to me; for the fellow knew nothing of me. It was, as I told the company, just this: he looked upon their bodies as so many gutters to drain off the contents of his taps, and upon their purses as so many small heaps from which to take the means of augmenting his great one; and, finding that I had been, no matter how, the cause of suspending this work of 'reciprocity,' he wanted, and no matter how, to restore the reciprocal system to motion. All that I have to add is this: that the next time this old sharp-looking fellow gets six shillings from me for a dinner, he shall, if he choose, cook me, in any manner that he likes, and season me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst unquenchable.

Then and Now.

After living within a few hundred yards of Westminster Hall, and the Abbey Church, and the Bridge, and looking from my own windows into St James's Park, all other buildings and spots appear mean and insignificant. I went to-day to see the house I formerly occupied. How small! It is always thus: the words large and small are carried about with us in our minds, and we forget real dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, remains during our absence from the object. When I returned to England in 1880, after an absence, from the country parts of it, of sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear little gutters that I could jump over called rivers! The Thames was but a 'creek'! But when, in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross, in my post-chaise, the long and dreary heath of Bagshot; then, at the end of it, to mount a hill called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learned before the death of my father and mother. There is a hill not far from the town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat in the form of a cone, and is planted wtih Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. As high as Crooksbury Hill' meant, with us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore the first object that my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes! Literally speaking, I for a moment thought the famous hill removed, and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen in New Brunswick a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as big, and four or five times as high! The post-boy going down-hill, and not a bad road, whisked me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden of which I could see the prodigious sandhill where I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing! But now came rushing into my mind all at once my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle and tender-hearted and affectionate mother! I hastened back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer I should have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a change! I looked down at my dress. What a change! What scenes I had gone through! How altered my state! I had dined the day before

at a secretary of state's in company with Mr Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy liveries! I had had nobody to assist me in the world. No teachers of any sort. Nobody to shelter me from the consequence of bad, and no one to counsel me to good behaviour. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth all became nothing in my eyes; and from that moment— less than a month after my arrival in England-I resolved never to bend before them.

On Field-sports.

Taking it for granted, then, that sportsmen are as good as other folks on the score of humanity, the sports of the field, like everything else done in the fields, tend to produce or preserve health. I prefer them to all other pastime, because they produce early rising; because they have a tendency to lead young men into virtuous habits. It is where men congregate that the vices haunt. A hunter or a shooter may also be a gambler and a drinker; but he is less likely to be fond of the two latter if he be fond of the former. Boys will take to something in the way of pastime; and it is better that they take to that which is innocent, healthy, and manly, than that which is vicious, unhealthy, and effeminate.

A new edition of Selections from Cobbett's Political Works, in 6 vols., was issued by his son (2 vols. 1848); and there is a good Life of him by Edward Smith (2 vols. 1878). See also Lord Dalling's Historical Characters (5th ed. 1876).

Henry James Pye (1745-1813), poetaster and police magistrate, has for more than a hundred years been a standing joke-an unhappy fate he would doubtless have escaped had he not had the fortune to be made poet-laureate ; for the 'poetical Pye,' as Sir Walter called him, was, to quote an editorial note to the Vision of Judgment, eminently respectable in everything but his poetry.' 'That bad eminence' was not, like Satan's, due to merit, nor was it so much owing to his unequalled eminence in badness as to his being raised to official literary eminence in spite of the admitted badness of his poetry. Born in London, he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and inherited from his father great estates in Berkshire, and even greater debts. He sat in Parliament for the county from 1784 to 1790, had meanwhile to sell his property, and was glad in 1792 to obtain the post of police magistrate for Westminster, as forty-four years earlier Fielding had been. From his youth he had been ambitious to shine as a poet, and while at Oxford printed a birthday ode to the Prince of Wales. When in 1790 Pitt appointed him laureate, he had published several 'poetical essays' (on Beauty, Amusement, &c.), and poems on Farringdon Hill, The Progress of Refinement, on shooting, and even on ballooning! (Aërophonion) -banal subjects mostly, and all in a hopelessly banal style, though his Six Odes from Pindar were respectable, like his translation of Aristotle's Poetics. Hence the appointment to the laureateship was the signal for an outburst of mirth, scorn, and witticism at the laureate's expense, renewed from time to time on the regular appearance of royal birthday odes and laureate's verses

to order. Pye translated from Tyrtæus and the Homeric Hymns; wrote a Carmen Seculare for the year 1800; and in 1801 produced his epic Alfred, deserving by its six books' length to rank as his magnum opus. It is hardly remembered that he was also a playwright, his tragedies of The Siege of Meaux and Adelaide having been produced (with small success) in 1794 and 1800; in A Prior Claim, a comedy, he collaborated with his son-in-law. The Inquisitor, published in 1798, was an adaptation from the German, but was anticipated by Holcroft's rendering of the same original.

6

His Comments on the Commentators of Shakespear commend not too enthusiastically Shakespeare's works, the perusal of which, through the course of my life, has been a favourite amusement in my hours of leisure.' Shakespeare is notoriously very careless as to the unities and probabilities; is unequalled in the terrific and sublime, but 'does not possess the power of Otway and many inferior poets of exciting pity.' 'He highly possesses all the sublimity, the variety, the accurate description, and the scenery independent of the representation, of the epopee, both serious and comic united.' He excels in certain of the virtues of the ethic poet' and of the lyric poet, but 'sometimes swells his sublime to the bombast, and sometimes sinks his humour to buffoonery.' The chief faults of his commentators arise from a desire to say everything they can say, not only on the passage commented on, but on everything that has been said in the comment;' and Pye thereupon proceeds in 350 pages to add his comments to those of Malone and Steevens, pointing out the obvious superfluity of so many of them. Probably Pye's most popular work was his Summary of the Duties of a Justice of Peace out of Sessions, which, published in 1808, reached a fourth edition in 1827.

As laureate, Pye succeeded Warton, held the office twenty-three years, and was himself succeeded by Southey. It was his curious function by hardly interrupted versification to connect the beginning of George III.'s reign and the creative period of the nineteenth century. He represents nobody but himself, and happily he exerted no influence; but when the Pye was opened,' to quote one of the many bad jokes made at his expense -when he began to publish poems, Boswell had not yet discovered Johnson, Goldsmith had not printed any of the books by which his name is known; and when Pye's mill ceased producing, Coleridge and Wordsworth, Scott and Byron, had established their name and fame as representative poets.

It was in the fateful year 1801 that Pye produced his magnum opus, a monumental epic on Alfred, his trials and triumphs, of more than four thousand decasyllabic rhyming lines, distributed into six books, and magnificently printed in a splendid quarto. Written in the last years of the eighteenth

century for the inauguration of the nineteenth, and issued just when the union with Ireland had come into force, the poem naturally adopted a strongly unionist tone, and indulged in roseate hopes for the newly constituted United Kingdom and empire, which, if not justified by the event exactly as was forecast, have yet been in other respects more than fulfilled. Relying more on creative imagination than even on the most fabulous of the Scottish historians, Pye makes Alfred in his dark days come, a suppliant for help, to Gregory of Scotland; and the issue of Alfred's crowning mercy, the defeat of the Danes at Ethandun, is largely due to the Scottish allies, with whom the poet, still more unhistorically, makes an Irish and a Welsh contingent co-operate. The services in the field of the remaining section of the Celtic fringe are not recognised ; but, to atone for this, Pye gives 'a Cornubian bard' an important share in the proceedings of the day. On the arrival, somewhat unexpected, of the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish armies, the English are not a little gratified at these convenient additions to their fighting strength:

Wondering, they see upon the aërial brow

Cambria's and Caledonia's banners flow. . . .
Here crowned with recent conquest to the skies
The snow-white steed in Saxon banners flies;
There Cambria's griffin on the azure field
In snaky volumes writhes around the shield;
And Scotia's lion, proud, erect, and bold,
Rears high his irritable crest in gold.
Gold too her harp and strung with silver wire,
Erin her arms displays with kindred fire,
And Britain's sister isles in Alfred's cause conspire.

Alfred fully recognised the importance of having all the peoples of the British islands united against outlandish invaders and foes:

My faithful subjects and my brave allies,
All equal heirs of Albion's fostering skies,
Nor peace nor liberty can Britain know
But from the fall of yon injurious foe.
And ye from Cambria's hills who join our band,
From Caledonia's rocks and Erin's strand,
Generous and brave compeers! O now be shewn
The only strife that future times shall own.

In the ensuing battle the various contingents behave with equal bravery:

Here Caledonia's hardy mountaineers

Lift the broad targe, there mark her lowland spears ;
While Cambria's and Ierne's warriors brave
With lighter arms

do their duty on this memorable day. Donald, the Scottish prince, dies gloriously at the hands of the Danish Hubba while in the act of saving Alfred's life. And when the decisive battle of EthandunPye rightly identifies it with Eddington-crushed the foe in the dire blazonry of Danish gore,' and Guthrum had made absolute surrender, then after all was over and much speech-making satisfactorily accomplished, the 'Cornubian Bard'—so that

the Saxons and the other Celts might not forget the old British kingdom of Cornwall or West Wales has a long and important statement to make, winding up with a highly optimistic prophetic vision, which might be regarded as a complete programme of enlightened Unionism plus Imperialism. Even if we date the vision in 1801, rather than in 871, it seems well worth quoting (with Pye's own capitals):

Now learn events yet unrevealed that lie
In the dark bosom of futurity.

As my delighted eyes in yon firm line
With friendly folds see Albion's banners join,
I view them in prophetic vision shewn
United subjects of a mighty throne;
See Cambria's, Caledonia's, Anglia's name
Blended and lost in Britain's prouder fame.
And ye, fair Erin's sons, though Ocean's tide
From Britain's shores your kindred shores divide,
That tide shall bear your mingled flags unfurl'd
A mutual barrier from an envying world;
While the same waves that hostile inroad awe
The sister isles to closer compact draw,

Waft Friendship's intercourse and Plenty's stores
From Shannon's brink to Humber's distant shores.
Each separate interest, separate right shall cease,
Link'd in eternal amity and peace,

While Concord blesses with celestial smiles

THE FAVOURED EMPIRE OF THE BRITISH ISLES.

Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823), author of The Farmer's Boy, was born at Honington near Bury St Edmunds. His father, a tailor, died whilst the poet was a child, and at eleven he was placed under his uncle, a farmer. He was too feeble and diminutive for field-labour, and four years later he joined an elder brother in London, to learn the trade of shoemaker; but his country service furnished materials for his Farmer's Boy, and gave reality to his descriptions. But it was in the shoemaker's garret that his poetry first came to the birth; and it was Capell Lofft, the literary lawyer and Suffolk squire, to whom the manuscript was shown after rejection by several London booksellers, who introduced it to the world and befriended the writer in many ways. At this time Bloomfield was thirty-two years of age, and having married in 1790, had three children. The Farmer's Boy (1800) straightway became popular, and was even translated into French and Italian (part of it into Latin also); 26,000 copies went off in less than three years; and the Duke of Grafton settled on its author a shilling a day, and got him a post (1802) in the Seal Office, which he soon resigned. In 1802 Bloomfield published Rural Tales; to these succeeded Wild Flowers (1806), The Banks of the Wye (1811), May-day with the Muses (1822), &c. He made Æolian harps; he engaged in the bookselling business, but was notably unlucky; and latterly, half-blind and irritable almost to madness, he lived at Shefford in Bedfordshire. Christopher North praised The Soldier's Home as no whit inferior to Burns's

Soldier's Return; Charles Lamb, on the other hand, tried the Farmer's Boy, but found it unappetising; and later generations have inclined rather to Lamb's than to Christopher's view. The smoothness and correctness, good feeling and good taste, of the peasant-poet's verses are remarkable ; fire and fervour, passion and power, are usually lacking; the descriptions, if true to nature, are often tame and tedious. Yet he sometimes has admirable passages, and occasionally noteworthy sentences and phrases, such as: 'If fields are prisons, where is Liberty?' 'And strangers tell of three times skimmed sky-blue;' 'What trouble waits upon a casual frown.' Bloomfield's name will survive as a marvel of self-culture when his poetry is unread and forgotten. Of the following extracts the first two are from the Farmer's Boy, which falls into four parts, one for each of the seasons; the others from May-day with the Muses.

The Invocation.

O come, blest Spirit! whatsoe'er thou art,
Thou kindling warmth that hover'st round my heart,
Sweet inmate, hail! thou source of sterling joy,
That poverty itself cannot destroy,

Be thou my Muse, and faithful still to me,
Retrace the paths of wild obscurity.

No deeds of arms my humble lines rehearse;
No Alpine wonders thunder through my verse,
The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill,
Inspiring awe till breath itself stands still :
Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charmed mine eyes,
Nor science led me through the boundless skies;
From meaner objects far my raptures flow;
O point these raptures! bid my bosom glow!
And lead my soul to ecstasies of praise
For all the blessings of my infant days!
Bear me through regions where gay Fancy dwells,
But mould to Truth's fair form what memory tells.
Live, trifling incidents, and grace my song,
That to the humblest menial belong :
To him whose drudgery unheeded goes,
His joys unreckoned, as his cares or woes;
Though joys and cares in every path are sown,
And youthful minds have feelings of their own,
Quick springing sorrows transient as the dew,
Delights from trifles, trifles ever new.

'Twas thus with Giles: meek, fatherless, and poor :
Labour his portion, but he felt no more;
No stripes, no tyranny his steps pursued ;
His life was constant, cheerful servitude:
Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look,
The fields his study, nature was his book;
And as revolving seasons changed the scene
From heat to cold, tempestuous to serene,
Through every change still varied his employ,
Yet each new duty brought its share of joy.
Harvest-home.

A glorious sight, if glory dwells below,

Where Heaven's munificence makes all the show
O'er every field and golden prospect found,
That glads the ploughman's Sunday morning's round,
When on some eminence he takes his stand,
To judge the smiling produce of the land.

Here Vanity slinks back, her head to hide :
What is there here to flatter human pride?
The towering fabric, or the dome's loud roar,
And steadfast columns may astonish more,
Where the charmed gazer long delighted stays,
Yet traced but to the architect the praise;

Whilst here, the veriest clown that treads the sod,
Without one scruple gives the praise to God;
And twofold joys possess his raptured mind,
From gratitude and admiration joined.

Here, 'midst the boldest triumphs of her worth,
Nature herself invites the reapers forth;

Dares the keen sickle from its twelvemonth's rest,
And gives that ardour which in every breast
From Infancy to Age alike appears,
When the first sheaf its plumy top uprears.

No rake takes here what Heaven to all bestows-
Children of want, for you the bounty flows!
And every cottage from the plenteous store
Receives a burden nightly at its door.

Hark! where the sweeping scythe now rips along :
Each sturdy mower, emulous and strong,
Whose writhing form meridian heat defies,
Bends o'er his work, and every sinew tries;
Prostrates the waving treasure at his feet,
But spares the rising clover, short and sweet.
Come, Health! come, Jollity! light-footed, come;
Here hold your revels, and make this your home.
Each heart awaits and hails you as its own;
Each moistened brow, that scorns to wear a frown:
The unpeopled dwelling mourns its tenants strayed;
E'en the domestic laughing dairymaid
Hies to the field, the general toil to share.
Meanwhile the farmer quits his elbow-chair,
His cool brick floor, his pitcher, and his ease,
And braves the sultry beams, and gladly sees
His gates thrown open, and his team abroad,
The ready group attendant on his word,
To turn the swarth, the quivering load to rear,.
Or ply the busy rake the land to clear.
Summer's light garb itself now cumbrous grown,
Each his thin doublet in the shade throws down;
Where oft the mastiff skulks with half-shut eye,
And rouses at the stranger passing by ;
Whilst unrestrained the social converse flows,
And every breast Love's powerful impulse knows,
And rival wits with more than rustic grace
Confess the presence of a pretty face.

May-day with the Old Squire. Thus came the jovial day; no streaks of red O'er the broad portal of the morn was spread, But one high-sailing mist of dazzling white, A screen of gossamer, a magic light, Doomed instantly, by simplest shepherd's ken, To reign awhile, and be exhaled at ten. O'er leaves, o'er blossoms, by his power restored, Forth came the conquering sun and looked abroad; Millions of dew-drops fell, yet millions hung, Like words of transport trembling on the tongue, Too strong for utterance :-Thus the infant boy, With rosebud cheeks, and features tuned to joy, Weeps while he struggles with restraint or pain; But change the scene, and make him laugh again, His heart rekindles, and his cheek appears A thousand times more lovely through his tears.

From the first glimpse of day a busy scene
Was that high swelling lawn, that destined green,
Which shadowless expanded far and wide,
The mansion's ornament, the hamlet's pride;
To cheer, to order, to direct, contrive,
Even old Sir Ambrose had been up at five;
There his whole household laboured in his view,-
But light is labour where the task is new.
Some wheeled the turf to build a grassy throne
Round a huge thorn that spread his boughs alone,
Rough-rin'd and bold, as master of the place;
Five generations of the Higham race

Had plucked his flowers, and still he held his sway,
Waved his white head, and felt the breath of May.
Some from the green-house ranged exotics round,
To bask in open day on English ground:
And 'midst them in a line of splendour drew
Long wreaths and garlands gathered in the dew.
Some spread the snowy canvas, propped on high,
O'er sheltered tables with their whole supply;
Some swung the biting scythe with merry face,
And cropped the daisies for a dancing space;
Some rolled the mouldy barrel in his might,
From prison'd darkness into cheerful light,
And fenced him round with cans; and others bore

The creaking hamper with its costly store,

Well corked, well flavoured, and well taxed, that came
From Lusitanian mountains dear to fame,
Whence Gama steered, and led the conquering way
To eastern triumphs and the realms of day.
A thousand minor tasks filled every hour,
Till the sun gained the zenith of his power,
When every path was thronged with old and young,
And many a skylark in his strength upsprung
To bid them welcome. Not a face was there
But for May-day at least had banished care:
No cringing looks, no pauper tales to tell,
No timid glance-they knew their host too well,—
Freedom was there, and joy in every eye:
Such scenes were England's boast in days gone by.
Beneath the thorn was good Sir Ambrose found,
His guests an ample crescent formed around;
Nature's own carpet spread the space between,
Where blyth domestics plied in gold and green.
The venerable chaplain waved his wand,
And silence followed as he stretched his hand,
And with a trembling voice, and heart sincere,
Implored a blessing on th' abundant cheer.
Down sat the mingling throng, and shared a feast
With hearty welcomes given, by love increased;
A patriarch family, a close-linked band,
True to their rural chieftain, heart and hand;
The deep carouse can never boast the bliss,
The animation of a scene like this.

At length the damask cloths were whisked away,
Like fluttering sails upon a summer's day;
The heyday of enjoyment found repose;
The worthy baronet majestic rose ;

They viewed him, while his ale was filling round,
The monarch of his own paternal ground.
His cup was full, and where the blossoms bowed
Over his head, Sir Ambrose spoke aloud,
Nor stopped a dainty form or phrase to cull-
His heart elated, like his cup, was full :-
'Full be your hopes, and rich the crops that fall;
Health to my neighbours, happiness to all!'

Dull must that clown be, dull as winter's sleet,
Who would not instantly be on his feet:
An echoing health to mingling shouts gave place,
'Sir Ambrose Higham, and his noble race!'

A complete collection of Bloomfield's works, which comprise many short and occasional pieces as well as a short prose 'village drama,' was made in 1824; and there have been several editions of them since, as in 1864 and 1883. The Farmer's Boy, with an introduction and notes by Darlington, appeared in 1898.

Capell Lofft (1751-1824), was a Whig barrister with a taste for letters; he wrote legal treatises, poems, magazine articles, and books on theological, astronomical, and political subjects. The son of the famous Duchess of Marlborough's secretary, he was born in London, passed from Eton to Peterhouse, Cambridge, lived on his estate at Troston near Bury St Edmunds, and died near Turin. He was a keen reformer, a warm admirer of Napoleon, the friend of Fox, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Arthur Young, and the patron of Bloomfield. A son who bore the same name (1806-73) and died at Millmead in Virginia was also a poet and miscellaneous writer.

James Grahame (1765-1811), the son of a thriving Whig lawyer in Glasgow, went in 1784 to Edinburgh to study law, and, after qualifying as a Writer to the Signet, was admitted as an advocate in 1795. But in 1809 he took Anglican orders, and was successively curate of Shipton Moyne in Gloucestershire, and of Sedgefield in Durham. Illhealth compelled him to abandon his curacy when his talents had attracted notice and rendered him a popular preacher; and he died soon after his return to Scotland. His works include, besides one or two earlier pieces, Mary, Queen of Scotland, a dramatic poem (1801), The Sabbath (1804), Sabbath Walks (1805), The Birds of Scotland (1806), and British Georgics (1809), all in blank

verse.

The Sabbath is his best achievement; in the Georgics, spite of some fine descriptions, he is too detailed and too practical in his instructions. Scott spoke warmly of him, Christopher North lauded him, and Byron, as might be expected, sneered. Grahame has some affinity with Cowper. He has no humour or satire, it is true, and he has many prosaic lines, but he displays not a little of Cowper's power of close and happy observation, with the same devoutness and seriousness tending to melancholy. The ordinary features of the Scottish landscape he portrays truly, sometimes vividly, and always without exaggeration, though he often adds a special note of tenderness or solemnity. Content with humble things, he paints the charms of a retired cottage-life, the calm of a Sabbath morning, a walk in the fields, or even a bird's nest, with such unfeigned delight and striking truth that the reader is constrained to see and feel with him, to rejoice in the elements of poetry and meditation scattered around, even in the homeliest objects.

From 'The Sabbath.'

How still the morning of the hallowed day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hushed

The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yester-morn bloomed waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals

The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.
With dove-like wings Peace o'er yon village broods:
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray.

But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days, the man of toil is doomed
To eat his joyless bread, lonely, the ground
Both seat and board, screened from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighbouring hedge or tree;
But on this day, embosomed in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With covered face and upward earnest eye.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day:
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air pure from the city's smoke;
While wandering slowly up the river-side,
He meditates on Him whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around the roots; and while he thus surveys
With elevated joy each rural charm,

He hopes—yet fears presumption in the hope—
To reach those realms where Sabbath never ends.
But now his steps a welcome sound recalls:
Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile,
Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe :
Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground;
The aged man, the bowed down, the blind
Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes
With pain, and eyes the new-made grave well pleased;
These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach
The house of God-these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of gladness feel; with silent praise
They enter in; a placid stillness reigns,
Until the man of God, worthy the name,
Opens the book, and reverentially
The stated portion reads. A pause ensues.
The organ breathes its distant thunder-notes,
Then swells into a diapason full :

The people rising sing, with harp, with harp,
And voice of psalms ;' harmoniously attuned