Though his sun was setting, the sky round about was calm and bright, and that little Weimar illumined by it. In every one of those kind salons the talk was still of Art and Letters. The theatre, though possessing no extraordinary actors, was still connected with a noble intelligence and order. The actors read books and were men of letters and gentlemen, holding a not unkindly relationship with the _Adel_. At Court the conversation was exceedingly friendly, simple, and polished.... In the respect paid by this court to the Patriarch of Letters, there was something ennobling, I think, alike to the subject and the sovereign. With a five-and-twenty years' experience since those happy days of which I write, and an acquaintance with an immense variety of human kind, I think I have never seen a society more simple, charitable, courteous, gentlemanlike, than that of the dear little Saxon city where the good Schiller and the great Goethe lived and lie buried. LITTLE BILLEE [Sidenote: _W.M. Thackeray_] Air--"Il y avait un petit navire" There were three sailors of Bristol city, Who took a boat and went to sea. But first with beef and captain's biscuits And pickled pork they loaded she. There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy, And the youngest he was little Billee. Now when they got as far as the Equator They'd nothing left but one split pea. Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, "I am extremely hungaree." To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy, "We've nothing left, us must eat we." Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, "With one another we shouldn't agree! There's little Bill, he's young and tender, We're old and tough, so let's eat he. "Oh, Billy, we're going to kill and eat you, So undo the button of your chimie." When Bill received this information, He used his pocket-handkerchie. "First let me say my catechism Which my poor mammy taught to me." "Make haste, make haste," says guzzling Jimmy, While Jack pulled out his snickersnee. So Billy went up to the main-top gallant mast, And down he fell on his bended knee. He scarce had come to the twelfth commandment When up he jumps, "There's land I see. "Jerusalem and Madagascar, And North and South Amerikee: There's the British flag a-riding at anchor, With Admiral Napier, K.C.B." So when they got aboard of the Admiral's He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee; But as for little Bill, he made him The Captain of a Seventy-Three. THE SOUTH COUNTRY [Sidenote: _Hilaire Belloc_] When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind. The great hills of the South Country, They stand along the sea: And it's there walking in the high woods, That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy, Walking along with me.