Whistling his dog to mark the pebble's flight;
And in her kerchief blue the cottage-maid,
With brimming pitcher from the shadowy glade.
Far to the south a mountain-vale retires,
Rich in its groves, and glens, and village-spires;
Its upland-lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung,
Its wizard-stream, nor nameless nor unsung:
And through the various year, the various day,
What scenes of glory burst, and melt away!
When April-verdure springs in Grosvenor-
square,

And the furred Beauty comes to winter there,
She bids old Nature mar the plan no more;
Yet still the seasons circle as before.
Ah, still as soon the young Aurora plays,
Tho' moons and flambeaux trail their broadest blaze;
As soon the sky-lark pours his matin-song,
Tho' Evening lingers at the masque so long.

There let her strike with momentary ray,
As tapers shine their little lives away;
There let her practise from herself to steal,
And look the happiness she does not feel;
The ready smile and bidden blush employ
At Faro-routs that dazzle to destroy;
Fan with affected ease the essenced air,
And lisp of fashions with unmeaning stare.
Be thine to meditate an humbler flight,
When morning fills the fields with rosy light;
Be thine to blend, nor thine a vulgar aim,
Repose with dignity, with Quiet fame.

Here no state-chambers in long line unfold,
Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold;
Yet modest ornament, with use combined,
Attracts the eye to exercise the mind.
Small change of scene, small space his home
Who leads a life of satisfied desires. [requires,
What tho' no marble breathes, no canvas glows,
From every point a ray of genius flows!
Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill,
That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will;
And cheaply circulates, thro' distant climes,
The fairest relics of the purest times.
Here from the mould to conscious being start
Those finer forms, the miracles of art;
Here chosen gems, imprest on sulphur, shine,
That slept for ages in a second mine;
And here the faithful graver dares to trace
A MICHAEL'S grandeur, and a RAPHAEL'S grace!
Thy gallery, Florence, gilds my humble walls;
And my low roof the Vatican recalls!

Soon as the morning-dream my pillow flies,
To waking sense what brighter visions rise!
O mark! again the coursers of the Sun,
At GUIDO's call, their round of glory run!
Again the rosy Hours resume their flight,
Obscured and lost in floods of golden light!

But could thine erring friend so long forget
(Sweet source of pensive joy and fond regret)
That here its warmest hues the pencil flings,
Lo! here the lost restores, the absent brings;
And still the Few best loved and most revered
Rise round the board their social smile endeared?
Selected shelves shall claim thy studious hours;
There shall thy ranging mind be fed on flowers !!
There, while the shaded lamp's mild lustre streams,
Read ancient books, or dream inspiring dreams;

And, when a sage's bust arrests thee there,
Pause, and his features with his thoughts compare.
-Ah, most that Art my grateful rapture calls,
Which breathes a soul into the silent walls ;2
Which gathers round the Wise of every Tongue,
All on whose words departed nations hung;
Still prompt to charm with many a converse sweet;
Guides in the world, companions in retreat!

Tho' my thatched bath no rich Mosaic knows,
A limpid spring with unfelt current flows.
Emblem of Life! which, still as we survey,
Seems motionless, yet ever glides away!
The shadowy walls record, with Attic art,
The strength and beauty which its waves impart.
Here THETIS, bending, with a mother's fears
Dips her dear boy, whose pride restrains his tears.
There VENUS, rising, shrinks with sweet surprise,
As her fair self reflected seems to rise!

Far from the joyless glare, the maddening strife, And all the dull impertinence of life, These eyelids open to the rising ray, And close, when Nature bids, at close of day. Here, at the dawn, the kindling landscape glows; There noon-day levees call from faint repose. Here the flushed wave flings back the parting light; There glimmering lamps anticipate the night. When from his classic dreams the student steals,3 Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels, To muse unnoticed-while around him press The meteor-forms of equipage and dress; Alone, in wonder lost, he seems to stand A very stranger in his native land! And (tho' perchance of current coin possest, And modern phrase by living lips exprest) Like those blest Youths, forgive the fabling page, Whose blameless lives deceived a twilight age, Spent in sweet slumbers; till the miner's spade Unclosed the cavern, and the morning played. Ah, what their strange surprise, their wild delight! New arts of life, new manners meet their sight! In a new world they wake, as from the dead; Yet doubt the trance dissolved, the vision fled! O come, and, rich in intellectual wealth, Blend thought with exercise, with knowledge health; Long, in this sheltered scene of lettered talk, With sober step repeat the pensive walk, Nor scorn, when graver triflings fail to please, The cheap amusements of a mind at ease; Here every care in sweet oblivion cast, And many an idle hour-not idly passed.

No tuneful echoes, ambushed at my gate, Catch the blest accents of the wise and great. Vain of its various page, no Album breathes The sigh that Friendship or the Muse bequeaths.' Yet some good Genii o'er my hearth preside, Oft the far friend, with secret spell, to guide; And there I trace, when the grey evening lours, 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;

2 Postea verò quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit,

mens addita videtur meis ædibus.-CIC.

9 Ingenium, sibi quod vacuas desumsit Athenas,
Et studiis annos septem dedit, insenuitque
Libris et curis, statuâ taciturnius exit

-Thy muffled friend his nectarine-wall pursues,
What time the sun the yellow crocus woos,
Screened from the arrowy North; and duly hies1
To meet the morning-rumour as it flies;
To range the murmuring market-place, and view
The motley groups that faithful TENIERS drew.

When Spring bursts forth in blossoms thro' the
And her wild music triumphs on the gale, [vale,
Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile ;
Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile,
Framing loose numbers, till declining day
Thro' 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 3-the natives of my field;
While blushing fruits thro' 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.

Thus, in this calm recess, so richly fraught
With mental light, and luxury of thought,
My life steals on; (O could it blend with thine!)
Careless my course, yet not without design.
So thro' 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; Ere its full voice the choral anthem flings Thro' trophied tombs of heroes and of kings. Haste to the tranquil shade of learned ease, 4 Tho' skilled alike to dazzle and to please; Tho' each gay scene be searched with anxious eye, Nor thy shut door be passed without a sigh.

If, when this roof shall know thy friend no more, Some, formed like thee, should once, like thee, exInvoke the lares of his loved retreat, [plore; And his lone walks imprint with pilgrim-feet; Then be it said, (as, vain of better days, Some grey 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.
Thro' each he roves, the tenant of a day,
And, with the swallow, wings the year away!"

NOTES.

Page 20, col. 2, line 25.

Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance, pass, 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 neighbourhood!-PLUT. in Vit. Themist.

Page 21, col. 1, line 8.

And through the various year, the various day, Horace commends the house, "longos quæ prospicit agros." Distant views contain the greatest variety, both in themselves, and in their accidental variations.

Page 21, col. 1, line 34.

Small change of scene, small space his home requires, 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 80 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."

Page 21, col. 1, line 37.

From every point a ray of genius flows! 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 favourite apartment, où l'on se retire pour élre seul, mais où l'on ne boude point.STRABO, 1. xvii. PLUT. in Vit. Anton.

Page 21, col 1, line 53.

At GUIDO's call, &c.

Alluding to his celebrated fresco in the Rospigliosi Palace at Romo.

Page 21, col. 1, line 60.

And still the Few best loved and most revered The dining-room is dedicated to Conviviality; or, as Cicero somewhere expresses it, "Communitati vitæ atque victus." 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.

Page 21, col. 1, line 61.

Rise round the board

"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-laChapelle 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.

Page 21, col.1, line 65.

Read ancient books, or dream inspiring dreams; 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.

Page 21, col. 2, line 1.

And, when a sage's bust arrests thee there, 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.

In the chamber of a man of genius we

Page 21, col. 2, line 18.

As her fair self reflected seems to rise!
After line 18, in a former edition.

But hence away! yon rocky cave beware!
A sullen captive broods in silence there!
There, tho' the dog-star flame, condemned to dwell

In the dark centre of its inmost cell,
Wild Winter ministers his dread controul
To cool and crystallise the nectared bowl.
His faded form an awful grace retains;
Stern tho' subdued, majestic tho' in chains!

Page 21, col. 2, line 21.

These eyelids open to the rising ray,

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 requires a north light, uti colores in ope, propter constantiam luminis, immutata permaneant qualitate. This disposition accords with his plan of a Grecian house.

Page 21, col. 2, line 35,

Like those blest Youths,

See the Legend of the Seven Sleepers.-GIBBON, c. 33.

Page 21, col. 2, line 44.

with knowledge health;

Milton" was up and stirring, ere the sound of any bell awaked men to labour, or to devotion ;" and it is related of two Students in a suburb of Paris, who were opposite neighbours, and were called the morning-star and the evening-star- the former appearing just as the latter withdrew-that the morning-star continued to shine on, when the evening-star was gone out for ever.

Page 21, col. 2, line 52.

Catch the blest accents of the wise and great.

Mr. Pope delights in enumerating his illustrious guests. Nor is this an exclusive privilege of the poet. The Medici Palace at Florence exhibits a long and imposing catalogue. "Semper hi parietes columnæque eruditis vocibus resonuerunt." Page 22, col. 1, line 20.

Sheds, like an evening-star, its ray serene, At a Roman supper statues were sometimes employed to hold the lamps.

-aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædes, Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris. LUCR. ii. 24.

A fashion as old as Homer !-Odyss. vii. 100.

On the proper degree and distribution of light we may consult a great master of effect. Il lume grande, ed alto, e non troppo potente, sarà quello, che renderà le particole de' corpi molto grate.-Tratt, della Pittura di LIONARDO DI VINCI, c. xli.

Hence every artist requires a broad and high light. Michael Angelo used to work with a candle fixed in his hat.-Condivi. Vita di Michelagnolo.-Hence also, in a banquet-scene, the most picturesque of all poets has thrown his light from the ceiling.-Æn. i. 726.

And hence the " starry lamps" of Milton, that from the arched roof Pendent by subtle magic,

Page 22, col. 1, line 30.

Beyond the triumphs of a Loriot's art.

At the petits soupés of Choisy were first introduced those admirable pieces of mechanism, afterwards carried to perfection by Loriot, the Confidente and the Servante; a table and a side-board, which descended, and rose again covered with viands and wines. And thus the most luxurious Court in Europe, after all its boasted refinements, was glad to return at last, by this singular contrivance, to the quiet and privacy of humble life.-Vie Privée de Louis XV. ii. 43.

Between line 30 and line 31, were these lines, since omitted:

Hail, sweet Society! in crowds unknown,
Though the vain world would claim thee for its own.
Still where thy small and cheerful converse flows,
Be mine to enter, ere the circle close.
When in retreat Fox lays his thunder by,
And Wit and Taste their mingled charms supply;
When SIDDONs, born to melt and freeze the heart,
Performs at home her more endearing part;
When He, who best interprets to mankind
The winged messengers from mind to mind,

1.

'Twas Autumn; thro' Provence had ceased
The vintage, and the vintage-feast.
The sun had set behind the hill,
The moon was up, and all was still,

And from the Convent's neighbouring tower
The clock had tolled the midnight-hour,
When Jacqueline came forth alone,
Her kerchief o'er her tresses thrown;
A guilty thing and full of fears,
Yet ah, how lovely in her tears!
She starts, and what has caught her eye?
What but her shadow gliding by?
She stops, she pants; with lips apart
She listens to her beating heart!
Then, thro' the scanty orchard stealing,
The clustering boughs her track concealing,
She flies, nor casts a thought behind,
But gives her terrors to the wind;
Flies from her home, the humble sphere
Of all her joys and sorrows here,
Her father's house of mountain-stone,
And by a mountain-vine o'ergrown.
At such an hour in such a night,
So calm, so clear, so heavenly bright,
Who would have seen, and not confessed
It looked as all within were blest?
What will not woman, when she loves?
Yet lost, alas! who can restore her?-
She lifts the latch, the wicket moves;
And now the world is all before her.

Up rose St. Pierre, when morning shone;
-And Jacqueline, his child, was gone!
Oh what the madd'ning thought that came?
Dishonour coupled with his name!
By Condé at Rocroy he stood;

By Turenne, when the Rhine ran blood.
Two banners of Castile he gave
Aloft in Notre Dame to wave;
Nor did thy cross, St. Louis, rest
Upon a purer, nobler breast.

He slung his old sword by his side,

And snatched his staff and rushed to save;
Then sunk-and on his threshold cried,
"Oh lay me in my grave!

-Constance! Claudine! where were ye then?
But stand not there. Away! away!

Thou, Frederic, by thy father stay.
Though old, and now forgot of men,
Both must not leave him in a day."
Then, and he shook his hoary head,
"Unhappy in thy youth!" he said.
"Call as thou wilt, thou call'st in vain ;
No voice sends back thy name again.
To mourn is all thou hast to do;
Thy play-mate lost, and teacher too."

And who but she could soothe the boy,
Or turn his tears to tears of joy!
Long had she kissed him as he slept,
Long o'er his pillow hung and wept;
And, as she passed her father's door,
She stood as she would stir no more.
But she is gone, and gone for ever!
No, never shall they clasp her-never!
They sit and listen to their fears;
And he, who thro' the breach had led
Over the dying and the dead,
Shakes if a cricket's cry he hears!

Oh! she was good as she was fair.
None-none on earth above her!
As pure in thought as angels are,
To know her was to love her.
When little, and her eyes, her voice,
Her every gesture said "rejoice,"
Her coming was a gladness;

And, as she grew, her modest grace,
Her downcast look 'twas heaven to trace,
When, shading with her hand her face,
She half inclined to sadness.

Her voice, whate'er she said, enchanted;
Like music to the heart it went.
And her dark eyes-how eloquent!
Ask what they would, 'twas granted.
Her father loved her as his fame;
-And Bayard's self had done the same!
Soon as the sun the glittering pane
On the red floor in diamonds threw,
His songs she sung and sung again,
Till the last light withdrew.
Every day, and all day long,
He mused or slumbered to a song.
But she is dead to him, to all!
Her lute hangs silent on the wall;
And on the stairs, and at the door
Her fairy-step is heard no more!

At every meal an empty chair
Tells him that she is not there;
She, who would lead him where he went,
Charm with her converse while he leant;
Or, hovering, every wish prevent;
At eve light up the chimney-nook,
Lay there his glass within his book;
And that small chest of curious mould,
(Queen Mab's, perchance, in days of old,)
Tusk of elephant and gold;

Which, when a tale is long, dispenses
Its fragrant dust to drowsy senses.

In her who mourned not, when they missed her,
The old a child, the young a sister?
No more the orphan runs to take
From her loved hand the barley-cake.
No more the matron in the school
Expects her in the hour of rule,
To sit amid the elfin brood,
Praising the busy and the good.

The widow trims her hearth in vain.
She comes not-nor will come again.
Not
now, his little lesson done,

With Frederic blowing bubbles in the sun;
Nor spinning by the fountain-side,
(Some story of the days of old,

Barbe Bleue or Chaperon Rouge half-told
To him who would not be denied ;)
Not now, to while an hour away,
Gone to the falls in Valombrè,
Where 'tis night at noon of day;
Nor wandering up and down the wood,
To all but her a solitude,

Where once a wild deer, wild no more,
Her chaplet on his antlers wore,
And at her bidding stood.

II.

The day was in the golden west;

And, curtained close by leaf and flower,

The doves had cooed themselves to rest
In Jacqueline's deserted bower;

The doves-that still would at her casement peck,

And in her walks had ever fluttered round

With purple feet and shining neck,

True as the echo to the sound.

That casement, underneath the trees,
Half open to the western breeze,
Looked down, enchanting Garonnelle,
Thy wild and mulberry-shaded dell,
Round which the Alps of Piedmont rose,
The blush of sunset on their snows:
While, blithe as lark on summer-morn,
When green and yellow waves the corn,
When harebells blow in every grove,
And thrushes sing " I love! I love!"
Within (so soon the early rain
Scatters, and 'tis fair again;
Though many a drop may yet be seen
To tell us where a cloud has been)
Within lay Frederic, o'er and o'er
Building castles on the floor,
And feigning, as they grew in size,
New troubles and new dangers;
With dimpled cheeks and laughing eyes,
As he and Fear were strangers.

1 Cantando "Io amo! Io amo!"-TASSO.

St. Pierre sat by, nor saw nor smiled.
His eyes were on his loved Montaigne ;
But every leaf was turned in vain.
Then in that hour remorse he felt,
And his heart told him he had dealt
Unkindly with his child.

A father may awhile refuse;
But who can for another chuse ?
When her young blushes had revealed
The secret from herself concealed,
Why promise what her tears denied,
That she should be De Courcy's bride?
-Wouldst thou, presumptuous as thou art,
O'er Nature play the tyrant's part,
And with the hand compel the heart?
Oh rather, rather hope to bind
The ocean-wave, the mountain-wind;
Or fix thy foot upon the ground
To stop the planet rolling round.

The light was on his face; and there
You might have seen the passions driven-
Resentment, Pity, Hope, Despair—
Like clouds across the face of Heaven.
Now he sighed heavily; and now,
His hand withdrawing from his brow,
He shut the volume with a frown,
To walk his troubled spirit down:

-When (faithful as that dog of yore?
Who wagged his tail and could no more)
Manchon, who long had snuffed the ground,
And sought and sought but never found,
Leapt up and to the casement flew,

And looked and barked, and vanished thro'.
""Tis Jacqueline! "Tis Jacqueline !"
Her little brother laughing cried.
"I know her by her kirtle green,
She comes along the mountain-side;
Now turning by the traveller's seat,—
Now resting in the hermit's cave,—
Now kneeling, where the pathways meet,
To the cross on the stranger's grave.
And, by the soldier's cloak, I know
(There, there along the ridge they go)
D'Arcy so gentle and so brave!
Look up-why will you not?" he cries,
His rosy hands before his eyes;
For on that incense-breathing eve
The sun shone out, as loth to leave.
"See to the rugged rock she clings!
She calls, she faints, and D'Arcy springs;
D'Arcy so dear to us, to all;
Who, for you told me on your knee,
When in the fight he saw you fall,
Saved you for Jacqueline and me!"

And true it was! And true the tale!
When did she sue, and not prevail?
Five years before-it was the night
That on the village-green they parted,
The lilied banners streaming bright
O'er maids and mothers broken-hearted;
The drum-it drowned the last adieu,
When D'Arcy from the crowd she drew.
"One charge I have and one alone,
Nor that refuse to take,

My father-if not for his own,
Oh for his daughter's sake!"

2 Argus.