The Little A& i. Sc. i. Such was the paffage referred to, and underneath it a pencil reference to Beaumont and Fletcher, which I ran to ground. It was this. "You to whom nature Gave with a liberal hand most excellent form; Currit agens mannos ad villam hic præcipitanter Lib. iii. 1073, &c. Davies's lines on "The Immortality of the Soul," are not lines to be paffed by. "We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pafs both tropics, and behold each pole, Southey's Edit. p. 688. CHAPTER XXXII. The Neceffity of Increafing the Rational "O thoughtful harte, tombled all about "There cannot be a better glass wherein to difcern the face of our hearts than our pleafures; fuch as they are, fuch are we, whether vain or holy." "For know, to man, as candidate for heaven, The voice of the Eternal faid, Be free: And this divine prerogative to thee Does virtue, happinefs, and heaven convey; For virtue is the child of liberty, And happiness of virtue; nor can they Be free to keep the path, who are not free to ftray." AY what we may of the Anglo- can hardly realize what thofe times were,-the Hawes, The Bp. Hall's "The funda- Anglo-Saxon." of St. Paul's, people of those days did nevertheless contrive to enjoy themselves vaftly, and there was great freedom of manner and speech between mafter and man. In Saxon times the Eadelman, and the Miller and his Knave, and the people of the Vale, all knew each other thoroughly. A roughish perfon fometimes was a Saxon King, and his Theyns were rougher ftill; but if they had not looked to their dependants, their Thanelands would have done them little good. The Miller would most certainly have been drowned in his dam, and there would have been no grift, if he and his Knave and the Eadelman had fet their heads together to curtail the sports of the village green. The lordly Norman again, in his turn, was rude and cruel, burly and outrageous, and his Baronial Keep had deep dungeons, with rings, and hooks, and chains there, but he too would never have held his ground, not even by force of arms, if he had not humoured his ferfs and vaffals,--if in the courtyard he had prohibited tilting, or hawking on the hill fide, or jollity in the hall. As long as fuch rough beards wag all!" liberty was to be had it was a small thing to fit" below the falt '." Like children at the fide Our modern long-beards show at once the meaning of the old catch, 'Tis merry in the hall, Where 1 A well-known expreffion. Men, as they loft cafte, brought the table of a great feaft, they that did fo only accounts of Henry the Second's banqueting The oldeft Our forefathers, perhaps, were over much given to noisy sports and games,—to wakes and vigils, Scotales, filctales, church-ales, and litch-ales,-hunting, and fhooting, and fishing,--and, in short, to all the boisterous and exciting amusements of a not highly educated people. But, mind and body work together, and we their fons-many of us at least-have indignity upon themselves. A well-earned falary has no real indignity in itself. 1 "A corruption," Mr. Tierney fays, "of the term fwan-upping, which fignifies the taking up of the fwans or cygnets, for the purpose of marking them." Hiftory of Arundel, Vol. ii. 723. Virg. Æn. vi. 637 Ibid. viii. 102. not thought enough of this, more especially as regards the relaxations of the poor. I forget what Latin Poet wrote the lines, but they run in my head as wife ones. "Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis Ut poffis animo quemvis fufferre laborem." And on this fubject the Old Vicar was clear and decided, and although he declared that it was high time to fweep off the rubbish of Roman Catholic holidays, which fimply entailed idleness, yet did he maintain that those ran into a contrary extreme who had curtailed the rational enjoyments of the people. Often have I heard the good man fay, (his mind was well ftored even in age with all the fineft paffages in the Roman and Greek Poets,) "There is something quite fresh in Virgil's description even of his realms of blifs, where fpiritual fubftances freed from corporeal bars, ftill participate in innocent enjoyment; and the whole episode of Æneas' vifit to Evander, and the feftival he found him celebrating is delightful." Upon which he would add, "Milton's mind, you know, fternly Puritan as it was, was foftened by fuch recollections. It is a very grand paffage in his Paradise Loft that, in which Uriel, defcending on a fun |