Jack of the Beanstalk, too, was one;
And Beauty's Beast; and Valour's son,
Sir Amadis de Gaul:
But if I had a thousand tongues,
A throat of brass, and iron lungs,
I could not sing them all.
His sire was a farmer hearty and free;
He dwelt where the Land's End frowns on the sea,
And the sea at the Land's End roars again,
Tit for tat, land and main.
He was a worthy wight, and so
He brought up his son in the way he should go;
He sought not—not he!—to make him a "muff;"
He never taught him a parcel of stuff;
He bothered him not with trees and plants,
Nor told him to study the manners of ants.
He himself had never been
Bored with the Saturday Magazine;
The world might be flat, or round, or square,
He knew not, and he did not care;
Nor wished that a boy of his should be
A Cornish "Infant Prodigy."
But he stored his mind with learning stable,
The deeds of the Knights of the famed Round Table;
Legends and stories, chants and lays,
Of witches and warlocks, goblins and fays;
How champions of might
Defended the right,
Freed the captive, and succoured the damsel distrest
Till Jack would exclaim—
"If I don't do the same,
An' I live to become a man,—I'm blest!"
Jack lightly recked of sport or play
Wherein young gentlemen delight,
But he would wrestle any day,
Box, or at backsword fight.
He was a lad of special "pluck,"
And strength beyond his years,
Or science, gave him aye the luck
To drub his young compeers.
His task assigned, like Giles or Hodge,
The woolly flocks to tend,
His wits to warlike fray or "dodge"
Wool-gathering oft would wend.
And then he'd wink his sparkling eye,
And nod his head right knowingly,
And sometimes "Won't I just!" would cry,
Or "At him, Bill, again!"
Now this behaviour did evince
A longing for a foe to mince;
An instinct fitter for a Prince
Than for a shepherd swain.
HOW JACK SLEW THE GIANT CORMORAN.—-
I.
Where good Saint Michael's craggy mount
Rose Venus-like from out the sea,
A giant dwelt; a mighty- Count
In his own view, forsooth, was he;
And not unlike one, verily,
(A foreign Count, like those we meet
In Leicester Square, or Regent Street),
I mean with respect to his style of hair,
Mustachios, and beard, and ferocious air,—
His figure was quite another affair.
This odd-looking "bird"
Was a Richard the Third,
Four times taller and five as wide;
Or a clumsy Punch,
With his cudgel and hunch,
Into a monster magnified!
In quest of prey across the sea
He'd wade, with ponderous club;
For not the slightest "bones" made he
Of "boning" people's "grub."
There was screaming and crying "Oh dear!" and "Oh law
When the terrified maids the monster saw;