wicked wight,
Dwelling in noxious nooks as dark as night,
Beyond the radius of the housemaid's broom,
And thence dispensing dire disgrace and doom
Long time our homes hath haunted. Greedy Ghoul,
As furtive of advance as fierce of soul,
The Money-lending Spider is his name,
And grim and gruesome was his little game.
Of swollen body, of protuberant beak,
He knew that Youths were green, and Infants weak,
And spun his web, invisible but strong,
Where'er GRAY's well-named "little triflers" throng,
Who, verily unmindful of their doom,
He watched from forth his grubby haunts of gloom,
And strove by sinister device to lure,
Till, 'midst his viscous mazes once secure,
Them he might seize and suck.
The Birds, the Boar,
The Lion, or the Bull, all whom before
Great Herschelles had tackled, were not worse
Than the Colossal Spider, Albion's curse,
The scourge of childish Wealth and youthful Rank,
The Moloch of our Minors! Fathers, thank
Our new Alcides, who, with legal club,
Could dare the web assault, the Spider drub!
Worse than Tarantula venom hath the bite
Of this Conkiferous Ogre, which to fight
Herschelles did adventure! Thump! Bang! Whack!
The web is burst, the Spider's on his back,
All impotently spluttering poisonous spleen
Let's hope such monster may no more be seen.
And let us hail great Herschelles, whose skill
The high-nosed horror hath availed to kill.
Blow, Infants, blow the pipe, and thump the tabor,
In honour of the hero's Thirteenth Labour!

* * * * *

CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

VII.--THE DUFFER WITH A SALMON-ROD.

No pursuit is more sedentary, if one may talk of a sedentary pursuit,
and none more to my taste, than trout-fishing as practised in the
South of England. Given fine weather, and a good novel, nothing can he
more soothing than to sit on a convenient stump, under a willow, and
watch the placid kine standing in the water, while the brook murmurs
on, and perhaps the kingfisher flits to and fro. Here you sit and
fleet the time carelessly, till a trout rises. Then, indeed, duty
demands that you shall crawl in the manner of the serpent till you
come within reach of him, and cast a fly, which usually makes him
postpone his dinner-hour. But he will come on again, there is no need
for you to change your position, and you can always fill your basket
easily--with irises and ma