"Since I have not my violin," said the little scullion in his turn, angrily addressing the cook, "I must get music out of whatever I can lay my hands upon."

"Can you play the violin, my lad?" inquired_the_little man, who was no other than the famous Michael Lambert, whose arrival has been so long expected.

"A little, signor," answered Baptiste; "and if I could see a man that they call Michael Lambert, I know very well what I would say to him."

"Well, I am Michael Lambert; now what have you to say to me, my good little man?"

you

"Are you Michael Lambert?" replied Baptiste, approaching him, and eagerly looking up in his face; "and will you listen to me? I have no money; I therefore cannot ask you to give me lessons in music, but if you would permit me to hear you play now and then, or to follow you when you go to give lessons in the town, I promise, on the word of Baptiste Lulli, that you shall have in a little time a pupil who will do you honour."

"I will try you," said Lambert. "Take my violin and play." Little Baptiste did not wait to be asked twice. He took the violin which Lambert presented to him, and raising it to his shoulder, he said with deep emotion, “At last, then, these fingers once more hold a bow." And he began to play.

After the first notes were struck, Lambert never took his eyes off the boy, who managed the bow with the dexterity of a practised hand and the precision of an admirable ear.

The longer the child played, the more rapturous became the delight of the artist; when Baptiste, enjoying the astonishment which he created, suddenly stopped, and, with an arch look and mirthful tone, said to him, "Well, signor, what do you think of that?"

Lambert, in an ecstacy of admiration, ran to Baptiste, took him in his arms, and kissing him several times, cried, "Wonderful! admirable! You are a musician, my boy. Quit your kitchen, quit your skillets, your stew-pans, and come with me. Come, you are my child; come! I will take charge of you, of your education, of your introduction into the world. I expect you will make your fortune-you must make it. Where is Mademoiselle ? Where is she?" added he, going to the staircase, dragging Baptiste after him. He did not go far before he met the Duchess of Montpensier, who, with her suite, had remained at the top of the staircase, silent and motionless spectators of the whole of this scene. "Madame," said Lambert, whom the presence of the beautiful princess, and the brilliant assemblage of nobility around her did not seem to abash, "a boy of talent like this," pushing Baptiste towards her, ought not to remain buried in your kitchens. I demand him of your highness, to make a musician of him, and a celebrated musician too." "Make a musician of him; I consent to that, Monsieur Lambert," replied Mademoiselle

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kindly; "but I am too delighted to have one among my people to suffer little Baptiste to leave me: I will allow him to go to you as often as he likes to take lessons, which I shall pay for, and I give you my word, that if he profits by them, I will form a company of musicians of which he shall be one."

Then turning towards Baptiste, she added, with a glance full of kindness, "Go, throw off your livery, and change it for a page's dress." Six months afterwards Baptiste Lulli wore the black doublet of a secretary, and was the leader of twelve violins, to which he gave such pretty airs of his own composition, that his Majesty Louis XIV. demanded him of Mademoiselle, and put him at the head of his own band, so well known and celebrated at that time by the name of "Les Petits Violons."

In the brilliant festivals, of such perpetual recurrence in the court of Louis XIV., Lulli soon found an opening for his talents in the lyric drama. He composed the music of those interludes and after-pieces in which the king himself did not disdain to take part; and Molière had recourse to him for the operatic and ballet parts of his pieces. Endowed with a lively and original mind, he did not the less prove that he was able both to feel and to express the higher emotions and deeper sensibilities of the soul.

In her letter of 6th May 1672, Madame de Sevigné, giving an account of the funeral ceremony of the Chancellor Séquiér, says of Lulli, "As for his genius, it is a thing which cannot be expressed. In the music we had yesterday at the royal chapel, Baptiste outdid himself. His beautiful miserere was added on this occasion. There was also a libera, at which all eyes were full of tears."

Louis XIV., wishing to reward Lulli munificently, gave him that year the professorship of the Royal Academy of Music, which, up to that time, had belonged to the Abbé Perrin; and to him, in conjunction with Quinault, is attributed the glory of oringing to perfection the grand opera, the pride and boast of the French.

Neither the greatest merit nor the greatest success can avert accidental misfortunes. In 1687 poor Lulli, whom we have traced from obscurity to distinction, in the midst of his wellearned honours, had the misfortune to hurt his foot severely in beating time to a Te Deum, performed on the recovery of his majesty from a severe illness. Unhappily, mortification ensued. As he lay on his deathbed, he composed a hymn, "Sinner, thou must die," and sang it with a faint and tremulous voice.

He died a few days after. His widow, who was the daughter of Michael Lambert, his first master, erected a magnificent monument to his memory in the church of Petits Pères, where he wished to be interred. Sauteuil composed his epitaph, in six Latin verses, the substance of which translated is as follows:"Oh, Death! we knew that thou wert blind, but in striking Lulli, thou hast taught us that thou art deaf also."

IS Sabbath-day, the poor man walks
Blithe from his cottage door,

And to his prattling young ones talks
As they skip on before.

The father is a man of joy,

From his week's toil released;
And jocund is each little boy
To see his father pleased.

But, looking to a field at hand,

Where the grass grows rich and high,

A no less merry Sabbath band
Of horses met my eye.

Poor skinny beasts! that go all week
With loads of earth and stones,
Bearing, with aspect dull and meek,
Hard work and cudgel'd bones;

But now let loose to roam athwart
The farmer's clover lea,

With whisking tails, and jump and snort,
They speak a clumsy glee.

Lolling across each other's necks,
Some look like brothers dear;
Others are full of flings and kicks,
Antics uncouth and
queer.

One tumbles wild from side to side,
With hoofs tossed to the sun,
Cooling his old gray seamy hide,
And making dreadful fun.

I thought how pleasant 'twas to see,
On this bright Sabbath-day,
Man and his beasts alike set free
To take some harmless play;

And how their joys were near the same-
The same in show at least-
Hinting that we may sometimes claim
Too much above the beast.

If like in joys, beasts surely must
Be like in sufferings too,
And we can not be right or just.
To treat them as we do.

Thus did God's day serve as a span
All things to bind together,
And make the humble brute to man
A patient pleading brother.

Oh, if to us one precious thing,
And not to them, is given,
Kindness to them will be a wing
To carry it on to heaven!

-R. CHAMBERS.

TO A YOUNG ASS.

(ITS MOTHER BEING TETHERED NEAR IT.)
POOR little foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face:
And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled spirits hath dismayed,
That never thou dost sport along the glade?
And (most unlike the nature of things young)
That earthward still thy moveless head is hung?
Do thy prophetic fears anticipate,

Meek child of misery! thy future fate?
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
"Which patient merit of the unworthy takes?"

Or is thy sad heart thrilled with filial pain
To see thy wretched mother's shortened chain?
And truly very piteous is her lot,

Chained to a log within a narrow spot,

Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen,
While sweet around her waves the tempting green!
Poor ass! thy master should have learnt to show
Pity-best taught by fellowship of wo!
For much I fear me that he lives like thee,
Half famished in a land of luxury!

How askingly it's footsteps hither bend!
It seems to say, "And have I then one friend?"
Innocent foal! thou poor despised forlorn!
I hail thee brother, spite of the fool's scorn!
And fain would take thee with me, in the dell
Of peace and mild equality to dwell,

Where toil shall call the charmer health his bride,
And laughter tickle plenty's ribless side!

How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
And frisk about as lamb or kitten gay!
Yea, and more musically sweet to me
Thy dissonant harsh bray of joy would be,
Than warbled melodies that soothe to rest
The aching of pale fashion's vacant breast!
-COLERIDGE.

ETTRICK SHEPHERD'S ADDRESS TO HIS DOG HECTOR.

COME, my auld towzy,1 trusty friend,

What gars ye look sae dung wi' wae? 2

D'ye think my favour's at an end,
Because thy head is turnin' gray?

Although thy strength begins to fail,
Its best was spent in serving me;
And can I grudge thy wee bit meal,
Some comfort in thy age to gi'e?

For mony a day, frae sun to sun,

We've toiled fu' hard wi' ane anither;
And mony a thousand mile thou'st run,
To keep my thraward flocks thegither.

*

O'er past imprudence, oft alane

I've shed the saut and silent tear;
Then sharin' a' my grief and pain,

My poor auld friend came snoovin' near.

1 Shaggy.

2 Dejected with wo.

3 Poking.