realise a certain gentleness of enjoyment. Thus the true bearer of pain would come round to us; and he would not grudge us a share of his burden, though in taking from his trouble it might diminish his pride. Pride is but a bad pleasure at the expense of others. The great object of humanity is to enrich everybody. If it is a task destined not to succeed, it is a good one from its very nature; and fulfils at least a glad destiny of its own. Το look upon it austerely is in reality the reverse of austerity. It is only such an impatience of the want of pleasure as leads us to grudge it in others; and this impatience itself, if the sufferer knew how to use it, is but another impulse, in the general yearning, towards an equal wealth of enjoyment.

But we shall be getting into other discussions. The groundwork of all happiness is health. Take care of this ground; and the doleful imaginations that come to warn us against its abuse, will avoid it. Take care of this ground, and let as many glad imaginations throng to it as possible. Read the magical works of the poets, and they will come. If you doubt their existence, ask yourself whether you feel pleasure at the idea of them; whether you are moved into delicious smiles, or tears as delicious. If you are, the result is the same to you, whether they exist or not. It is not mere words to say, that he who goes through a rich man's park, and sees things in it which never bless the mental eyesight of the possessor, is richer than he. He is richer. More results of pleasure come home to him. The ground is actually more fertile to him; the place haunted with finer shapes. He has more servants to come at his call, and administer to him with full hands. Knowledge, sympathy, imagination, are all divining-rods, with which he discovers treasure. Let the painter go through the grounds, and he will see not only the general colours of green and brown, but all their combination and contrasts, and all the modes in which they might again be combined and contrasted. He will also put figures in the landscape if there are none there; flocks and herds, or a solitary spectator, or Venus lying with her white body

among the violets and primroses. Let a musician go through, and he will hear "differences discreet" in the notes of the birds and the lapsing of the water-fall. He will fancy a serenade of wind instruments in the open air at the lady's window, with a voice rising through it; or the horn of the hunter; or the musical cry of the hounds

"Match'd in mouth, like bells, Each under each;"

or a solitary voice in a bower, singing for an expected lover; or the chapel organ, waking up like the fountain of the winds. Let a poet go through the grounds, and he will heighten and increase all these sounds and images. He will bring the colours from heaven, and put an unearthly meaning into the voice. He will have stories of the sylvan inhabitants; will shift the population through infinite varieties; will put a sentiment upon every sight and sound; will be human, romantic, supernatural; will make all nature send tribute into that spot.

But, not to go on quoting lines which are ever in people's mouths like a popular tune, take a passage from the same poet less familiar to one's every-day recollections. It is in his "Arcadian Mask," which was performed by some of the Derby family at their seat at Harefield, near Uxbridge. The genius of the place, meeting the noble shepherds and shepherdesses, accosts them :

"Stay, gentle swains, for, though in this disguise,
I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes.

Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung
Of that renowned flood, so often sung,
Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse.
And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,
Fair silver-buskin'd Nymphs, as great and good;
I know this quest of yours, and free intent,
Was all in honour and devotion meant
To the great mistress of yon princely shrine,
Whom with low reverence I adore as mine;
And with all helpful service will comply
To further this night's glad solemnity,
And lead ye where ye may more near behold
What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold;
Which I, full oft, amidst these shades alone,
Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon:
For know, by lot from Jove I am the Power
Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower,
To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove
In ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove;
And all my plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill;
And from the boughs brush off the evil dew,
And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites,
Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites.
When evening grey doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground;
And early, ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn
Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,
Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words and murmurs made to bless.
But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Syrens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine-infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie
To lull the daughters of Necessity,

And keep unsteady Nature to her law,

And the low world in measured motion draw

After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear."

"Milton's Genius of the Grove," says Warton, "being a spirit

sent from Jove, and commissioned from heaven to exercise a preternatural guardianship over the 'saplings tall,' to avert every noxious influence, and to 'visit every sprout with puissant words, and murmurs made to bless,' had the privilege, not indulged to gross mortals, of hearing the celestial Syrens' harmony. This enjoyment," continues the critic, in the spirit of a true reader luxuriating over a beautiful thought,-"this enjoyment, which is highly imagined, was a relaxation from the duties of his peculiar charge, in the depth of midnight, when the world is locked up in sleep and silence.” * The music of the spheres is the old Platonic or Pythagorean doctrine, but it remained for Milton to render it a particular midnight recreation to "purged ears," after the earthly toils of the day. And we partake of it with the Genius. We may say of the love of nature, what Shakspeare says of another love, that it

"Adds a precious seeing to the eye."

And we may say also, upon the like principle, that it adds a precious hearing to the ear. This, and imagination, which ever follows upon it, are the two purifiers of our sense, which rescue us from the deafening babble of common cares, and enable us to hear all the affectionate voices of earth and heaven. The starry orbs, lapsing about in their smooth and sparkling dance, sing to us. The brooks talk to us of solitude. The birds are the animal spirits of nature, carolling in the air like a careless lass. "Gentle gales,

The poets are called creators (IIonraí, Makers) because, with

* If the reader wishes to indulge himself in a volume full of sheer poetry with a pleasant companion, familiar with the finest haunts of the Muses, he cannot do better than get Warton's edition of the "Minor Poems of Milton." The principal notes have been transferred by Mr Todd to the sixth volume of his own valuable edition of "Milton's Poetical Works," but it is better to have a good thing entire. The two together might be still better; but a work complete now-a-days, in one volume, is a work complete.

their magical words, they bring forth to our eyesight the abundant images and beauties of creation. They put them there, if the reader pleases, and so are literally creators. But whether put there or discovered, whether created or invented (for invention means nothing but finding out), there they are. If they touch us, they exist to as much purpose as anything else which touches us. If a passage in "King Lear" brings the tears into our eyes, it is as real as the touch of a sorrowful hand. If the flow of a song of Anacreon's intoxicates us, it is as true to a pulse within us as the wine he drank. We hear not their sounds with ears, nor see their sights with eyes; but we hear and see both so truly, that we are moved with pleasure, and the advantage, nay, even the test, of seeing and hearing at any time, is not in the seeing and hearing, but in the ideas we realise, and the pleasure we derive. Intellectual objects, therefore, inasmuch as they come home to us, are as true a part of the population of nature as visible ones, and they are infinitely more abundant. Between the tree of a country clown, and the tree of a Milton or Spenser, what a difference in point of productiveness! Between the plodding of a sexton through a church-yard, and the walk of a Gray, what a difference! What a difference between the Bermudas of a ship-builder, and the Bermoothes of Shakspeare; the isle

"Full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not ;" the isle of elves and fairies, that chased the tide to and fro on the sea-shore; of coral bones, and the knells of sea-nymphs; of spirits dancing on the sands, and singing amidst the hushes of the wind; of Caliban, whose brute nature enchantment had made poetical; of Ariel, who lay in cowslip-bells, and rode upon the bat; of Miranda, who wept when she saw Ferdinand work so hard, and begged him to let her help; telling him

"I am your wife, if you will marry me ;

If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no."