And there I trace, when the gray evening lowers,
A silent chronicle of happier hours!

When Christmas revels in a world of snow,
And bids her berries blush, her carols flow;
His spangling shower when Frost the wizard flings;
Or, borne in ether blue, on viewless wings,
O'er the white pane his silvery foliage weaves,
And gems with icicles the sheltering eaves;

Thy muffled friend his nectarine-wall pursues,
What time the sun the yellow crocus woos,
Screened from the arrowy North; and duly hies
To meet the morning-rumor as it flies;

To range the murmuring market-place, and view
The motley groups that faithful TENIERS drew.19

When Spring bursts forth in blossoms through the vale,
And her wild music triumphs on the gale,
Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile ; 20
Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile,
Framing loose numbers, till declining day
Through the green trellis shoots a crimson ray;
Till the west wind leads on the twilight hours,
And shakes the fragrant bells of closing flowers.
Nor boast, O Choisy! seat of soft delight,
The secret charm of thy voluptuous night.
Vain is the blaze of wealth, the pomp of power!
Lo! here, attendant on the shadowy hour,
Thy closet-supper, served by hands unseen,
Sheds, like an evening-star, its ray serene,
To hail our coming. Not a step profane
Dares, with rude sound, the cheerful rite restrain
And, while the frugal banquet glows revealed,
Pure and unbought the natives of my field;

22

21

While blushing fruits through scattered leaves invite,
Still clad in bloom, and veiled in azure light;---
With wine, as rich in years as HORACE sings,
With water, clear as his own fountain flings,
The shifting side-board plays its humbler part,
Beyond the triumphs of a Loriot's art.23

24

Thus, in this calm recess, so richly fraught With mental light, and luxury of thought, My life steals on; (0, could it blend with thine!) Careless my course, yet not without design. So through the vales of Loire the bee-hives glide, The light raft dropping with the silent tide; So, till the laughing scenes are lost in night, The busy people wing their various flight, Culling unnumbered sweets from nameless flowers, That scent the vineyard in its purple hours. Rise, ere the watch-relieving clarions play, Caught through St. James's groves at blush of day; 25 Ere its full voice the choral anthem flings Through trophied tombs of heroes and of kings. Haste to the tranquil shade of learned ease, 20 Though skilled alike to dazzle and to please; Though each gay scene be searched with anxious eye, Nor thy shut door be passed without a sigh.

26

If, when this roof shall know thy friend no more, Some, formed like thee, should once, like thee, explore; Invoke the lares of his loved retreat,

And his lone walks imprint with pilgrim-feet;

Then be it said (as, vain of better days,

Some gray domestic prompts the partial praise), "Unknown he lived, unenvied, not unblest;

Reason his guide, and Happiness his guest.

In the clear mirror of his moral page
We trace the manners of a purer age.
His soul, with thirst of genuine glory fraught,
Scorned the false lustre of licentious thought.

One fair asylum from the world he knew,
One chosen seat, that charms with various view!
Who boasts of more (believe the serious strain)
Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas! in vain.
Through each he roves, the tenant of a day,
And, with the swallow, wings the year away!

NOTES.

(1) COSMO of Medicis took most pleasure in his Apennine villa, because all that he commanded from its windows was exclusively his own. How unlike the wise Athenian, who, when he had a farm to sell, directed the crier to proclaim, as its best recommendation, that it had a good neighborhood! - Plut. in Vit. Themist.

(2) Well situated is the house, "longos quæ prospicit agros." Distant views contain the greatest variety, both in themselves and in their accidental variations.

(3) Many a great man, in passing through the apartments of his palace, has made the melancholy reflection of the venerable Cosmo: "Questa è troppo gran casa à si poca famiglia."- Mach. Ist Fior. lib. vii.

Parva, sed apta mihi," was Ariosto's inscription over his door in Ferrara; and who can wish to say more? "I confess," says Cowley, "I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast." Essay vi.

When Socrates was asked why he had built for himself so small a house, "Small as it is," he replied, "I wish I could fill it with friends.” ― Phædrus, iii. 9.

These indeed are all that a wise man can desire to assemble; "for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."

(4) By these means, when all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw myself into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas. Addison. It is remarkable that Antony, in his adversity, passed some time in a small but splendid retreat, which he called his Timonium, and from which might originate the idea of the Parisian boudoir, that favorite apartment, où l'on se retire pour être seul, mais où l'on ne boude point. — Strabo, 1. xvii. Plut. in Vit. Anton.

(5) Alluding to his celebrated fresco in the Rospigliosi Palace, at Rome.

(6) The dining-room is dedicated to Conviviality; or, as Cicero somewhere expresses it, "Communitati vitæ atque victûs." There we wish most for the society of our friends ; and, perhaps, in their absence, most require their portraits.

The moral advantages of this furniture may be illustrated by the story of an Athenian courtesan, who, in the midst of a riotous banquet with her lovers, accidentally cast her eye on the portrait of a philosopher, that hung opposite to her seat; the happy character of wisdom and virtue struck her with so lively an image of her own unworthiness, that she instantly left the room, and, retiring home, became ever afterwards an example of temperance, as she had been before of debauchery.

(7) "A long table and a square table," says Bacon, "seem things of form, but are things of substance; for at a long table a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the business." Perhaps Arthur was right when he instituted the order of the round table. In the town-house of Aix-la-Chapelle is still to be seen the round table which may almost literally be said to have given peace to Europe in 1748. Nor is it only at a congress of plenipotentiaries that place gives precedence.

(9) Before I begin to write, says Bossuet, I always read a little of Homer; for I love to light my lamp at the sun.

The reader will here remember that passage of Horace, Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c., which was inscribed by Lord Chesterfield on the frieze of his library.

(10) Siquidem non solum ex auro argentove, aut certe ex ære in bibliothecis dicantur illi, quorum immortales animæ in iisdem locis ibi loquuntur: quinimo etiam quæ non sunt, finguntur, pariuntque desideria non traditi vultus, sicut in Homero evenit. Quo majus (ut equidem arbitror) nullum est felicitatis specimen, quam semper omnes scire cupere, qualis fuerit aliquis. --- Plin. Nat. Hist.

Cicero, in the dialogue entitled Brutus, represents Brutus and Atticus as sitting down with him in his garden at Rome by the statue of Plato; and with what delight does he speak of a little seat under Aristotle in the library of Atticus! "Literis sustentor et recreor; maloque in illa tua sedecula, quam habes sub imagine Aristotelis, sedere, quàm in istorum sella curuli!"— Ep. ad Att. iv. 10.

Nor should we forget that Dryden drew inspiration from the "majestic face" of Shakspeare; and that a portrait of Newton was the only ornament of the closet of Buffon. Ep. to Kneller. Voyage à Montbart. ·

(11) Postea verò quàm Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit, mens addita videtur meis ædibus. Cic.

(12) Quis tantis non gaudeat et glorietur hospitibus, exclaims Petrarch. Spectare, etsi nihil aliud, certè juvat. Homerus apud me mutus, imò verò ego apud illum surdus sum. Gaudeo tamen vel aspectú solo, et sæpe illum amplexus ac suspirans dico: O magne vir, &c.- Epist. Var. lib. 20.

(13) After this line, in a former edition,

But hence away! yon rocky cave beware!

A sullen captive broods in silence there!

There, though the dog-star flame, condemned to dwell

In the dark centre of its inmost cell,

Wild Winter ministers his dread control

To cool and crystallize the nectared bowl.

His faded form an awful grace retains;

Stern, though subdued, majestic, though in chains!

(14) Your bed-chamber, and also your library, says Vitruvius, should have an eastern aspect; usus enim matutinum postulat lumen. Not so the picture-gallery: which