Speaking with much circumspection, the druggist made answer as follows:

'What you say, good neighbor, is certainly true, and my plan is

Always to think of improvement, provided tho' new, 'tis not costly.

But what avails it in truth, unless one has plenty of money, Active and fussy to be, improving both inside and outside?

Sadly confined are the means of a burgher; e'en when he knows it,

Little that's good he is able to do, his purse is too narrow, And the sum wanted too great; and so he is always prevented.

I have had plenty of schemes! but then I was terribly frighten'd

At the expense, especially during a time of such danger. Long had my house smiled upon me, decked out in modish exterior,

Long had my windows with large panes of glass resplendently glitter'd.

Who can compete with a merchant, however, who, rolling in riches,

Also knows the manner in which what is best can be purchased?

Only look at the house up yonder, the new one! how handsome

Looks the stucco of those white scrolls on the greencolor'd panels!

Large are the plates of the windows; how shining and brilliant the panes are,

Quite eclipsing the rest of the houses that stand in the market!

Yet at the time of the fire, our two were by far the most handsome,

Mine at the sign of the Angel, and yours at the old Golden Lion.

Then my garden was famous throughout the whole country, and strangers

Used to stop as they pass'd and peep through my redcolor'd palings

At my beggars of stone, and at my dwarfs, which wer painted.

He to whom I gave coffee inside my beautiful grotto, Which, alas! is cover'd with dust and tumbling to pieces,

Used to rejoice in the color'd glimmering light of the mussels,

Ranged in natural order around it and connoisseurs

even

Used with dazzled eyes to gaze at the spars and the coral.

Then, in the drawing-room, people look'd with delight on the painting,

Where the prim ladies and gentlemen walked in the garden demurely,

And with pointed fingers presented the flowers,, and held them.

Ah, if only such things were now to be seen! Little care I

Now to go out; for everything needs to be alter'd and tasteful,

As it is call'd; and white are the benches of wood and the palings;

All things are simple and plain; and neither carving nor gilding

Now are employ'd, and foreign timber is now all the fashion.

I should be only too pleased to possess some novelty also,

So as to march with the times, and my household furniture alter.

But we all are afraid to make the least alteration,

For who is able to pay the present charges of workmen? Lately a fancy possess'd me the angel Michael, whose figure

Hangs up over my shop, to treat to a new coat of gilding,

And the terrible Dragon, who round his feet is entwin

ing;

But I have left him all brown; as he is; for the cost quite alarm'd me."

IV. EUTERPE.

MOTHER AND SON.

THUS the men discoursèd together; and meanwhile the mother

Went in search of her son,-at first in front of the dwelling

On the bench of stone, for he was accustom'd to sit there.

When she found him not there, she went to look in the stable,

Thinking perchance he was feeding his splendid horses, the stallions,

Which he had bought when foals, and which he entrusted to no one.

But the servant inform'd her that he had gone to the garden

Then she nimbly strode across the long double courtyard,

Left the stables behind, and the barns all made of good timber,

Enter'd the garden which stretch'd far away to the walls of the borough,

Walk'd across it, rejoicing to see how all things were growing,

Carefully straighten'd the props, on which the appletree's branches,

Heavily loaded, reposed, and the weighty boughs of the pear-tree,

Took a few caterpillars from off the strong-sprouting cabbage;

For a bustling woman is never idle one moment.

In this manner she came to the end of the long-reaching garden,

Where was the the arbor all cover'd with woodbine. she found not her son there,

Nor was he to be seen in any part of the garden.

But she found on the latch the door which out of the

arbor Through the wall of the town had been made by special permission

During their ancestor's time, the worthy old burgomaster. So she easily stepp'd across the dry ditch at the spot where

On the highway abutted their well-enclosed excellent vineyard,

Rising steeply upwards, its face tow'rd the sun turn'd directly.

Up the hill she proceeded, rejoicing, as farther she mounted,

At the size of the grapes, which scarcely were hid by the foliage.

Shady and well-cover'd in, the middle walk at the top

was,

Which was ascended by steps of rough flat pieces constructed.

And within it were hanging fine chasselas and muscatels also,

And a reddish-blue grape, of quite an exceptional bigness, All with carefulness planted, to give to their guests after dinner.

But with separate stems the rest of the vineyard was planted,

Smaller grapes producing, from which the finest wine

made is.

So she constantly mounted, enjoying in prospect the autumn,

And the festal day when the neighborhood met with rejoicing,

Picking and treading the grapes, and putting the must in the wine vats,

Every corner and nook resounding at night with the fireworks

Blazing and cracking away, due honor to pay to the harvest.

But she uneasy became, when she in vain had been calling Twice and three times her son, and when the sole answer that reach'd her

Came from the garrulous echo which out of the town towers issued.

Strange it appear'd to have to seek him; he never went far off,

(As he before had told her) in order to ward off all

sorrow

From his dear mother, and her forebodings of coming disaster.

But she still was expecting upon the highway to find him,

For the doors at the bottom, like those at the top, of the

vineyard

Stood wide open; and so at length she enter’d the broad field

Which, with its spreading expanse, o'er the whole of the hill's back extended.

On their own property still she proceeded, greatly rejoicing

At their own crops, and at the corn which nodded so bravely,

Over the whole of the field in golden majesty waving. Then on the border between the fields, she follow'd the footpath,

Keeping her eye on the pear-tree fix'd, the big one, which standing

Perch'd by itself on the top of the hill, their property bounded.

Who had planted it, no one knew; throughout the whole country

Far and wide was it visible; noted also its fruit was. Under its shadow the reaper ate his dinner at noonday,

And the herdsman was wont to lie, when tending his cattle.

Benches made of rough stones and of turf were placed all about it.

And she was not mistaken; there sat her Hermann and rested;

On his arm he was leaning, and seem'd to be looking 'cross country

Tow'rds the mountains beyond; his back was turn'd to his mother.

Softly creeping up, she lightly tapp'd on his shoulder; And he hastily turn'd; she saw that his eyes full of tears

were.