"Turn a key, and the watch will go,
    Move a muscle, the bird takes wing,
All motion of any kind below
Is something mechanical, and so
   The mind is moved at the pull of a string.

  " Which, is the question?  I must pause
   On the brink of the mystery, turning pale:
How to catch the invisible laws?
How does a lion open his jaws?
   How does a monkey wag his Tail?"

Little philosopher, hark to me:
   Walking once on my garden ground,
I found my monkey beneath a tree,
With a musical-box upon his knee,
   Wagging his tail in delight at the sound.

"Ah! che la morté !"  was the tune,
   Tangling the heart of the brute in a mesh:
'Twas summer time, and the month was June,
Low down in the west was the scythe of the moon,
   On a sunset pink as a maiden's flesh.

Then I watch'd the monkey glow and burn,
   Lifting the lid of the box peep in:
Then, bit by bit, with a visage stern,
Holding each piece to his ear in turn,
   He broke it up,—and began to grin.

Ah, the music!  'Twas fled, 'twas fled!
   Each part of the wonderful whole was dumb,
The flower was plucked, and the bloom was shed,
Well might the monkey scratch his head,
   And staring down at the strings, look glum.

Little philosopher, stay, O stay!
   Let the works of the mind-watch go!
Claws and tail have been cast away,
But peep in the looking-glass to-day,
   Remember Monkey-land long ago.

ON A FEW OLD SONGS.

"Happy," said Douglas Jerrold, " is the
privilege of genius that can float down
hungry generations in a song." Doubtless
it is a grand thing to be a poet whose name
shall live after him as the author of a song
that appeals to the heart of a great people,
stirs it to noble emotions, and feeds the
fires of its nationality. Such privilege,
however, falls to the lot of few.
Indeed it can scarcely be said to belong to as
many names in ancient or modern history
as can be counted on the fingers of one
hand. Songs are in their nature ephemeral.
They serve the purpose of the day and are
forgotten; or, if they survive beyond a
century, which seldom happens, they pass
into the domain of the bookworm and the
antiquary. Often, too, when the song it-
self survives in a hazy kind of immortality,
the name of its author or composer drops
into oblivion, and cannot be rediscovered,
how deftly soever the antiquaries may
grope and pry into the darkness. No
one can tell with certainty who wrote
the fine music and the indifferent poetry
of God Save the King (or Queen). No
one can decide whence come the joyous
melody and inane doggrel of Yankee
Doodle. No one knows the name of the
musician to whom the world is indebted
for the beautiful notes of Auld Lang Syne,
or the triumphal strains of La Marseillaise,
although we know that Robert Burns is
suspected of having written the words of
the one, and Rouget de Lisle claims the
authorship of the other. The four songs
named are each strictly national, but have
become so by accident rather than by the
design of their authors. In fact, a song
destined to ending popularity and the
honours of nationality cannot be made to
order. Every attempt of the kind has been
a failure. But when a song does achieve
this high destiny it becomes a veritable
power in the State—either for good or for
evil.

The English national anthem of God
Save the Queen—which was first publicly
heard in 1745, after the defeat of Prince
Charles on the fatal field of Culloden—was
originally a Jacobite song, which it was
dangerous to sing within hearing of the
authorities. When the Jacobites spoke or
sang of " the king," they meant " the king
over the water," and the words still sung,
"Send him victorious," imply clearly
that the king intended was not the one
who was already in England, but the one
far away, to whom the singers were loyal
in his evil fortunes. A great deal of
controversy has arisen as to the authorship
alike of the words and music; but no
satisfactory clue has been discovered for
the elucidation of either mystery. If a
prize had been offered for a national anthem,
expressive of patriotic as well as dynastic
loyalty, no competent critics would have
awarded it to the author of the words,
whomsoever he may have been. Yet this
song, which grew rather than was made, is
the richest literary jewel in the British
crown, and may fairly claim to have been
of more value to the House of Hanover
than any standing army.

God save the King, as originally sung
at Drury Lane Theatre, shortly after the
news arrived in London that the last hopes
of the young Pretender had been crushed
at Culloden, consisted of nine stanzas, or
six in addition to the three which are now
familiar to all of us. These three are the
genuine Jacobite song, without the alteration
of a word. The remaining six were
strictly Hanoverian and Whiggish, and
have long since gone to the limbo that is
reserved for all literary rubbish. A speci-
men verse will suffice to show alike its
quality and its temporary purpose: