But when the scent of ham and eggs
    Announced the breakage of our fast,
  He came and twined about our legs,
    And interrupted our repast.

  We drove him from us through the door;
    He reappeared; we tried the casement;
  He seemed to rise out of the floor,
  And importuned us as before,
    To our unspeakable amazement.

  But timely succour Fortune brought us;
    One word of Welsh we chanced to know,
  And that a fellow-guest had taught us;
    It meant “Unpleasant creature, go!”

  Stranger!  If you should chance to meet him,
    Oh do not pull, or kick, or push,
  Or execrate, or bribe, or beat him,
    But make a sound resembling “Cwsh”!

LETTERS OF FITZ
[Sidenote:  Edward FitzGerald]

Mazzinghi tells me that November weather breeds blue devils—­so that there is a French proverb, “In October de Englishman shoot de pheasant; in November he shoot himself.”  This, I suppose, is the case with me:  so away with November, as soon as may be....

Have you got in your “Christian Poet” a poem by Sir H. Wotton—­“How happy is he born or taught, that serveth not another’s will”?  It is very beautiful, and fit for a Paradise of any kind.  Here are some lines from old Lily, which your ear will put in the proper metre.  It gives a fine description of a fellow walking in spring, and looking here and there, and pricking up his ears, as different birds sing:  “What bird so sings, but doth so wail?  Oh! ’tis the ravished nightingale:  ’Jug, jug, jug, jug, terue,’ she cries, and still her woes at midnight rise.  Brave prick-song! who is’t now we hear?  It is the lark so shrill and clear:  against heaven’s gate he claps his wings, the morn not waking till he sings.  Hark, too, with what a pretty note poor Robin Redbreast tunes his throat:  Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing, ‘Cuckoo’ to welcome in the spring:  ‘Cuckoo’ to welcome in the spring.’” This is very English, and pleasant, I think:  and so I hope you will.  I could have sent you many a more sentimental thing, but nothing better.  I admit nothing into my Paradise, but such as breathe content, and virtue....

The Church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving:  not for the sake of the unclean beasts that almost filled it, and probably made most noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of rationality, that was as much distressed by the stink within as by the tempest without....

[Sidenote:  Edward FitzGerald]

Some one from this house is going to London:  and I will try and write you some lines now in half an hour before dinner.  ’I am going out for the evening to my old lady, who teaches me the names of the stars, and other chaste information.  You see, Master John Allen, that if I do not come to London (and I have no thought of going yet) and you will not write, there is likely to be an end of our communication:  not, by the way, that I am never to go to London again;