The flageolet, To breathe “a piping time of peace.” Ah, too deceitful charm, Like light’ning before death, For Scrapenberg to rest his arm, And Puffindorf get breath! Again without remorse or pity, They play “The Storming of a City.” Miss S. herself compos’d and plann’d it-- When lo! at this renew’d attack, Up jumps a little man in black,-- “The very Devil cannot stand it! And with that, Snatching hat, (Not his own,) Off is flown, Thro’ the door, In his black, To come back Never, never, never more?” Oh Music! praises thou hast had, From Dryden and from Pope, For thy good notes, yet none I hope, But I e’er praised the bad, Yet are not saint and sinner even? Miss Strummel on Cecilia’s level? One drew an angel down from heaven! The other scar’d away the Devil! [Illustration: A GRAND UPRIGHT.] REFLECTIONS ON WATER. “When the butt is out, we will drink water: not a drop before.”--TEMPEST. I have Stefano’s aversion to Water. I never take any by chance into my mouth, without the proneness of our Tritons and Dolphins of the Fountain,--to spout it forth again. It is, on the palate, as in tubs and hand-basins, egregiously washy. It hath not for me, even what is called “an amiable weakness.” For the sake only of quantity, not quality, do I sometimes adulterate my Cogniac or Geneva with the flimsy fluid. Aquarius is not my sign; at the praises heaped on Sir Hugh Myddelton, for leading his trite streamlet up to London,--my lip curleth. Methinks if such a sloppy labour could at one time more than another betray a misguided taste, it was in those days, when we are told,--“The Grete Conduict, in Chepe, did runne forth Wyne.” And then to hear talk withal of the New River _Head_,--as if, forsooth, the weak current poured even from Ware unto London, were capable of that goodly headed capital, the _caput_, of Stout Porter, or lusty Ale. The taste for aquatics is none of mine. I laugh at Cowes’--it should be Calves’--Regattas; it passeth my understanding, to conceive the pleasure of contending with all your sail and sea, your might and main, for a prize cup of water. Gentle reader, if ever we two should encounter at good-men’s feasts, say not before me, that “your mouth waters,” for fear of my compelled rejoinder, “The more pump you!” [Illustration: THE ARCH-ENEMY.]