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in this church, evidently of Saxon workmanship, and which much resembles that in Lincoln Cathedral: its top is square, each face being sculptured with wiverns, and other strange animals. It stands upon a curious pedestal, and has a pillar in each corner.

The notices of Thornton Abbey are few, and scattered at present, but it is to be hoped that a more complete history of that interesting structure will yet appear. The materials are not wanting, though they have to be sought for in many places. Among the best popular accounts may be mentioned those of Greenwood, in his Picturesque Tour to Thornton Abbey, and of Saunders, in his History of the County of Lincoln. Very excellent engravings of the abbey are also given in HOWLETT's Views in Lincolnshire, from one of which our illustration is taken.

ON THE INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON.

In speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin by observing, that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet, when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued, thoroughly, with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate, with his own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry

flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest he should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness, which disdains all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, in whatever soil, or in whatever age it has burst forth, and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the right, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt that poetry was a universal presence. Great minds were everywhere his kindred. He felt the enchantment of oriental fictions; surrendered himself to the

strange creations of "Araby the blest ;" and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the department of imagination, that his acquisitions were vast. He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had been then explored. His various philological attainments were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, history, theology, and political science of his own and former times, were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind; and we would cite Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connexions and correspondences; and accordingly, its natural progress is from one to another field of thought; and, wherever original power or creative genius exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more bearings, and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the objects of knowledge; will see mutual light shed from truth to truth; and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold.-C.

WELSH TRIADES.

II.

THE three requisites of song: thought that shows genius, fancy directed by art, and truth.

The three embellishments of song: fine invention, happy subject, and a masterly harmonious composition. The three excellencies of song: simplicity of language, simplicity of subject, and simplicity of invention. The three necessaries of song: dignified intention, thought, and matter.

The three commendables of song: praise without flattery, pleasantry without obscenity, and satire without

abuse.

The three diversities of song: diversity of thought, language; and versification.

The three beauties of song: attraction, eloquence, and boldness.

The three sweets of song: facility of comprehension, sprightliness of language, and sweetly soothing thoughts.

The three agreements that ought to be in song: between digression and uniformity, between elevated and common language, and between truth and the marvellous.

The three things that improve song: the studying it thoroughly, the examining of it frequently, and exerting it to the utmost.

The three appropriates of song: its quantity, its purpose, and its occasion.

The three properties of song: correct fancy, correct order, and correct metre.

The three honours of song: the verity of the thing treated of, the excellency of it, and the ingenuity of the manner in which it is managed.

The three attractions of song: novelty, comprehension, and correct poetry.

The three things which ought to pervade song: perfect learning, perfect vigour, and perfect nature. The three intentions of song: to improve the understanding, to improve the heart, and to soothe the mind.

The three materials of song: language, invention, and art.

The three indispensables of language: purity, copiousness, and aptness.

The three qualities wherein consist the purity of a language: original formation, use, and matter.

copious: by diversifying synonymous words, by a The three ways that a language may be rendered variety of compound epithets, and a multiformity of expression.

The three branches of the aptitude of a language: what is understood, what affords pleasure, and what is believed.

The three uses of language: to relate, to excite, and to describe-CATHRALL'S History of North Wales.

CHOICE OF COMPANY.-Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company; in the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit.-QUARLES.

ARGUMENT.-Let the end of thy argument be rather to discover a doubtful truth than a commanding wit; in the one thou shalt gain substance, in the other froth: that flint strikes the steel in vain that produces no sparkles.-Quarles.

HASTY WORDS.-Give not thy tongue too great liberty, lest it take thee prisoner: a word unspoken is, like the sword in thy scabbard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand.-QUARLES.

ORATORY.-Clothe not thy language either with obscudarkness, in the other too much lightness: he that speaks rity or affectation: in the one thou discoverest too much from the understanding to the understanding, is the best interpreter.-QUARLES,

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IN the county of Cornwall there still exist the remains of several rude circular buildings or hill castles, which are seated on the summits of hills and have the most picturesque effect. The walls, which were originally built of stones without mortar, are now thrown down, and lying in a ridge; but the keep in general retains enough of its original character to give a tolerable idea of its ancient appearance. In the narrowest part of Cornwall, from St. Michael's Mount to the Land's End, there are seven of these castles, the most remarkable of which are Caerbrân Castle, Castle Andinas, and Chûn Castle. The circular wall of Caerbrân Castle is ninety paces in diameter, surrounded by a ditch fifteen yards wide; beyond which is an earth-work fifteen feet high, and another ditch fifteen feet in width. Castle Andinas stands on the highest hill in the hundred of Penwith, and consists of two stone walls built one within the other in a circular form. The ruin has fallen on either side of the walls, and shows the work to have been of great height and thickness. A third wall appears to have been built more than half way round, but left unfinished: the diameter of the whole was four hundred feet, and the principal ditch sixty feet wide. Within the walls are many little inclosures of a circular form, supposed by Dr. Borlase to have been so many huts, for the accommodation of the garrison. Near the middle of the area is a well almost choked with its own ruins, and at a little distance is a narrow pit, its sides walled round, probably dug for water also, but now filled with rubbish. The construction of this castle apparently did not differ much from that of Caerbrân. But the most regular structure of the kind is Castle Chûn, in the parish of Morvah, which stands on an eminence above the Atlantic Ocean, and commands an extensive view of the Bristol Channel, Mount's Bay, &c. This ruin is of an oval form, consisting of two walls, now thrown down, and forming high ridges of stones. The inner area measures one hundred and twenty-five feet from east to west, and one hundred and ten feet from north to south. The outer wall seems to have

been about five feet wide, the inner eight feet, but thicker towards the foundation. "By the ruins of these walls, (says Dr. Borlase,) I judge that the outer could not be less than ten feet high, and the innermost fifteen, or within were probably shelters from the weather. Some rather more, and both well perfected; the apartments rude ones of like use we have taken notice of in other examples; but these are much more regularly disposed, and indeed the whole of this work, the neatness and regularity of the walls, providing such security for their entrance, flanking, and dividing their fosse, shows a military knowledge superior to that of any other works of this kind which I have seen in Cornwall."

Of the seven castles here alluded to, some are not one mile, none more than three miles distant from each other, so that from the first you can see the second, and so on; and this narrow spot where the castles are so frequent, is in no place more than six miles distant from the sea. All the seven agree in having no vestige of dwellings within them; but only of low huts for soldiers: most of them have some part of their fortifications left unfinished, and all have their castles dismantled. On these accounts, the antiquarian above quoted, does not hesitate to pronounce these particular fortresses Danish in their origin. The Danes chose this western part of Cornwall for disembarking their troops, and planting their garrisons, because small parties were not so easily surrounded, forced, and cut off here, as they would have been in a more extended country. They doubtless placed them in sight of each other, that the alarm might reach from one castle to another, or signals for assembling be easily communicated. They also placed them near the sea to give notice to their fleet, and discover the ships of the enemy; and in making these castles only temporary shelters, and not comfort able abodes, they only did what restless invaders and natives of a colder climate might be expected to do The outer parts were probably left unfinished, when their generals, either satiated with plunder, or because of the advanced season, called off their garrisons. They were finally dismantled, no doubt by the incensed

towers.

Britons, who had suffered too much from the garrisons | Queen Elizabeth's time, abolished it as a superfluous they contained, not to hate the sight of their forbidding charge to the crown." Tintagel had been made a state prison in the reign of Richard II., and at that time the custody of the castle was given to persons of rank and consequence. John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, was made constable in 1388. The only state-prisoners whose names are recorded, of those who were confined at Tintagel, are John Northampton, Lord Mayor of London, who is said, by Carew, in 1385, to have been "for his unruly maioralty condemned thither as a perpetual penitentiary;" and Thomas, Earl of Warwick, who was imprisoned there in 1397.

But there is a second description of hill castles, built for residence, as well as for defence. Most of these were also provided with keeps, and those that were destitute of this appendage, were generally built turretwise as Castle Karnbré. Tintagel Castle, represented in our illustration, appears to have been one of these, and is, doubtless, a building of very great antiquity. It is situated partly on the extremity of a bold rock of slate, on the northern coast of the county, partly on a rocky island, with which it was formerly connected by a drawbridge. Dr. Borlase says of it, "Tintagel Castle was built on a cape of land, the extremity of which was a peninsula, a very lofty hill. Where this peninsula joined the mainland there are the fortifications, partly on the hill and partly on the main." In the survey made in the eleventh year of King Edward the Third, Tintagel is described as "a certain castle sufficiently walled," in which were two chambers beyond the two gates in a decayed state; one chamber, with a small kitchen for the constable, in good repair; one stable for eight horses, decayed; one cellar and bakehouse, ruinThe timber of the great hall had been taken down by command of John, Earl of Cornwall, because the hall was ruinous, and the walls thereof of no value. In the reign of Qeeen Elizabeth the following lines respecting Tintagel were translated from the Latin by

ous.

Carew:

There is a place within the winding shore of Severne sea, On mids of rock, about whose foote the tides turn-keeping play

A tow'ry-topped Castle here wide blazeth over all Which Corineus' ancient brood Tindagel Castle call, In the preceding reign there was standing at Tintagel, according to Leland, "a pretty chapel of St. Uliane with a tomb on the left side;" and the same writer alludes to recollections of a postern door of iron, which he seems to think was the entrance to a dungeon of the most formidable and impregnable character. But Borlase does not agree in considering the place impregnable: on the contrary, he says that though the cliffs of the peninsula are hideous, and not to be climbed without the utmost danger, yet the ground here was badly chosen, the hill dipping so very suddenly that everything within the wall was exposed to a hill over against, and scarce an arrow-flight from it. The walls remaining on the mainland inclose two narrow courts, and several stone

steps from the ascent to the highest part of the fortress. Altogether it was an extensive work, and apparently placed there for the purpose of shutting out the enemy by means of the narrow isthmus; but this is regarded as an error in judgment on the part of its founders, since by placing it on a rock which though elevated, was lower than the surrounding country, they shut themselves out from the means of viewing the state of the neighbourhood, and the movements of an enemy. This castle is the reputed birth-place of the famous King Arthur about the end of the fifth century, and is considered as a British structure, produced in the rudest times before the Cornish Britons had learned from the Romans the art of war; for it cannot be supposed that those who had seen the Roman mode of procedure would have chosen such injudicious ground for their fortress.

This castle was the seat of the Dukes of Cornwall at a very remote era, and it continued," says Borlase, "to be one of the castles of the Earls of Cornwall to the time of Richard, King of the Romans, who entertained here his nephew David, Prince of Wales. After the death of Richard and his son Edmund, Earls of Cornwall, all the ancient castle went to ruin; from palaces became prisons and gaols, and this among the rest. There was, however, a yearly stipend allowed for keeping this castle, till the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, in

The renown which this castle has acquired as the birth-place of King Arthur rests upon dubious grounds. The history of that individual, if such a person ever really existed, has been so obscured by monkish legends, and miraculous stories, that it has acquired altogether a fabulous air. Yet there is the high authority of Chancellor Bacon on the side of his claims, who says that there was enough truth in his story to make him famous, besides that which was fabulous. Mr. Redding, in his interesting Itinerary of the County of Cornwall, recently published, describes a visit to the ruined and shattered walls of Tintagel, and its precipitous cliffs at the foot of which the sea has hollowed out a cavern, "in which the waves thunder, rage, and boil. Such," he remarks, "is all that remains of the reputed birth-place of him whose exploits and good sword Excaliber' have bards of Italy, and the minstrels of the North have alike been said and sung from age to age. The troubadours, the

done honour to the name of the hero whose existence some truth, to doubt. It is difficult at first," he adds, "looking are so contumacious to the pleasure of fiction, if not of at the ruinous state of Tintagel Castle, the dark slate rocks upon which they stand, and the sterility of the surrounding country, to reconcile the antique pomp and pageantry of the hero and of his knights of the round table with such a scene. Imagination, prompt in resources for all dithculties, at once calls in the agency of time, operating every where, changing fertile territories into barren lands, and rendering the barren fertile; strewing earth with the wrecks of castles, as well as of empires, and reconciling past protion thus recalls the actions of the potent hero of the west, bability with existing doubt. The magic of the imaginathe magnificence of his court, the valour of his knights, the visions of his glory, and the triumphs of his conquests; fierce war and faithful love;' where desolation holds an undivided sovereignty, and black rocks shivered by tempests, treeless, and almost herbless shores, and cliffs of almost fearful grandeur are all that remain. Yet even here fancy nurses her day-dreams of what has been in story, and further depicts the British hero borne back from Slaughter Bridge, mortally wounded, the tears of beauty unavailingly shed for him, the mournful countenances of his warriors, and the last moment when he rendered up his soul to God."

The name of Tintagel properly belongs only to the castle, and to the rugged and precipitous cliff on which its ruins stand; but the town, a mile distant, called also Bossiney, or Trevena, has popularly received the name of Tintagel likewise. It has now dwindled to a mere hamlet, containing not more than half a dozen houses. In the time of Henry VIII., though only a fishing town, it possessed considerable privileges; and Leland says that there were at that time the ruins of a great number of houses in it, showing that it was far more considerable at some previous period. Before the Reform Act this place returned two members of Parliament, elected by only five or six persons, The church of Tintagel formerly belonged to the Abbey of Fontevrault, in Normandy, and was afterwards given by Edward IV. to the collegiate church at Windsor, the dean and chapter of which attach all the great tithes, and are patrons of the living. The bells of Tintagel are particularly musical, and in connection with their merry peals, is a story, which, according to Mr. Reddel, is sincerely believed among the Cornish folk to the present day. We have somewhat shortened that gentleman's version of the tale, which is to the following effect. About three miles from Tintagel is the church of

Bottreaux, from whose silent tower no musical peal ever fell upon mortal ears. Not that the inhabitants were indifferent to the charms of music. They loved to hear the merry peal from Tintagel, when the wind bore the melodious sounds in the direction of their village, and they were exceedingly emulous of possessing a similar peal themselves. The bells of Tintagel, which some said had tolled for King Arthur, as he was borne a corpse from the field of blood, near Camelford, to Tintagel, and again as he was borne away from his native castle to be interred at Glastonbury, were not the bells of Bottreaux, but altogether aliens to the place; so the people determined to have as choice a peal as money could procure. The Lord de Bottreaux subscribed largely towards the purchase, and an order was sent to London for the bells, to a founder of great reputation. The bells were made and consecrated: they were shipped and had a prosperous voyage, and at length the vessel came into the bay opposite Bottreaux. Tintagel bells were swinging slow witn sullen roar,' and as the sound boomed along the waves to the ear of the pilot, he rejoiced at the music of his nacive bells, and thanked God that on that evening he should be on shore. "Thank the ship, you fool," said the captain; "thank God upon the shore." Nay," said the pilot, "we should thank God every where." "Go to; thou art a fool, I tell thee," said the Captain, "thank thyself and a steady helm."

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This strain was continued for some time; the pilot soberly maintaining that it was the duty of all to thank God on sea or land, and the captain becoming choleric, and uttering sinful oaths and blasphemies. The ship meanwhile was in sight of the town, that only lacked the bells to be a fair rival to Tintagel. The people were out on the cliffs watching the approach of the precious freight, and ready to welcome it with joy. But at this moment the wind rose suddenly, and blew furiously from the west. Nearer and nearer drove the vessel into the bay, and when not more than a mile from the church tower a monstrous sea struck her; she gave a lurch to port, and went down, bells and all. The pilot, who could swim, was taken up by a daring fisherman. As the ship went down the clang of the bells was dis

tinctly heard, dull, as if muffled by the waves, through which there came from the ocean depths solemn tollings, at intervals, clearly distinguishable from the roar of the winds and waves. And ever since (so goes the tale) the sound continues to be heard in the frequent tem

pests that assail that part of the coast. The Rev. Mr. Hawker has versified this tale, entitling it The Silent Tower of Bottreaux. The more important part is contained in the following stanzas:

The ship rode down, with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea,

Her sheet was loose, her anchor stored,
The merry Bottreaux bells on board-

'Come to thy God in time!'

Rung out Tintagel's chime;
"Youth, manhood, old age, past,
Come to thy God at last!'

The pilot heard his native bells,
Hang on the breeze in fitful swells;
'Thank God!' with reverent brow he cried,
'We make the shore with evening's tide.'
Come to thy God in time!'
It was his marriage chime;
Youth, manhood, old age, past,
His bell must ring at last!

"Thank God, thou whining knave, on land,
But thank at sea the steersman's hand,'-
The captain's voice above the gale-
"Thank the good ship and ready sail.'
'Come to thy God in time!'
Sad grew the boding chime;
'Come to thy God at last!'
Boomed heavy on the blast.

Uprose that sea, as if it heard
The mighty Master's signal word;
What thrills the captain's whitening lip,
The death-groans of his sinking ship.
'Come to thy God in time!'
Swung deep the funeral chime-
'Grace, mercy, kindness past,
Come to thy God at last!'

Still when the storm of Bottreaux's waves
Is waking in his weedy caves,
Those bells, that sullen surges hide,
Peal their deep tones beneath the tide ;-
'Come to thy God in time!'

Thus saith the ocean chime;
'Storm, billow, whirlwind, past,
Come to thy God at last!'

THE CHRISTIAN IN HIS GARDEN. THE Contemplation of nature feeds the mind with sweet and refreshing food. Few illustrations of this abiding love could be produced, more sublime or touching than the dying exclamation of the excellent Bishop Porteus. In the early part of May he had been removed to Fulham; he was reduced to a state of great weakness, but the soft air and the charms of the opening spring seemed to revive him. Upon the morning of the 13th, he sat in his library, near the window; the sun shone with beautiful lustre; the air was full of balm and sweetness; the countenance of the good bishop beamed with a transient glow, and in the grateful gladness of his heart, he exclaimed several times, "O, that glorious sun!" sun!" Soon after, he fell asleep, and a brighter sun broke upon him. broke upon him. A Scottish poet, Dr. Leyden, has sung that,

Sad is he that dies in spring,

When flowers begin to blow and larks to sing; but the Christian can never live too long, nor die too soon; to him all seasons are equally welcome, for Faith surrounds his dwelling, even upon earth, with the bloom and verdure of Paradise.

When Manso, a name rendered dear to us by Milton, visited Tasso at Bissaccio, the poet, in the delirium of his melancholy gloom, believed himself to be attended by a familiar spirit, and inquired of his friend, whether he did not behold him. Manso saw nothing but the there is a heavenly spirit, not only in every flash of sunbeams pouring in at the window. But, in truth, sunshine, but in every flower of the garden, and in every cloud of a summer evening, if we look upon them with Christian eyes. Keble has touched upon this feeling with great sweetness and beauty:

But he whose heart will bound to mark
The full bright burst of summer morn,

Loves too each little dewy spark,

By leaf or flow'ret worn:

Cheap forms and common hues, 'tis true,
Through the bright shower-drop meet his view;

The colouring may be of this earth,

The lustre comes of heavenly birth.

By studying nature in this spirit of meek devotion and solemn love, a good man may, indeed, "walk up and down the world as in a garden of spices, and draw a divine sweetness out of every flower."

To dwell listlessly and dissatisfied in a world so embellished by the workmanship of its Creator, so illuminated by his presence, so fragrant with the incense of nature's worship, is surely to imitate Eve, and to slumber in the garden of Paradise, while the sun shines upon our eyes, and the voice of the bird is heard among the branches. We need not envy the Abbot of Clairvaux, who, after sailing down the Leman Lake, asked his fellow-travellers in the evening where it was. Gibbon, beneath whose library-windows the beautiful landscape was spread out, remarked that the reader should see it, in order to admire or despise St. Bernard. The earnest

mind of Henry Martyn derived some of its most glowing| impulses from natural objects. "In the evening," he writes in his journal, "the sound of sacred music, with the sight of a rural landscape, imparted some indescribable emotions after the glory of God, by diligence in his work." It is a very pleasing observation of Alison, that, of the innumerable eyes upon our earth that open on nature, those of man alone see its Author and its end.

The gentle Walton delighted his heart with the reflection, while listening to the song of the nightingale, that God had assuredly prepared in heaven rewards for them who love Him since He suffered even bad men to partake here in those strains of harmony. We notice a thoughtful communion with nature in the lives of many of our elder bishops and masters in the faith. Of the early life of the excellent Bishop Andrews*, few particulars have been recorded; but we know that he was fond of walking by himself, or with a favourite companion, conversing upon their studies, or illustrating some dim passages of holy teaching; and he has declared that field-walks, with the contemplation of grass, corn, trees, and skies, and meditation on their beauties and virtues, afforded him, from his childhood to the evening of his life, the liveliest and sincerest gratification of which his feelings were susceptible.

We might trace this sympathy with trees and sunshine, through the works of many of the distinguished theologians and orators of the seventeenth century. There is a ruddy glow of healthful enjoyment in their genius. Two examples will be sufficient. The first comes from Jeremy Taylor: "I am fallen," he exclaims, "into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me;—what now? Let me look about me. They have left me sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve; and I can still discourse, and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirits, and a good conscience; they have still left me the Providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too. And still I sleep and digest, and eat and drink; I read and meditate; I can walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the variety of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights; that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation and in God himself." This is a noble and fervid outpouring of Christian philosophy; but the poetic feeling of the writer breathes still more sweetly in the following passage, where he shows that the superb theatre of nature, with all its varying scenery, is open to the humblest spectator. "The poorest artisan of Rome, walking in Cæsar's gardens, had the same pleasure which they ministered to their lord; and although, it may be, he was put to gather fruits to eat from another place, yet his other desires were delighted equally with Caesar's. The birds made him as good music, the flowers gave him as sweet smells; he there sucked as good air, and delighted in the beauty and order of the place, for the same reason, and for the same perception, as the prince himself." Now to these passages from Taylor, let me add the following scene from Bishop Patrick's Parable of the Pilgrim, and then compare them with one of the most exquisite stanzas in Thomson's Castle of Indolence. The Pilgrim in his journey discovers, under a large beech tree, a poor man in very coarse and miserable clothes, yet apparently listening to the warbling of the birds with happiness and contentment. The Pilgrim approaches and addresses the stranger, who explains the reason and the source of his joy. His wants, he says, are few, and the blessings of God abundant. Poverty itself he regards as the mother of sobriety, the nurse of arts, and the mistress of wisdom. He has discovered that Prosperity offers her poison in cups of gold. "Nay," he continues, "this music which you saw me listening to, this music of God's own creating, gives me the greater ravishment, because I consider that none can rob me of it, and leave me my liberty and life. They that See Saturday Magazine, Vol. XXIV, p. 221.

have taken away my goods, and have banished me into the woods, cannot hinder the earth from putting forth the flowers, nor the trees from yielding their fruit, nor the birds from singing among the branches; no, nor me from entertaining myself with all these pleasures, at least from being contented." Thomson, I fear, never read Bishop Patrick; but the germ of his beautiful flower may certainly be discovered in the Parable.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living streams, at eve.
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;
Of fancy, reason, virtue,-nought can me bereave.

Dante has a sentiment not dissimilar, in his indignant rejection of the conditional return to Florence, after his long banishment. "What! shall I not everywhere enjoy the sight of the sun and stars? And may I not seek and contemplate in every corner of the earth, under the canopy of heaven,-consoling and delightful truth,without rendering myself inglorious?" To return to our own history: it may display the rural feelings of early times to recollect, that, in the grant of Cox, bishop of Ely, in 1576, of a large part of Ely House to Christopher Hatton, the tenant undertook to pay a red rose for the gate-house and garden; and the bishop reserved to himself the privilege of gathering twenty bushels of roses yearly. The garden at Ely House seems to have been about four hundred feet long, and "almost as many broad," terminating in meadows comprising fourteen acres. In Lord Burleigh's garden, at Theobalds, the walks extended two miles. Archbishop Sancroft was found by Hough working in his garden at Fresingfield.

But it is time for us to contemplate the Christian in his garden; and the history of Wilberforce presents us with a beautiful picture. Nature had always been dear to him; and even his favourite poet could not have gazed, by the side of his companion and friend, Mrs. Unwin, with a more tender or loving eye, over the villages that glimmered in the setting sun; the grey towers of village churches, dimly seen through trees; the valley inlaid by the winding river; or the hedgerow blossoming in May. To settle in soft musings in silent lanes; to wander beneath the verdant roof of embowering foliage, with no sound to break the solitude, except the low, sweet song of the redbreast,

content with slender notes

And more than half-suppressed;

to read some sacred or pleasant volume,-a Psalter or a Horace, under the wide-spreading boughs of an old chesnut-tree-these we know to have been the innocent amusements of Wilberforce, as they had been of the hermit of Weston. Cowper thought it not unworthy of his harp, to commemorate the kindness of Mr. Throgmorton in preserving, at Weston UnderWood, the chesnuts, in "whose long-protracted bowers" he might enjoy, at noon,

The gloom and coolness of declining day. Rogers introduces a very pleasing sketch of a celebrated contemporary of Wilberforce, forgetting the turbulent animosities of political excitements, in the sequestered walks of his garden:

Ah! then 'twas thine
Ne'er to forget some volume half divine;

Shakspere's or Dryden's,-through the chequered shade
Borne in thy hand behind thee, as we stray'd.

A garden walk with Wilberforce was more delightful to the Christian's heart, than all the elegance and taste of Fox could have made it. We can hear him, in the spirit of Cowper, moralizing upon every leaf and blossom, as he bent over them in love and admiration:

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