14. "There's one who like a Christian lies 15. "A decent burial that man had, The bell was heard to toll, When he was laid in holy ground, But for all the wealth in Bristol town I would not be with his soul! 16. "Did'st see a house below the hill Which the winds and the rains destroy? In that farm-house did that man dwell, When I was a growing boy. 17. "But she was a poor parish girl Who came up from the west : From service hard she ran away, And at that house in evil day Was taken in to rest. 18. "A man of a bad name was he, An evil life he led; Passion made his dark face turn white, And his grey eyes were large and light, And in anger they grew red. 19. "The man was bad, the mother worse, Bad fruit of evil stem; "Twould make your hair to stand on end If I should tell to you, my friend, The things that were told of them! 20. "Did'st see an out-house standing by? The walls alone remain; It was a stable then, but now Its mossy roof has fallen through All rotted by the rain. 21. "This poor girl she had served with them 22. "It is a wild and lonesome place, No hut or house is near; Should one meet a murderer there alone, "Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan Would never reach mortal ear. 23. "And there were strange reports about: But still the coroner found That she by her own hand had died, And should buried be by the way-side, And not in Christian ground. 24. "This was the very place he chose, 25. "They carried her upon a board In the clothes in which she died; I saw the cap blown off her head, Her face was of a dark dark red, Her eyes were starting wide: 26. "I think they could not have been closed, So widely did they strain. O Lord, it was a ghastly sight, And it often made me wake at night, When I saw it in dreams again. 27. "They laid her where these four roads meet Here in this very place. The earth upon her corpse was prest, This post was driven into her breast, And a stone is on her face." Westbury, 1798. GOD'S JUDGEMENT ON A WICKED BISHOP. "Here followeth the History of HATTO, Archbichop of Mentz. "It hapned in the year 914, that there was an exceeding great famine in Germany, at what time Otho, surnamed the Great, was Emperor, and one Hatto, once Abbot of Fulda, was Archbishop of Mentz, of the Bishops after Crescens and Crescentius the two and thirtieth, of the Archbishops after St. Bonifacius the thirteenth. This Hatto, in the time of this great famine afore-mentioned, when he saw the poor people of the country exceedingly oppressed with famine, assembled a great company of them together into a Barne, and, like a most accursed and mercilesse caitiffe, burnt up those poor innocent souls, that were so far from doubting any such matter, that they rather hoped to receive some comfort and relief at his hands. The reason that moved the prelat to commit that execrable impiety was, because he thought the famine would the sooner cease, if those unprofitable beggars that consumed more bread than they were worthy to eat, were dispatched out of the world. For he said that those poor folks were like to Mice, that were good for nothing but to devour corne. But God Almighty, the just avenger of the poor folks quarrel, did not long suffer this hainous tyranny, this most detestable fact, unpunished. For he mustered up an army of Mice against the Archbishop, and sent them to persecute him as his furious Alastors, so that they afflicted him both day and night, and would not suffer him to take his rest in any place. Whereupon the Prelate, thinking that he should be secure from the injury of Mice if he were in a certain tower, that standeth in the Rhine near to the towne, betook himself unto the said tower as to a safe refuge and sanctuary from his enemies, and locked himself in. But the innumerable troupes of Mice chased him continually very eagerly, and swumme unto him upon the top of the water to execute the just judgment of God, and so at last he was most miserably devoured by those sillie creatures; who pursued him with such bitter hostility, "I'll go to my tower on the Rhine," replied he, that it is recorded they scraped and knawed out his very at's Crudities, pp. 571, 572. He started and saw two eyes of flame For they have swam over the river so deep, To do the work for which they were sent. They are not to be told by the dozen or score, Down on his knees the Bishop fell, And faster and faster his beads did he tell, As louder and louder drawing near The gnawing of their teeth he could hear. And in at the windows and in at the door, They have whetted their teeth against the stones, THE PIOUS PAINTER. The legend of the Pious Painter is related in the Pia Hilaria of Gazæus; but the Pious Poet has omitted the second part of the story, though it rests upon quite as good authority as the first. It is to be found in the Fabliaux of Le Grand. THE FIRST PART. 1. THERE once was a painter in Catholic days, Still on his Madonnas the curious may gaze |