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the characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which, with the tree, still grow roportionably. But how this love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question; I befieve an tell the particular little chance that filled my hed first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there; for I remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour—I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion-but there was wont to lie Spencer's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses which I found everywhere there-though my under. standing had little to do with all this-and by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence by that public violent storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rootod up every plant even from the princely cedars, to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my life; that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness-both militant and triumphant-for that was the state then of the English and the French courts-yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage; though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business of great and honorable trust, though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old schoolboy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:

advantage from his majesty's happy restoration, bu the getting into some moderately convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance of it:

Thou neither great at court nor in the war,
Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling
bar;

Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c.

However, by the falling of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into a corpus perditum, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, 'Take thy ease;' I met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness a new misfortune to me-as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither repent nor alter my course; Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum [I have not falsely sworn]. Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.

Nor by me e'er shall you,

You of all names the sweetest and the best,
You muses, books, and liberty, and rest;
You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be,
As long as life itself forsakes not me.

AN ELOQUENT PASSAGE.

GEORGE D. PRENTISS.

It cannot be that earth is man's only abiding place. It cannot be that our life is a mere bubble cast up by eternity to float a moment on the waves and sink into nothingness. Else why is it that the glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts are forever wandering unsatisfied? Why is it that the stars that hold their festival around the midnight throne are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, forever mocking us with their unapproachable glory? And finally, why is it that bright forms of human beauty presented to our view are taken from us, leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? There is a realm where the rainbow never fades; where the stars will spread out before us like the islands that slumber in the ocean; and where the beautiful beings which pass before us like And I never then proposed to myself any other shadows will stay in our presence forever.

Well, then, I now do plainly see

This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c.

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For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate;

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say;

'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

'One morn I missed him on the customed hill, Along the heath and near his favourite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

'The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne;

Approach and read-for thou canst read-the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

THE EI APH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A Youth to fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had—a tear;

He gained from Heaven-'twas all he wished-a friend.

No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abodeThere they alike in trembling hope reposeThe bosom of his Father and his God.

PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green,
With magic tints to harmonize the scene.
Stilled in the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more

With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?

Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown
court,

Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew,
Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke!--to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight
steals!

As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.

The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn;
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.

Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blazed
The gipsy's fagot-there we stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sunburnt face with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps in the barn with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed;

Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest shade,

When in the breeze the distant watch dog brayed;
And heroes fled the sibyl's muttered call,
Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall.
As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,
And traced the line of life with searching view,
How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and
fears,

To learn the color of my future years!

Ah, then, what honest triumph flushed my breast;

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