"MORAL

"Hey diddle diddlety,
Cat and the Fiddlety,
Maidens of England take caution by she!
Let love and suicide
Never tempt you aside,
And always remember to take the door-key!"

Some people laughed at this parody, and even preferred it to the
original; but for myself I have no patience with the individual who
can turn the finest sentiments of our nature into ridicule, and make
everything sacred a subject of scorn. The next ballad is less gloomy
than that of the willow-tree, and in it the lovely writer expresses her
longing for what has charmed us all, and, as it were, squeezes the whole
spirit of the fairy tale into a few stanzas:--

"FAIRY DAYS.

"Beside the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee,
Of happy fairy days--what tales were told to me!
I thought the world was once--all peopled with princesses,
And my heart would beat to hear--their loves and their distresses;
And many a quiet night,--in slumber sweet and deep,
The pretty fairy people--would visit me in sleep.

"I saw them in my dreams--come flying east and west,
With wondrous fairy gifts--the new-born babe they bless'd;
One has brought a jewel--and one a crown of gold,
And one has brought a curse--but she is wrinkled and old.