The Scotch collops having been despatched with hearty good will, Uncle Timothy restricted our future libations to one single bowl. "And mind, Benjamin, only one!" This was delivered with peculiar emphasis. Mr. Bosky bowed obedience to the behest; and, as a nod is as good as a wink, he nodded to Mr. Jollyboy. The bowl was brought in, brimming and beautiful; and it was five good acts of a comedy to watch the features of Uncle Timothy. He first gazed at the bowl, then at the landlord, then at the laureat, then at us, and then at the bowl again! "Pray, Mr. Jollyboy," he inquired, "call you this a bowl, or a caldron ?" Mr. Jollyboy solemnly deposed as to its being a real bowl; the identical bowl in which six little Jollyboys had been christened. "Is it your intention, Mr. Jollyboy, to christen us too? Let it be tipplers, then, mine host of the Tabard!" "As to the christening, Uncle Timothy, that would be nothing very much out of order-seeing 66 That some great poet says, I'll take my oath, Besides," argued Mr. Bosky, Socratically, "the dimensions of the bowl were not in the record; and as I thought we should be too many for a halfcrown sneaker of punch” "You thought you would be too many for me! And so you have been. Sit down, Mr. Jollyboy, and help us out of this dilemma. Take a drop of your own physic." Mr. Jollyboy respectfully intimated he would rather do that than break his arm; and took his seat at the board accordingly. "But," said Uncle Timothy, "let us have the entire dramatis persona of the harper's interlude. We are minus his groom of the stole. Send our compliments over the way for Mr. Moses." Mr. Moses was summoned, and he sidled in with a very high stock, with broad pink stripes, and a very low bow-hoping "de gentlemensh vash quite vell." 66 "Still," cried Mr. Bosky, we are not all mustered. The harp!" And instantly the laureat "with flying fingers touched the" wires. "A song from Uncle Timothy, for which the musical bells of St. Saviour's tell us there is just time." He then struck the instrument to a lively tune, and the middle-aged gentleman sang with appropriate feeling, "Old Tabard "THE TABARD. those time-honour'd timbers of thine, Saw the pilgrims ride forth to St. Thomas's shrine; When the good wife of Bath Shed a light on their path, And the squire told his tale of Cambuscan divine. From his harem th' alarum shrill chanticleer crew, The knight rein'd his steed, And a Gentles, God speed!' The pipes of the miller right merrily blew. There shone on that morning a halo, a ray, At the glorified shrine Of their martyr went forth to repent and to pray. Though ages have roll'd since that bright April morn, And the steps of the shrine holy palmers have worn, As, weary and faint, They kneel'd to their saint It still for all time shall in memory be borne. Old Tabard old Tabard thy pilgrims are we! What a beautiful shrine has the Bard made of thee! When a ruin's thy roof, And thy walls, massy proof— The ground they adorn'd ever hallow'd shall be." CHAPTER VII. "METHINKS, Benjamin," said Uncle Timothy to the laureat of Little Britain, as they sat tête-àtête at breakfast on the morning after the adventure of the old harper,-" methinks I have conceded quite enough by consenting to play Esquire Bedel to the Fubsys, Muffs, and Flumgartens. A couple of lean barn-door fowls and a loin-or, as Mrs. Flumgarten classically spells it, a lion of fat country pork at Christmas, even were I a more farinaceous feeder than I am, are hardly equivalent to my approaching purgatory. You bargained, among other sights, for Westminster Abbey. Now what possible charm can the Poet's Corner have for the Fubsy family, who detest poets and poetry quite as much as ever did the second George boedry and bainding!' Then came the British Museum. I will now take leave to have < |