For water and a crust they crave,

Those mouths that, even on Lent days, Scarce knew the taste of water, save When watering for dainties.

The room was high, the host's was nigh:
Had wife or he suspicion

That monks would make a raree-show
Of chinks in the partition?-

Or that two confessors would come,
Their holy cars outreaching
To conversations as hum-drum
Almost as their own preaching?
Shame on you, friars of orders grey,

That peeping knelt, and wriggling, And when ye should have gone to pray, Betook yourselves to giggling!

But every deed will have its meed :
And hark! what information
Has made the sinners, in a trice,
Look black with consternation.

The farmer on a hone prepares

His knife, a long and keen one; And talks of killing both the frères, The fat one and the lean one.

To-morrow, by the break of day,

He orders, too, saltpetre

And pickling tubs――But, reader, stay, Our host was no man-eater.

The priests knew not that country-folks
Gave pigs the name of friars;
But startled, witless of the joke,

As if they'd trod on briars.

Meanwhile, as they perspired with dread, The hair of either craven

Had stood erect upon his head,

But that their heads were shaven.

What! pickle and smoke us limb by limb?

God curse him and his larders!

St Peter will bedevil him

If he saltpetre friars.

Yet, Dominick, to die!-the bare
Idea shakes one oddly;

Yes, Boniface, 't is time we were
Beginning to be godly.

Would that, for absolution's sake,
Of all our sins and cogging,
We had a whip to give and take
A last kind mutual flogging.

O Dominick! thy nether end
Should bleed for expiation,

And thou shouldst have, my dear fat friend,
A glorious flagellation..

But having ne'er a switch, poor souls!
They bow'd like weeping willows,
And told the Saints long rigmaroles
Of all their peccadilloes.

Yet, 'midst this penitential plight,

A thought their fancies tickled;
'T were better brave the window's height
Than be at morning pickled.

And so they girt themselves to leap,
Both under breath imploring
A regiment of saints, to keep

Their host and hostess snoring.

The lean one 'lighted like a cat,

Then scamper'd off like Jehu,
Nor stopp'd to help the man of fat,
Whose cheek was of a clay hue-
Who, being by nature more design'd
For resting than for jumping,
Fell heavy on his parts behind,

That broaden'd with the plumping.

There long beneath the window's sconce
His bruises he sat pawing,
Squat as the figure of a bonze

Upon a Chinese drawing.

At length he waddled to a sty;

The pigs, you'd thought for game-sake, Came round and nosed him lovingly,

As if they'd known their namesake.

Meanwhile the other flew to town,
And with short respiration
Bray'd like a donkey up and down,
Ass-ass-ass-assination!»

Just as the horsemen halted near,
Crying, Murderer, stop, ohoy, oh!»
Jacquez was comforting the frere
With a good glass of noyau-

Who beckon'd to them not to kick up
A row; but waxing mellow,
Squeezed Jacquez' hand, and with a hiccup
Said, You're a damn'd good fellow."
Explaining lost but little breath :-

Here ended all the matter;
So God save Queen Elizabeth,
And long live Henri Quatre!

The gens-d'armes at the story broke
Into horse-fits of laughter,
And, as if they had known the joke,
Their horses neigh'd thereafter.

Lean Dominick, methinks, his chaps
Yawn'd weary, worn, and moody;
So may my readers' too, perhaps,
And thus I wish 'em good day.