Chapter Eadburgh to Eckhart of E by Brewer's Readers Handbook

nabob; only he cracked his jug, spilt his milk, and went supperless to bed.—Rabelais: Pantagruel, i. 33 (1533).

This fable is told in the Arabian Nights (“The Barber’s Fifth Brother, Alnaschar”). Lafontaine has put it into verse, Perrette et le Pot au Lait. Dodsley has the same, The Milk-maid and her Pail of Milk.

Echo, in classic poetry, is a female, and in English also; but in Ossian echo is called “the son of the rock.’—Songs of Selma.

Echo Verses on Juan of Austria. Juan was brought up by Louis Quixada of the imperial household, and till the age of 14 was supposed to be his son; but Philip II. said to the lad, “You have the same father that I have, the emperor Charles (V.).” Barbara Blomberg, a washer-woman of Ratisbon, was said to have been his mother; but Barbara told him it was a great mistake to suppose that Charles (V.) was his father.

Sed ad Austriacum nostrum redeamus:
Echo eamus:
Hunc Cæsaris filium esse satis est notum;
Echo Nothum;
Multi tamen de ejus patre † dubitavere,
Echo vere,
Cujus ergo filium eum dicunt Itali.
Echo Itali.‡
Verum mater satis est nota in nostra republica;
Echo publica;
Imo hactenus egit in Brabantia ter vovere,
Echo hoere,
Crimen est ni frui amplexu Cæsaris tam generosi,
Echo osi,
Pluribus ergo usa in vita est;
Echo ita est;
Sed post Cæsaris congressum nos vere ante,
Echo ante,
Tace garrula, ne late quippiam loquare,
Echo quare?
Nescis qua pœna afficiendum dixerit Belgium insigne?
Echo igne?
Vers Satiriques contra Don Jean d’Autriche
(MS. Bibl. de Bourg., 17, 524).

“Nothum” of Barbara Blomberg.
† “Patre,” Charles V.
‡ “Itali” [and] a mechanic of Ratisbon.

To the mere English reader the following will give an idea of what Echo said:-

But let us our hero now return:
Echo return:
Some have maintained he was of Cæsar’s race born,
Echo base born,
And if not Cæsar’s self, yet of his family.
Echo a lie.
Etc. etc. etc.

Eckhart (The Faithful), a good servant, who perishes to save his master’s children from the mountain fiends.—Louis Tieck.

(Carlyle has translated this tale into English.)