[Footnote 10:  Bilboes is a poetical word for swords.]

  This while our noble king,
  His broadsword brandishing,
  Down the French host did ding,[11]
    As to o’erwhelm it;
  And many a deep wound lent,
  His arms with blood besprent,
  And many a cruel dent
    Bruised his helmet.

[Footnote 11:  To ding is to strike.]

  Glo’ster, that duke so good,
  Next of the royal blood,
  For famous England stood,
    With his brave brother,—­
  Clarence, in steel so bright,
  Though but a maiden knight,
  Yet in that furious fight
    Scarce such another.

  Warwick in blood did wade;
  Oxford the foe invade,
  And cruel slaughter made,
    Still as they ran up. 
  Suffolk his axe did ply;
  Beaumont and Willoughby
  Bare them right doughtily,
    Ferrers and Fanhope.

  Upon Saint Crispin’s[12] day
  Fought was this noble fray,
  Which fame did not delay
    To England to carry;
  O, when shall Englishmen
  With such acts fill a pen,
  Or England breed again
    Such a King Harry!

[Footnote 12:  Crispin was a Christian saint who suffered martyrdom in the third century.  The 25th of October was made sacred to him.  It was on Saint Crispin’s day, 1415, that the Battle of Agincourt was fought.]

SOME CHILDREN’S BOOKS OF THE PAST

By GRACE E. SELLON

Probably somewhere about your home, put away so far from sight that you never think of them any more, are some of the ABC books and the alphabet blocks and the brightly colored story books about horses, dogs and other familiar animals that used to amuse you when you were just learning to say the alphabet and to spell a few three-letter words.  Perhaps you can remember how much you liked to have the stories read to you and how much fun there was in repeating your A B C’s when you could point out the big, colored letters in your book or on your blocks.  But have you ever thought that you were any more fortunate than other children of other ages in having these interesting things to help you?  Have you ever wondered whether, far back in history before our country was discovered and settled by white men, boys and girls had the same kinds of picture books and drawing-slates, alphabet games and other playthings that used to delight you in the days when you were going to kindergarten or learning your first simple lessons from your mother?

If you have never thought enough about this matter to ask some older person about it, you will find the lesson books and story books used by children of even a hundred years ago very curious.  Suppose we go farther back, to 1620, the year of the Mayflower, let us say.  You could never imagine what a child then living in England was given to learn his letters from.  As soon as he was able to remember the first