A STUDIOUS MONK.
The atmosphere of learning dispels superstition, but history clings fondly to the fine old legends of the past that gather around them unreal lights and shadows. It is not strange that Oxford, the quiet valley town, hidden even to the bases of its pinnacles, spires, and towers in ancient groves, through which glide the waters of the Thames, should still preserve traditions of the wonder-working gifts of its early philosophers, whom ignorance associated with the magical arts and regarded as more than men.
It is related that two old Oxford monks made a head of brass that spoke.
These wise monks discovered from their wonderful books (the like of which are not now to be found in any of the twenty colleges) that if they were able to make a head of brass that could speak, and if they could hear it speak within a month, they would be given the power to surround England with a magic wall of brass.
So they studied their folios, and found out the chemistry of making the wonderful head.
AN OLD TIME STUDENT.
They listened to hear it three weeks, and then became irresistibly sleepy. So they intrusted a servant to listen, and to wake them if the statue should begin to speak.
When they were well asleep, the head said,—