Mother of Egypt's god- but sure, for me,
Were I to leave my God, I'd worship thee.
Milk, then, with pudding I would always choose;
To this in future I confine my muse,

Till she in haste some further hints unfold,
Well for the young, nor useless to the old.
First in your bowl the milk abundant take,
Then drop with care along the silver lake
Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide;
But when their growing mass no more can sink,
When the soft island looms above the brink,
Then check your hand, you've got the portion due.
So taught our sires - and what they taught is true.
There is a choice in spoons. Though small appear
The nice distinction, yet to me 't is clear,

The deep-bowl'd Gallic spoon, contrived to scoop
In ample draughts the thin diluted soup,
Performs not well in these substantial things,
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space,
With ease to enter and discharge the freight,
A bowl less concave, but still more dilate
Becomes the pudding best. The shape, the size,
A secret rests, unknown to vulgar eyes;
Experienced feeders can alone impart

A rule so much above the lore of Art.

These tuneful lips, that thousand spoons have tried,
With just precision could the point decide,
But not in song; the muse but poorly shines
In cones, and cubes, and geometric lines;
Yet the true form, as near as she can tell,
Is that small section of a goose-egg shell,
Which in two equal portions shall divide
The distance from the centre to the side.
Fear not to slaver - 't is no deadly sin;
Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend your ready napkin; or, like me,
Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head project;

Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,
Bold as a bucket, heed no drops that fall

The wide-mouth'd bowl will surely catch them all.

WILLIAM BARNES.

BARNES, WILLIAM, an English clergyman, poet, and philologist, was born in Sturminster, in the vale of Blackmore, Dorsetshire, February 22, 1800; died at the Rectory of Came, Dorchester, October 11, 1886. His early advantages were very limited, but he succeeded in obtaining a university degree, and became one of the most scholarly men of his time. He spent several years in solicitors' offices in his native town and in Dorchester, and from 1823 to 1835 he taught school at Mere, Wiltshire, and from 1835 until 1862 at Dorchester. He received ordination from the Bishop of Salisbury, in 1847, and was given the curacy of Whitcombe, which he resigned in 1852. In 1862 he was made rector of Winterbourne Came. He then gave up his school, and for the rest of his life devoted himself to this parish. He published his first volume of poems in the Dorset dialect in 1844, and in 1846 "Poems of Rural Life" in national English. "Hwomely Rhymes," a second collection of Dorset dialect poems, was published in 1850, and in 1863 a third volume appeared. In 1879 these three volumes were published in a collected form as "Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect." He also published a number on philological subjects, among them, "A Philological Grammar;" "Tiw, or a View of the Roots and Stems of English;" "Outline of English Speech-craft;" and a "Glossary of Dorset Speech." He contributed many papers on various subjects to "Macmillan's," "Fraser's," "The Gentleman's Magazine," and other leading periodicals.

THE GEÄTE A-VALLÈN TO.

(From "Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect.")

IN the zunsheen of our summers

Wi' the hay time now a-come,
How busy wer' we out a-vield
Wi' vew a-left at hwome,
When wagons rumbled out ov yard
Red wheeled, wi' body blue,
And back behind 'em loudly slamm'd
The geäte a-vallèn to.

Drough day sheen for how many years

The geäte ha' now a-swung,
Behind the veet o' vull-grown men

And vootsteps of the young,
Drough years o' days it swung to us
Behind each little shoe,
As we tripped lightly on avore
The geäte a-vallèn to.

In evenen time o' starry night
How mother zot at hwome,
And kept her blazing vire bright
Till father should ha' come,

And how she quickened up and smiled,
And stirred her vire anew,

To hear the trampèn hosses' steps
And geäte a-vallen to.

There's moonsheen now in nights o' Fall

When leaves be brown vrom green,

When to the slammèn of the geäte

Our Jenny's ears be keen,

When the wold dog do wag his tail,
And Jeän could tell to who,

As he do come in drough the geäte,
The geäte a-vallen to.

THE WOODLAND HOME.

(From "Poems of Rural Life in Common English.”)
My woodland home, where hillocks swell
With flow'ry sides, above the dell,
And sedge's hanging ribbons gleam
By meadow withies in the stream,
And elms with ground-beglooming shades
Stand high upon the sloping glades,
When toilsome day at evening fades,
And trials agitate my breast,

By fancy brought

I come in thought

To thee, my home, my spirit's rest.

I left thy woody fields that lay

So fair below my boyhood's play,
To toil in busy life that fills

The world with strife of wayward wills;