At Merchant Tailors' School, what time
Old Bishop held the rod,
The boys rehearsed the old man's rhyme
Whilst he would smile and nod.
Apart I view'd a little child
Who join'd not in the game:
His face was what mammas call mild
And fathers dull and tame.
Pitying the boy, I thus address'd
The pedagogue of verse--
"Why doth he not, Sir, like the rest,
Your epigrams rehearse?"
"Sir!" answered thus the aged man,
"He's not in Nature's debt;
His ears so tight are seal'd, he can-
Not learn his alphabet."
"Why not?" I cried:--whereat to me
He spoke in minor clef--
"He cannot learn his A, B, C,
Because he's D, E, F."
_New Monthly Magazine._
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