COMFORT IN THE MIDDLE AGES. FROM " IF HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES." F the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommodations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot, or even plaster, except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and that, perhaps, hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is unnecessary to add that neither libraries of books nor pictures could have found a place among furniture. Silver plate was very rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furniture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency. And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an We have an inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, A. D. 1481. There ap pear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows are specially noticed as movable furniture. No mention, however, is made of chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare this account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honor of the earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the North-not at the same period, for I have not found any inventory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient, but in 1572, after almost a century of continual improvement— we shall be astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle, nor had any of the chambers either chairs, glasses or carpets. It is in this sense, probably, that we must understand Eneas Sylvius, if he meant anything more than to express a traveller's discontent when he declares that the kings of Scotland would rejoice to be as well lodged as the second class of citizens at Nuremberg. Few burghers of that town had mansions, I presume, equal to the palaces of Dunfermline or Stirling, but it is not unlikely that they were better furnished. In the construction of farmhouses and cottages, especially the latter, there have probably been fewer changes, and those it would be more difficult to follow. Cottages in England seem to have generally consisted of a single room, without division of stories. Chimneys were unknown in such dwellings till the early part of Elizabeth's reign, when a very rapid and sensible improvement took place in the comforts of our yeomanry and cottagers. HENRY HALLAM. THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE. NOWLEDGE cannot be stolen from you; it cannot be bought or sold. You may be poor and the sheriff come into your house and sell your furniture at auction, or drive away your cow or take your lamb, and leave you homeless and penniless; but he cannot lay the law's hand upon the jewelry of your mind. This cannot be taken for debt; neither can you give it away, though you give enough of it to fill a million minds. I will tell you what such giving is like. Suppose, now, that there were no sun nor stars in the heavens, nor anything that shone in the black brow of night, and suppose that a lighted lamp were put into your hand, which should burn wasteless and clear amid all the tempests that should brood upon this lower world. Suppose, next, that there were a thousand millions of human The fountain of knowledge is filled by its outlets, not by its inlets. You can learn nothing which you do not teach; you can acquire nothing of intellectual wealth except by giving. In the illustration of the lamps. which I have given you was not the light of the thousands of millions which were lighted at yours as much your light as if it all came from your solitary lamp? Did you not dispel darkness by giving away light? Remember this parable; and whenever you fall in with an unlighted mind in your walk of life, drop a kind and glowing thought upon it from yours, and set it a-burning in the world with a light that shall shine in some dark place to beam on the benighted. REQUIEM. ELIHU BURRITT. beings on the earth with you, each hold-LOWLY, shining head, where we lay ing in his hand an unlighted lamp filled with the same oil as yours, and capable of giving as much light. Suppose these millions should come one by one to you and light each his lamp by yours; would they rob you of any light? Would less of it shine on your own path? Would your lamp burn more dimly for lighting a thousand millions? thee down With the lowly dead, droop thy golden crown! rest! Softly, starry eyes, veil your darkened Nevermore to rise in summer-shine or tears! Even heaven. ! Thus it is, young friends. In getting rich in the things which perish with the using, men have often obeyed to the letter that first Through your spiral cells weaveth gales of commandment of selfishness: "Keep what you can get, and get what you can." In filling your minds with the wealth of knowledge, you must reverse this rule and obey this law: "Keep what you give, and give what you can." Stilly, slender feet, rest from rosy rhyme, JULIA R. MCMASTERS. A WOMAN'S SHORTCOMINGS. HE has laughed as softly as Unless you can feel, when left by one, if she sighed; She has counted six, and Unless you can know, when unpraised by his over, Of a purse well filled and a heart well triedOh, each a worthy lover! They "give her time," for her soul must slip Where the world has set the grooving; She will lie to none with her Unless you can love as the angels may fair red lip; But love seeks truer loving. She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb, As her thoughts were beyond recalling, With a glance for one, and a glance for some, From her eyelids rising and falling; Speaks common words with a blushful air; Hears bold words unreproving; But her silence says what she never will swear, And love seeks better loving. Go, lady, lean to the night-guitar And drop a smile to the bringer, Then smile as sweetly when he is far At the voice of an indoor singer. Bask tenderly beneath tender eyes, Glance lightly on their removing, And join new vows to old perjuries, But dare not call it loving. Unless you can think, when the song is done, Broke on my vision, pure and bright No other is soft in the rhythm; There gleamed a cloth of gold. And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the More idly than the summer flies French tirailDutch in vain assailed, leurs rush round; For town and slope were filled with fort and As stubble to the lava-tide French squadrons flanking battery, strew the ground; And well they swept the English ranks and Bombshell and grape and round-shot pour : Dutch auxiliary. still on they marched and fired; As vainly through De Barri's wood the Brit- Fast from each volley grenadier and voltiish soldiers burst geur retired. The French artillery drove them back dimin- "Push on, my household cavalry!" King ished and dispersed. Louis madly cried ; The bloody duke of Cumberland beheld with To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged they died. anxious eye, And ordered up his last reserve, his latest On through the camp the column trod; King chance to try; On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride! Louis turns his rein; "Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed: "the Irish troops remain ;" And mustering come his chosen troops like And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a clouds at eventide. Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread; Waterloo Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement and true. Their cannon blaze in front and flank; Lord "Lord Clare," he says, Hay is at their head; says, "you have your wish there are your Saxon foes!" Steady they step adown the slope, steady The marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously they climb the hill, he goes. Steady they load, steady they fire, moving How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're right onward still wont to be so gay! |