"The proof! the proof!" King Jamie cried: "The how and eke the why!" Sir Patrick laughed within his beard-- "'Tis _ex hypothesi_-- "When I ligg'd in my mither's wame, I learn'd it frae my mither, That things was equal to the same, Was equal ane to t'ither. "Sith in the circle first I drew The lines B A, B C, Be radii true, I wit to you The baith maun equal be. "Likewise and in the second circle, Whilk I drew widdershins, It is nae skaith the radii baith, A B, AC, be twins. "And sith of three a pair agree That ilk suld equal ane, By certes they maun equal be Ilk unto ilk by-lane." "Now by my faith!" King Jamie saith, "What _plane_ geometrie! If only Potts had written in Scots, How loocid Potts wad be!" "Now wow's my life!" said Jamie the King, And the Scots lords said the same, For but it was that envious knicht, Sir Hughie o' the Graeme. "Flim-flam, flim-flam!" and "Ho indeed?" Quod Hughie o' the Graeme; "'Tis I could better upon my heid This prabblin prablem-game." Sir Patrick Spens Was nothing laith When as he heard "flim-flam," But syne he's ta'en a silken claith And wiped his diagram. "Gif my small feat may better'd be, Sir Hew, by thy big head, What I hae done with an A B C Do thou with X Y Z." Then sairly sairly swore Sir Hew, And loudly laucht the King; But Sir Patrick tuk the pipes and blew, And _played_ that eldritch thing! He's play'd it reel, he's play'd it jig, And the baith alternative; And he's danced Sir Hew to the Asses' Brigg, That's Proposetion Five. And there they've met, and there they've fet, Forenenst the Asses' Brigg, And waefu', waefu' was the fate That gar'd them there to ligg. For there Sir Patrick's slain Sir Hew, And Sir Hew Sir Patrick Spens-- Now was not that a fine to-do For Euclid's Elemen's? But let us sing Long live the King! And his foes the Deil attend 'em: For he has gotten his little triangle, _Quod erat faciendum!_ [1] This was written some time before the _entente cordiale_. MARCH. How quietly its best things steal upon the world! And in a world where a single line of Sappho's survives as a something more important than the entire political history of Lesbos, how little will the daily newspaper help us to take long views!