penny per diem, or more or less to their means,
for the City watch. [The king was certified that
the City was in good condition, and the people
well arrayed, that the walls and gates had been
strengthened and repaired, and that a new wall
had been built between Castle Baynard and the
house of the Preaching Friars—i. e. Newgate-
street.]

Each alderman was to be resident in his ward,
for better security. The force of the watch was
doubled on the news of the advance of the
barons, headed by Thomas Earl of Lancaster.
The citizens were all of them unusually faithful
to the king's cause; the favourite, Gaveston, had
been beheaded by the peers' party, and the king
was in great danger.

TOWN AND GOWN.

The litigation recently pending between the
University and the Town of Cambridge, touching
the Proctorial system, is the latest outbreak of an
immemorial feud. So long as the line of
demarcation between the respective jurisdictions
of the Vice-Chancellor of the University and
the Mayor of the town remain unsettled, such
conflicts are inevitable. The combatants,
however, are better matched now than formerly.
Scholarship and forensic eloquence are
commodities purchasable in these days by either
side; but, in the middle ages, the townsmen's
fists had a poor chance against the gownsmen's
wits and fists combined. The following
pasquinade, preserved among the Cole manuscripts
at the British Museum, is evidently the
production of a Cantab, whose brain was as ready
as his arm. It was found one morning in
the reign of Henry the Fifth posted upon the
door of the Mayor, who, with his worshipful
brethren, Master Essex and Master Attilbridge,
bailiffs of the town, had recently resisted the
University proctors in their arrest of a burgess
named Hierman, for misconduct at Sturbridge
Fair:

Looke out here, Maire, with thie pilled (1) pate,
And see wich a scrowe (2) is set on thie gate,
Warning the of hard happes,
For and it (3) lokke thou shalt have swappes (4)
Therefore, I rede, (5) keepe the at home,
For thou shalt abey (6) for that is done;
Or els kest (7) thou on a coate of mayle;
Trust well thereto withouten faile.
And greate Golias, Job Essex
Shalt have a clowte with my karille (8) axe,
          Whenever I may him have.
And the hosteler Bawborow with his goat's beard,
Once and it hap, shal be made afeard,
          So God mote me save.
And zit (9) with thie catchepoles (10) hope I to meete
With a fellow or twaye in the playne streete
          And her (11) crownes brake.
And that harlot (12) Hierman with his calve's snowte
Of buffets full sekerly (13) shal bern (14) arowte
          For his werke's sake.
And yet shall hauk (15) yu Attilbrigge
Full zerve (16) for swappes his tayle wrigge (17)
          And it hap arith is (18)
And other knaves all on heape
Shall take knockes full good cheape
          Come once winter nith. (19)
But nowe I pray to God Almyth
          That whatsoever yowe (20) spare
That metche (21) sorowe to him bedith (22)
           And evill mote he fare.

Amen! quoth he that beshrewed the Mair's very
                               visatre.

1 woolly. 2 scroll. 3 if we have luck. 4 blows.
5 advise. 6 pay dearly. 7 cast. 8 curtel. 9 yet.
10 constables. 11 their. 12 knave. 13 surely. 14 bear.
15 gallows-bird. 16 well-earned. 17 writhe. 18 arise.
19 nigh. 20 you. 21 much. 22 betide.

THE HERMIT AT ROME.

A HERMIT from his desert home
They tore, and brought to startle Rome;

From Horeb's caves and stunted palms,
From starry vigils, prayers, and psalms;

An Arab robe, sun-scorched, he wore,
A brown gourd at his side he bore;

A knotted cane was in his hand,
Of twisted camel's-skin his band;

His ragged hair fell o'er his eyes,
Sudden and stern were his replies.

He asks for Peter's house: they show
Him marble arches, row on row.

In no clay hovel twisting rope,
Tent-making, lives the holy Pope.

They show him high towers, blue in air,
Or robed in golden atmosphere.

Through the great city, many-domed,
The hermit, restless, onward roamed.

They took him to the colonnade,
Where once the gladiators played,

To Caesar's palace, purple hung,
Where once the Syrian syrens sung.

The granite columns, mountain high,
Rose up defiant to the sky;

Triumphal arches o'er his head,
Leaped boastful of the Caesars dead.

He saw the stone gods, dumb and blind,
Yet dwarfing all our human-kind;

The Titan temples, dim and white,
With incense burning day and night;

The golden altars, won in war,
Now radiant with the Schecinah.

But still with stern and downcast eyes,
He paces—making no replies.

St. Peter's,—through a portico
Of giant columns, row on row,

Above—the great world of the dome,
Rises, a beacon unto Rome—

A church! a world! Colossal forms
Hold up the roof, and mock at storms;

Huge altars, all ablaze with gems,
Shining on dead saints' diadems.

Jove is dethroned: St. Peter there
Sits in the old Olympian chair.

See the dim chapel faintly lit
With one lamp at the end of it;

Jove everywhere deposed and dead,
Saint Peter reigning in his stead;