Suffice it to tell, Which will do quite as well, That the whole of the Convent the miracle saw, And the Abbot's report was sufficient to draw Ev'ry bon Catholique in la belle France to Blois, Among others, the Monarch himself, François, The Archbishop of Rheims, and his "Pious Jack-daw,"[55] And there was not a man in Church, Chapel, or Meeting-house, Still less in Cabaret, Hotel, or Eating-house, But made an oration, And said, "In the nation If ever a man deserved canonization, It was the kind, pitiful, pious Aloys."— So the Pope says,—says he, "Then a Saint he shall be!" So he made him a Saint,—and remitted the fee.
What became of the Pagan I really can't say; But I think I've been told, When he'd enter'd their fold, And was now a Franciscan some twenty days old, He got up one fine morning before break of day, Put the Pyx in his pocket—and then ran away.
Moral.
I think we may coax out a moral or two From the facts which have lately come under our view. First—Don't meddle with Saints!—for you'll find if you do, They're what Scotch people call, "kittle cattle to shoe!" And when once they have managed to take you in tow, It's a deuced hard matter to make them let go!
Now to you, wicked Pagans!—who wander about, Up and down Regent Street every night, "on the scout,"— Recollect the Police keep a sharpish look-out, And, if once you're suspected, your skirts they will stick to, Till they catch you at last in flagrante delicto!— Don't the inference draw That because he of Blois Suffer'd one to bilk "Old father Antic the Law," That our May'rs and our Aldermen—and we've a City full— Shew themselves, at our Guildhall, quite so pitiful!
Lastly, as to the Pagan who play'd such a trick, First assuming the tonsure, then cutting his stick, There is but one thing which occurs to me—that Is,—Don't give too much credit to people who "rat!" —Never forget Early habit's a net Which entangles us all, more or less, in its mesh; And "What's bred in the bone won't come out of the flesh!"
We must all be aware Nature's prone to rebel, as Old Juvenal tells us, Naturam expellas, Tamen usque recurret! There's no making Her rat So that all that I have on this head to advance Is,—whatever they think of these matters in France, There's a proverb, the truth of which each one allows here, "You never can make a silk purse of a sow's ear!"
FOOTNOTES:
[52] Teste Messire Iago, a distinguished subaltern in the Venetian service, circiter A.D. 1580. His Biographer, Mr. William Shakspeare, a contemporary writer of some note, makes him say "King Stephen," inasmuch as the "worthy peer" subsequently usurped the crown of England. The anachronism is a pardonable one.—Mr. Simpkinson of Bath.
[53] ----Meâ
Virtute me involvo.—Hor.