When thou hear’st thy mother singing, Softly close thy tender eyelids,— Lids which hide thy soul’s pearl-treasures; Straight thereafter cometh slumber, Slumber followed by dream’s angel, Soft and still dream’s angel takes thee, Lifts thee on his wings so gently, Bears thee forth among the meadows, There to bloom among the flowers, Bears thee to the birds and forests, There to fill thy breast with singing,— Leaves thy soul in purest waters, Bathes thee in the joyous sunshine. _Art_ thou poor, thou little maiden, Art thou poor as people think thee? When again thy eyelids open, Thou art on thy mother’s bosom, Feelest in thy tender senses, Thinkest in thy darksome thinking: Sweet it was upon the meadows, Blithe it was with birds and woodlands, Good beside the lake’s clear waters, Warm that bathing in the sunlight,— Yet best is it on this bosom. [To be continued.] PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. By C. E. BISHOP. VIII.—THE LAST GREAT INVADER OF FRANCE. You remember Franklin’s story of the speckled axe; how he turned the grindstone to polish it up nice, and, tiring of the revolutions, concluded he “liked a speckled axe best.” There was a king of England who had a very speckled character and the people of England (who turned the grindstone for him) long liked their king’s speckled character best of all the kings that they had known. When Prince of Wales he “cut up” so that he got the name of “Madcap Harry,” some of the most amusing of his pranks being highway robbery and burglary, for all which he was admired in his day and immortalized, along with Jack Falstaff, by Shakspere. One of the light spots on this character is his obedience to the commitment by Chief Justice Gascoigne; and although it belongs to the realm of tradition, it is so pleasant to believe and is so quaintly told by Lord Campbell that we’ll e’en accept it: One of the Prince’s gang of cut purses had been captured and imprisoned by Gascoigne, and the Prince came into court and demanded his release, which was denied. The Prince, says the chronicle, “being set all in a fury, all chafed and in a terrible maner, came up to the place of jugement, men thinking that he would have slain the juge, or have done to him some damage; but the juge sitting still without moving, declaring the majestie of the king’s place of jugement, and with an assured and bolde countenance, had to the Prince these words following: ‘Sir, remember yourself. I kepe here the place of the kinge, your soveraine lorde and father, to whom ye owe double obedience: wherefore eftsoones in his name I charge you desiste of your wilfulness and unlawfull enterprise, and from hensforth give good example to those whiche hereafter shall be your propre subjectes. And nowe, for your contempte and disobedience, go you to the prison