appearance of the weather, I put down my pen, and strolled out for a quarter of an hour before dinner to inhale that air, without which, like the chameleon, I cannot feed. On my return, I found, with some surprise, that my papers were a good deal discomposed; but, before I had time for much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most obliging curtesys, and observed that she had seen me writing in the morning, and it had occurred to her by chance, that I might by possibility have been writing a description of the village. I told her that I had actually been engaged on that very subject. "If that is the case, of course, sir, you would begin, no doubt, about the Green Man, being so close by; and I dare say, you would say something about the sign, and the Green Man with his top boots, and his gun, and his Indian liver-and-white pointer, though his white to be sure is turned yellow, and his liver is more than half gone." "You are perfectly right, Mrs. Ledger," I replied, "and in one part of the description, I think I have used almost your own very.words." "Well that is curious,

sir," exclaimed Mrs. L., and physically, not arithmetically, casting up all her hands and eyes. "Moreover, what I mean to say, is this; and I only say that to save trouble. There's a young man lodges at the Green Grocer's over the way, who has writ an account of the village already to your hand. The people about the place call him the Poet, but, anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beautiful; and, as I said before, has made the whole village out of his own head. Now, it might save trouble, sir, if you was to write it out, and I am sure I have a copy, that, as far as the loan goes, is at your service, sir." My curiosity induced me to take the offer; and as the poem really forestalled what I had to say of the Hamlet, I took my landlady's advice and transcribed it and here it is:

OUR VILLAGE.-BY A VILLAGER.

OUR village, that's to say not Miss Mitford's village, but our village of Bullock Smithy,

Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a withy;

And in the middle, there's a green of about not exceeding an acre and a half;

It's common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf! Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common law lease,

And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs, four drowned kittens, and twelve geese. Of course the green's cropt very close, and does famous for

bowling when the little village-boys play at cricket; Ónly some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure to come and stand right before the wicket.