of English operatives. He may be more
immoral; but he is less brutish. If we are a
little vain, and very fond of gaiety, and
if we are improvident, we are not idle;
and, with all our street fighting, we are
not a discontented race. Except an Arab,
who can be so happy as we know how to
make ourselves, upon the smallest possible
resources?

OLD LONDON BRIDGE.

On the bridge-crown my master dwelt; our lattice
           wide o'erhung the stream,
And giddy work 'twas thence, I felt, to watch the
           waters chafe and gleam;
But there, his little child in play could count the
           bubbles 'neath her float.
And clap her hands when gusts of spray kissed her
           sweet cheeks or touched her throat.

One day—still every troubled dream brings all its
          terror back to me—
I heard a shrill imploring scream; I turned to look
         — but where was she?
I cast my 'prentice gown aside, clambered like light
          the trellis o'er,
And in the fierce and furious tide sprang, stunned
          and deafened by the roar.

What tumult thundered in mine ears when to the
         surface I emerged;
Wild voices, shrieks, and cries, and cheers, mixed
         with the waves that round me surged!
What saw I from the lattice bent? My master,
         dumb, transfixed with dread.
While near me floating, pale and spent, his child
         toward the vortex sped.

I grasped her; to the sterling's edge I struggled
         'gainst the sucking tide,
By timbers green with slimy sedge I held, and drew
         her to my side.
Poor little Nan! how faintly hung her drooping
         head: while floating past
I saw her flaxen tresses flung like weeds upon the
         waters cast.

Sweet heart! dear wife! nay, why so pale? Have
          not long years effaced all pain?
Why did you bid me tell the tale of this old childish
          hap again?

Time past; my 'prentice days were sped; to foreign
         parts they bade mo roam.
Yet, with a longing and a dread, my thoughts
         turned ever towards my home:

For, travelled gallants loved to boast (gay
         flutterers, light as summer midge),
That London's beauty, pride, and toast, dwelt on
         the crown of London Bridge.
I listened calm, and even smiled: yet the heart's
         tightness grew amain:
I think e'en death hath been reviled; I wot it will
         not match that pain.

Back came I, Nan! I see you yet, with scarlet love-
          knots, gay of hue.
I hear the waters fume and fret, chorus to love vows
          warm and true;
And how you stood I well recall, light leaning
          'gainst the wicker fence.
You, smiling watched the torrents fall, I, thinking
          how I bore you thence.

When— nay, wife, let me end my tale; take from my
         lips your hand away.
Nay, now, I may not call you pale; your ribbons
         were less bright that day.
Quoth you, "Fine talk, I'll none of it—give proof
         that still your heart is mine."
I, with a lover's lack of wit, said, "What may I
         do to prove it thine?"

Beneath us far a wild flower grew, fast rooted in the
         buttress cleft;
You pointed to it, and I knew no hope save in that
         proof was left.
Then, clambering o'er the parapet, I sought a foothold
         frail and slight.
On the old timbers green and wet; yet kept
         through all your face in sight.

What was the tumult that I heard? Your wild cry
         as you bade me stay,
My name; and, coupled with a word first uttered
         that eventful day.
The little weed waved proud its head, beckoning me
         on as if in scorn;
I gained it. All the anxious dread past from my
         life that sunny morn.

Dear wife, sweet wife! You know how pressed in
          our old Bible's earliest page,
That little withered flower doth rest above our son's
          recorded age;
Of years long past it seems to tell, of the old
          sterling's blackened ridge,
Of the wide lattice whence you fell, and our young
          days on London Bridge.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN

AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

I AM in Turkey, staying in a little out-of-
the-way place on a hill that overlooks the
capital. I have been ill; am well, and this
is my first afternoon out of house-bounds for
many restless days. As I sit at the porch on
the low rush-bottom chair which my host
has placed for me, I almost think I am
dreaming; so strange and unreal does
everything seem around.

There, below me, beside the water and
embedded in misty blue hills, lies Constantinople
with its thousand minarets glittering in the
sun, the constant light of which one might
fancy had turned them into gold. A mystic
veil, finer than gossamer, hangs over and
mellows the landscape; and the eye rests upon
its broad valleys and deep ravines unstrained
and delighted. Upon the clear blue waters,
light and sparkling palaces are reflected on
its ripples, until there seems another and a
gentler world lying beneath them. The small
sails of a legion of little boats skim along,
like sea-gulls with their wings spread. Swift
pleasure-boats, or caiques, pull their holiday-
making passengers hither and thither as
rapidly as English wherries; or bustling steamers
paddle noisily to and fro; and, here and
there, lie two monarchs of the western waters
—men-of-war—silent, dark, and ominous.