published poem on the growth and revolutions of an individual mind by Wordsworth : "―an Orphic tale indeed, A tale divine of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chaunted !" GROWTH OF GENIUS FROM THE INFLUENCES OF NATURAL OBJECTI ON THE IMAGINATION IN BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. Wisdom and spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought! Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 'T was mine among the fields both day and night, And in the frosty season, when the sun I heeded not the summons. Happy time It was a time of rapture: clear and loud And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn, Of melancholy-not unnoticed, while the stars, Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, That gleam'd upon the ice; and oftentimes, Have I, reclined back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheel'd by me even as if the earth had roll'd With visible motion her diurnal round : Behind me did they stretch in solemn train Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. 333. THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER. ANONYMOUS. [The whole of the sixteenth century was marked by important changes of every kind-political, religious, and social. The wars with France, and the internal contests of the Roses were over, and the energy of the nation was directed to new objects. Trade and commerce were extended; fresh sources of wealth were developed; and new classes of society sprung up into importance, whose riches enabled them to outvie the old landed gentry, but who had few of their hereditary tastes and habits. Hence the innovation of old customs, and the decay of ancient manners, to which the gentry themselves were compelled to conform. The following old song, which is printed in the 'Percy Reliques,' from an ancient black-letter copy in the 'Pepys Collection,' is a lament over the changes which had taken place in the early part of the seventeenth century, as compared with the days of Queen Elizabeth.] An old song made by an aged old pate, Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate, That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate: Like an old courtier of the queen's, And the queen's old courtier. With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages, Like an old courtier, &c. With an old study fill'd full of learned old books, With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks; And an old kitchen that maintain'd half-a-dozen old cooks; With an old hall hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, Like an old courtier, &c. With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come, With an old falconer, huntsman, and a kennel of hounds, But to his eldest son his house and lands he assign'd, And the king's young courtier. Like a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land, With a new-fangled lady, that is dainty, nice, and spare, With a new-fashion'd hall, built where the old one stood, With a new study stuffed full of pamphlets and plays, With a new buttery hatch that opens once in four or five days, And a new French cook to devise fine kickshaws and toys; Like a young courtier, &c. With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on, And a new journey to London straight we all must be gone, With a new gentleman usher, whose carriage is complete ; Who, when her lady has dined, lets the servants not eat; Like a young courtier, &c. With new titles of honor, bought with his father's old gold, 334. OF HIS OWN STUDIES. MILTON. [IN Milton's Prose Writings, controversial as most of them are, we find the most interesting morsels of autobiography. The following is from 'The Reason of Church Government.'] Concerning this wayward subject against prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous to a number of men; as, by what hath been said, I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me on this controversy; but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear, lest the omitting of this duty should be against me, when I would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful |