If any one lied, or if any one swore,

Or slumber'd in pray'r time and happened to snore, That good Jackdaw

Would give a great "caw,"

As much as to say, "Don't do so any more!" While many remarked, as his manners they saw, That they never had known such a pious Jackdaw! He long lived the pride

Of that country side,

And at last in the odour of sanctity died;
When, as words were too faint

His merits to paint,

The conclave determined to make him a Saint;
And on newly-made Saints and Popes, as you know,
It's the custom at Rome new names to bestow,
So they cannonized him by the name of Jem Crow !

223

A LAY OF ST. DUNSTAN.

This holy childe Dunstan was borne in ye yere of our Lorde ix hondred & xxv. that tyme regnynge in this londe Kinge Athelston.*

64

****

Whan it so was that Saynt Dunstan was wery of prayer than used he to werke in goldsmythes werke with his owne handes for to eschewe ydelnes.”

He took

Golden Legend.

T. DUNSTAN stood in his ivy'd tower,
Alembic, crucible, all were there;
When in came Nick to play him a trick,

In guise of a damsel passing fair.
Every one knows

How the story goes:

up

the tongs and caught hold of his nose.
But I beg that you won't for a moment suppose
That I mean to go through, in detail, to you
A story at least as trite as it's true;

Nor do I intend

An instant to spend

On the tale, how he treated his monarch and friend,
When, bolting away to a chamber remote,
Inconceivably bored by his Witen-gemote,

Edwy left them all joking,

And drinking, and smoking,

So tipsily grand, they'd stand nonsense from no King, But sent the Archbishop

Their Sovereign to fish up,

With a hint that perchance on his crown he might feel taps,
Unless he came back straight and took off his heel-taps.
You don't want to be plagued with the same story twice,
And may have seen this one, by W. Dyce,

In last year's Exhibition-'t was very well done,
And stood mark'd in the catalogue Four, seven, one.

You might there view the Saint, who in sable array'd is,
Coercing the Monarch away from the Ladies;
His right hand has hold of his Majesty's jerkin,
The left points to the door, and he seems to say,

King,

"Sir

Your most faithful Commons won't hear of your shirking ; Quit your tea, and return to your Barclai and Perkyn,

Or, by Jingo,* ere morning, no longer alive, a

Sad victim you'll lie to your love for Elgiva!"

No farther to treat

Of this ungallant feat,

What I mean to do now is succinctly to paint
A particular fact in the life of the Saint,
Which somehow, for want of due care, I presume,
Has escaped the researches of Rapin and Hume,
In recounting a miracle, both of them men who a
Great deal fall short of Jaques Bishop of Genoa,
An Historian who likes deeds like these to record-
See his Aurea Legenda, by pnkyn de Worde.

St. Dunstan stood again in his tower,
Alembic, crucible, all complete;

* St. Jingo, or Gengo (Gengulphus), sometimes styled "The Living Jingo," from the great tenaciousness of vitality exhibited by his severed members. See his Legend, as recorded in p. 237 of the present volume.

He had been standing a good half hour,

And now he utter'd the words of power,

And call'd to his Broomstick to bring him a seat.

The words of power!—and what be they

To which e'en Broomsticks bow and obey?
Why, 'twere uncommonly hard to say,

As the prelate I named has recorded none of them,
What they may be,

But I know they are three,

And ABRACADABRA, I take it, is one of them: For I'm told that most Cabalists use that identical Word, written thus, in what they call " a Pentacle:"

However that be,

You'll doubtless agree

It signifies little to you or to me,

As not being dabblers in Grammarye ;
Still, it must be confess'd, for a Saint to repeat
Such language aloud is scarcely discreet;

For, as Solomon hints to folks given to chatter, "A bird of the air may carry the matter;" And, in sooth,

From my youth

I remember a truth

Insisted on much in my earlier years,

To wit, "Little Pitchers have very long ears!"
Now, just such a "Pitcher" as those I allude to
Was outside the door, which his "ears" appear'd glued to.

Peter, the Lay-brother, meagre and thin,

Five feet one in his sandal-shoon, While the Saint thought him sleeping,

Was listening and peeping,

And watching his master the whole afternoon.

This Peter the Saint had pick'd out from his fellows,
To look to his fire, and to blow with the bellows,
To put on the Wall's-Ends and Lambton's whenever he
Chose to indulge in a little orfeverie;

For, of course, you have read

That St. Dunstan was bred

A Goldsmith, and never quite gave up the trade ;
The Company-richest in London, 'tis said—
Acknowledge him still as their Patron and Head;
Nor is it so long

Since a capital song

In his praise-now recorded their archives among—
Delighted the noble and dignified throng

Of their guests, who, the newspapers told the whole town,
With cheers "pledged the wine-cup to Dunstan's renown,"
When Lord Lyndhurst, THE DUKE, and Sir Robert, were
dining

At the Hall some time since with the Prime Warden Twining.