His boots were polished, his jacket was trim;
With a very smart tie in his smart cravat,
And a smart cockade on the top of his hat;
Tallest of boys, or shortest of men,
He stood in his stockings just four foot ten;
And he asked, as he held the door on the swing,
"Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"'
Everybody also recollects that rascally 'Jackdaw of Rheims'—related, doubtless, to the graculus superbus of Phaedrus—who stole the Cardinal's ring just as his Latin predecessor stole the peacock's feathers. There is no reductio ad absurdum extant equal to this whimsical legend. Excommunication, which was slightly damaged in value by the curse of Ernulphus, came to a ridiculous end when the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims tonitrated his worst maledictions at a thievish jackdaw. 'Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, quiescendo,' &c., &c.
'The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book.