LOVE. LOVE is a heat full of coldness, a sweet full of bitterness, a pain full of 'pleasantness, making the thoughts, hair, eyes, and hearts ears; bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jealousy, killed by dissembling, and buried by ingratitude. Love is a cameleon, which draws nothing in the mouth but air, and nourishes nothing in body but the tongue. A man has choice to begin to love; but not to end it. Love-knots are tied with eyes, and cannot be untied with hands; made fast with thoughts, not to be unloosed with fingers. TRUTH. TRUTH is the glory of time, aud the daughter of eternity; a title of the highest grace, and a note of divine nature; she is the life of religion, the light of love, the grace of wit, and the crown of wisdom; she is the beauty of valour, the brightness of honour, the blessing of wisdom, and the joy of faith; her truth is pure gold, her time is right precious, her word is most gracious, and her will is most glorious; her essence is in God, and her dwelling with his servants; her will in his wisdom, and her work to his glory; she is honoured in love, and graced in constancy; in patience admired, and in charity beloved; she is the angel's worship, the virgin's fame, the saint's bliss, and the martyr's crown; she is the king's greatness, and his council's goodness; his subject's peace and his kingdom's praise; she is the life, learning, and the light of the law; the honour of trade, and the grace of labour; she hath a pure eye, a plain hand, a piercing wit, and a perfect heart; she is wisdom's walk in the way of holiness, and takes up her rest but in the resolution of goodness; her tongue never trips, her heart never faints, her hand never fails, and her faith never fears; her church is without schism, her city without fraud, her court without vanity, and her kingdom without villainy. In sum, so infinite is her excellence in the construction of all sense, that I will thus only conclude in the wonder of her worth-She is the nature of perfection in the perfection of nature, where God in Christ shows the glory of christianity. MOUNT AND CASTLE OF TAMWORTH. IBERATING by her prudence and valour the Kingdom of her brother, after its invasion by the Danes, as mentioned in the general history, by Pennant, Ethelfleda, the celebrated daughter of the illustrious Alfred, rebuilt Tamworth in the year 913, after it had been totally destroyed by the invaders. This princess erected a tower on a part of the mount, which it is supposed forms the site of the present ruins of the castle, and where she, for the most part, resided until she died, in the year 920. Tamworth appears to have once been a town of very considerable note; and at an early period of our history, in the time of the Mercians, it was a royal village, and the favorite residence of some of their monarchs. The celebrated king, Offa, dates one of his charters to the monks of Worcester from his palace here, in the year 781; and several of his successors, in the next century, date various charters from this same place. At this time an extensive and deep ditch, forty-five feet in breadth, protected the town and royal domain on the north, west, and east sides, and the rivers Tame and Anker, at whose confluence it is situated, served as a great defence on the south. The former runs through the town, nearly dividing it into equal parts, one of which is in Warwickshire, the other in Staffordshire. Of this ditch, some few vestiges can still be traced; and at two angles, which it forms, are two mounts, probably raised as the foundations of two small towers. Within the last fifty or sixty years, by various persons digging and breaking up the earth, have been discovered many men's and horses' bones, and ancient instruments of war. In the year 918, Tamworth witnessed the submission of all the Mercian Tribes, together with the princes of Wales, to the sovereign power of Ethelfleda's brother Edward. From this period, till the era of the Conquest, nothing of importance is recorded. St. Edith, or Editha, is said to have founded a monastery here, but it is not certain she did. After the accession of the Norman Conqueror to the English throne, Tamworth continued for some time a royal demesne, but was at last let at a certain rent to the lords of the castle. Queen Elizabeth, in the third year of her reign, constituted it a corporation; and which years after, first sent parliamentary representatives. THE POET, A REAL CHARACTER. BY WILLIAM HOLLOWAY. REMEMBER you a rustic cottage boy, Aloud, with measured pace and action meet; And this was given in proof-One sabbath day, He climbed the reading-desk, and, venturous, took Or through the copse, or o'er the furzy down, Of Pope and Homer he would sometimes speak, The songs of Shenstone, and the themes of Gay; And though to rigid schools he little owed, But now, full long, has every favourite scene No eye has lately seen him, museful, range The bridge, where rushes choke the struggling tide; c 2 |