70

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

And chides, and buffets, clinging by the mane !
Then runs, and kneeling by the fountain-side,
Sends his brave ship in triumph down the tide,
A dangerous voyage! or, if now he can,

If now he wears the habit of a man,

Flings off the coat so long his pride and pleasure,
And, like a miser digging for his treasure,
His tiny spade in his own garden plies,
And in green letters sees his name arise!
Where'er he goes, for ever in her sight,

She looks, and looks, and still with new delight.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

[The name of SAMUEL ROGERS, the banker-poet, recalls several successive generations of literary celebrities. Born in 1762, he entered the field of letters while the great "Doctor" still towered on his throne as the Grand Cham of literature, and he survived till 1855, almost seventy years after the production of his first collection of poems, which were published in 1786, the year in which Robert Burns first appeared as an author. Rogers is not a very prolific writer; and his poems are rather remarkable for grace and polish of diction, than for innate power. His best work, the "Italy," was published in 1822. Rogers will long be remembered as a kind patron of his less fortunate compeers in literature and art; his great wealth giving him opportunities of doing good, of which he availed himself in no stinted measure. Many have cause to remember him with gratitude.]

Garden.

HE finished garden

to the view

Its vistas opens, and its valleys green

Snatched through the ver

dant maze, the hurried

eye

Distracted wanders: now the bowery walk

Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day Falls on the lengthened gloom, protracted sweeps; Now meets the bended sky;

the river now

Dimpling along, the breezy ruffled lake,

The forest darkening round, the glittering spire, Th'ethereal mountain, and

the distant main.

But why so far excursive?

when at hand,

Along these blushing bor-
ders, bright with dew,

And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers,
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace;
Throws out the snow-drop and the crocus first;

The daisy, primrose; violet, darkly blue;
And polyanthus, of unnumbered dyes;
The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown,
And lavish stock, that scents the garden round ;
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemones, auriculas, enriched

With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;
And full ranunculus, of glowing red.

Then comes the tulip race, where Beauty plays
Her idle freaks; from family diffused
To family, as flies the father dust,

The varied colours run, and while they break
On the charmed eye, th' exulting florist marks,
With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.
No gradual bloom is wanting from the bud,
First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes :
Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white,
Low-bent, and blushing inward; nor jonquils,
Of potent fragrance; nor Narcissus fair,
As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still;
Nor broad carnations, nor gay spotted pinks;

Nor, showered from every bush, the damask rose.
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells,

With hues on hues expression cannot paint,

The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom.

THOMSON.

Beauties of the Evening.

I WALK, unseen,

On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon;
And oft as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

Oft on a plat of rising ground
I hear the far off curfew sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with solemn roar.

Or if the air will not permit,

Some still removèd place will fit,

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;

Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,

Or the bellman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm ;

[JOHN MILTON was born in London, in 1608, and died in 1674. His magnificent poetry has been well described as a compound of the majesty of Homer and the sweetness of Virgil, for it was to him that the apt and oft-quoted lines were written :

"Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn ;
The first in majesty of thought surpassed,
The next in sweetness, and in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go,

To make a third she joined the other two."

Sold for a pittance of fifteen pounds, neglected by the vitiated taste of a licentious age, and only recommended to notice long after the mighty hand that penned it had

K

Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen, in some high lonely tower,
Exploring Plato, to unfold

What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
Th' immortal mind that had forsook
Her mansion in this fleshy nook,
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.

MILTON. [From "Il Penseroso."]

Sin.

ANLIKE is it to fall into sin,
Fiendlike is it to dwell therein,
Christlike is it for sin to grieve,
Godlike is it all sin to leave.

LONGFELLOW. [From Logan's "Aphorisms."]

crumbled into dust, Milton's "Paradise Lost" has at length been enshrined as the greatest epic poem in the English language, and its writer as our great national poet. His second great epic, "Paradise Regained," was written at the suggestion of Elwood, the Quaker, who remarked to Milton, "Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise lost; what hast thou to say upon Paradise found?" The minor poems of MiltonComus," "Lycidias," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and the magnificent "Samson Agonistes," are now being generally read and appreciated, after two centuries of neglect and oblivion.