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off by the bride and the priest, who perform a solemn minuet together. Not till after midnight comes the last dance. The girls form a ring around the bride, to keep her from the hands of the married women, who endeavour to break through the magic circle, and seize their new sister. After long struggling they succeed; and the crown is taken from her head and the jewels from her neck, and her boddice is unlaced and her kirtle taken off; and like a vestal virgin, clad all in white, she goes, but it is to her marriage-chamber, not to her grave; and the wedding guests follow her with lighted candles in their hands. And this is a village bridal. Nor must I forget the suddenly changing seasons of the northern clime. There is no long and lingering spring, unfolding leaf and blossom one by one; no long and lingering autumn, pompous with many-coloured leaves and the glow of Indian summers. But winter and summer are wonderful, and pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased piping in the corn, when winter, from the folds of trailing clouds, sows broad-cast over the land snow, icicles, and rattling hail. The days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly rises above the horizon, or does not rise at all. The moon and the stars shine through the day; only, at noon, they are pale and wan, and in the southern sky a red, fiery glow, as of sunset, burns along the horizon, and then goes out. And pleasantly under the silver moon, and under the silent solemn stars, ring the steel shoes of the skaters on the frozen sea, and voices, and the sound of bells.

And now the Northern Lights begin to burn, faintly at first, like sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea. Then a soft crimson glow tinges the heavens. There is a blush on the cheek of night. The colours come and go, and change from crimson to gold, from gold to crimson. The snow is stained with rosy light. Twofold from the zenith, east and west, flames a fiery sword; and a broad band passes athwart the heavens like a summer sunset. Soft purple clouds come sailing over the sky, and through their vapoury folds the winking stars shine white as silver. With such pomp as this is merry Christmas ushered in, though only a single star heralded the first Christmas. And in memory of that day the Swedish peasants dance on straw, and the peasant girls throw straws at the timbered roof of the hall, and for every one that sticks in a crack shall a groomsman come to their wedding. Merry Christmas indeed! For pious souls there shall be church-songs and sermons, but for Swedish peasants brandy and nut-brown ale in wooden bowls; and the great Yulecake crowned with a cheese, and garlanded with apples, and upholding a three-armed candlestick over the Christmas feast. They may tell tales, too, of Jons Lundsbracka, and Lunkenfus, and the great Riddar-Finke of Pingsdaga*.

And now the glad leafy midsummer, full of blossoms and the song of nightingales, is come! Saint John has taken the flowers and festival of heathen Balder; and in every village there is a Maypole fifty feet high, with wreaths and roses, and ribands streaming in the wind, and a noisy weathercock on top, to tell the village whence the wind cometh and whither it goeth. The sun does not set till ten o'clock at night, and the children are at play in the streets an hour later. The windows and doors are all open, and you may sit and read till midnight without a candle. O how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless yet unclouded day, descending upon earth with dews, and shadows, and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites to-day with yester.day! How beautiful the silent hour, when morning and evening thus sit together, hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight! From the church-tower in the public square the bell tolls the hour, with a soft musical chime; and the watchman, whose watch-tower is the belfry, blows a blast on his horn for each

* These are names of popular stories.

stroke of the hammer, and four times, to the four corners of the heavens, in a sonorous voice he chants,

"Ho! watchman, ho.

Twelve is the clock!
God keep our town
From fire and brand,
And hostile hand!
Twelve is the clock!"

From his swallow's nest in the belfry he can see the sun all night long; and farther north the priest stands at his door in the warm midnight, and lights his pipe with a common burning-glass.

131. THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS, THE HISTORIAN.

DRYDEN. [JOHN DRYDEN is one of the most familiar names in English literature: but how many readers of the present day can be said to make a study of his works? His plays, with one or two exceptions, are forgotten and neglected. His tragedies are formed upon the mockheroic French model, which has no claim to be a reflection of nature, and which therefore can have no endurance. His comedies are revolting in their gross licentiousness. But we turn to his Satires and his Translations, and we find many of the characteristics of a great poet; not the highest invention, but vigour almost unrivalled, and a mastery of the real power of the English language, which shows us how much that language has been vitiated by the patchwork of a century and a half. Dryden's prose is necessarily less read than his poetry, for it consists chiefly of critical prefaces to his plays, and to works, principally translations, in which he was from time to time engaged in the course of a long literary life. Careless readers have a sort of dread of a preface. Yet of these prefaces Johnson has truly said, "None of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated and vigorous; what is little, is gay; what is great, is splendid." Burke (according to Malone, who collected Dryden's prose works in four volumes) used to expatiate with admiration upon Dryden's language, upon which, as Malone thinks, he formed his own style. Dryden was born in 1631 or 1632; was educated at Westminster School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge; wrote his verses on Cromwell in 1655, and his first play in 1663. He continued his literary labours, under the impulse of straitened circumstances, until the end of his career. He died, after a short illness, in 1700.]

Beneficent as he was, the greatest obligation which he could lay on human kind was the writing of this present history, wherein he has left a perpetual monument of his public love to all the world, in every succeeding age of it, by giving us such precepts as are most conducing to our common safety and our benefit. This philanthropy (which we have not a proper word in English to express) is every where manifest in our author; and from hence proceeded that divine rule which he gave to Scipio,-that, whensoever he went abroad, he should take care not to return to his own house before he had acquired a friend by some new obligement. To this excellency of nature we owe the treasure which is contained in this most useful work; this is the standard by which all good and prudent princes ought to regulate their actions. None have more need of friends than monarchs; and though ingratitude is too frequent in the most of those who are obliged, yet encouragement will work on generous minds; and, if the experiment be lost on thousands, yet it never fails on all; and one virtuous man in a whole nation is worth the buying, as one diamond is worth the search in a heap of rubbish. But a narrowhearted prince, who thinks that mankind is made for him alone, puts his subjects in a way of deserting him on the first occasion; and teaches them to be as sparing of their duty as he is of his bounty. He is sure of making enemies who will not be at the cost of rewarding his friends and servants; and, by letting his people see

He

he loves them not, instructs them to live upon the square with him, and to make him sensible, in his turn, that prerogatives are given, but privileges are inherent. As for tricking, cunning, and that which in sovereigns they call king-craft, and reason of state in commonwealths, to them and their proceedings Polybius is an open enemy. He severely reproves all faithless practices, and that какожрауμоσÚν, or vicious policy, which is too frequent in the management of the public. commends nothing but plainness, sincerity, and the common good, undisguised, and set in a true light before the people. Not but that there may be a necessity of saving a nation by going beyond the letter of the law, or even sometimes by superseding it; but then that necessity must not be artificial,-it must be visible, it must be strong enough to make the remedy not only pardoned, but desired, to the major part of the people; not for the interest only of some few men, but for the public safety; for, otherwise, one infringement of a law draws after it the practice of subverting all the liberties of a nation, which are only entrusted with any government, but can never be given up to it. The best way to distinguish betwixt a pretended necessity and a true, is to observe if the remedy be rarely applied, or frequently; in times of peace, or times of war and public distractions, which are the most usual causes of sudden necessities. From hence Casaubon infers, that this our author, who preaches virtue and probity and plain dealing, ought to be studied principally by kings and ministers of state; and that youth, which are bred up to succeed in the management of business, should read him carefully, and imbibe him thoroughly, detesting the maxims that are given by Machiavel and others, which are only the instruments of tyranny. Furthermore, (continues he,) the study of truth is perpetually joined with the love of virtue; for there is no virtue which derives not its original from truth; as, on the contrary, there is no vice that has not its beginning from a lie. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the cement of all societies; and this is one of the most shining qualities in our author.

I was so strongly persuaded of this myself, in the perusal of the present history, that I confess, amongst all the ancients, I never found any who had the air of it so much; and, amongst the moderns, none but Philip de Commines. They had this common to them, that they both changed their masters. But Polybius changed not his side, as Philip did; he was not bought off to another party, but pursued the true interest of his country even when he served the Romans. Yet since truth, as one of the philosophers has told me, lies in the bottom of a well, so it is difficult to draw it up; much pains, much diligence, much judgment is necessary to hand it us; even cost is oftentimes required; and Polybius was wanting in none of these.

We find but few historians, of all ages, who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity. But Polybius weighed the authors from whom he was forced to borrow the history of the times immediately preceding his, and oftentimes corrected them, either by comparing them each with other, or by the lights which he had received from ancient men of known integrity amongst the Romans, who had been conversant in those affairs which were then managed, and were yet living to instruct him. He also learned the Roman tongue, and attained to that knowledge of their laws, their rights, their customs, and antiquities, that few of their own citizens understood them better; having gained permission from the senate to search the Capitol, he made himself familiar with their records, and afterwards translated them into his mother tongue. So that he taught the noblemen of Rome their own municipal laws, and was accounted more skilful in them than Fabius Pictor, a man of the senatorian order, who wrote the transactions of the Punic wars. He who neglected none of the laws of history was so careful of truth

(which is the principal), that he made it his whole business to deliver nothing to posterity which might deceive them; and by that diligence and exactness may easily be known to be studious of truth, and a lover of it. What therefore, Brutus himself thought worthy to transcribe with his own hand out of him, I need not be ashamed to copy after him. "I believe" (says Polybius) "that nature herself has constituted truth as the supreme deity which is to be adored by mankind, and that she has given it greater force than any of the rest: for being opposed as she is on all sides, and appearances of truth so often passing for the thing itself in behalf of plausible falsehoods, yet by her wonderful operation she insinuates herself into the minds of men; sometimes exerting her strength immediately, and sometimes lying hid in darkness for a length of time; but at last she struggles through it, and appears triumphant over falsehood." This sincerity Polybius preferred to all his friends, and even to his father. "In all other offices of life" (says he) "I praise a lover of his friends, and of his native country; but, in writing history, I am obliged to divest myself of all other obligations, and sacrifice them all to truth.”

Aratus, the Sicyonian, in the childhood of our author, was the chief of the Achaian commonwealth; a man in principal esteem, both in his own country, and all the provinces of Greece; admired universally for his probity, his wisdom, his just administration, and his conduct; in remembrance of all which his grateful countrymen, after his decease, ordained him those honours which are only due to heroes. Him our Polybius had in veneration, and formed himself by imitation of his virtues, and is never wanting in his commendations through the course of his history. Yet even this man, when the cause of truth required it, is many times reproved by him for his slowness in council, his tardiness in the beginning of his enterprizes, his tedious and more than Spanish deliberations; and his heavy and cowardly proceedings are as freely blamed by our Polybius, as they were afterwards by Plutarch, who questionless drew his character from this history. In plain terms, that wise general scarce ever performed any great action but by night; the glittering of a sword before his face was offensive to his eyes; our author, therefore, boldly accuses him of his faint-heartedness; attributes the defeat at Caphia wholly to him; and is not sparing to affirm that all Peloponnesus was filled with trophies which were set up as the monuments of his losses. He sometimes praises, and at other times condemns, the proceedings of Philip, king of Macedon, the son of Demetrius, according to the occasions which he gave him by the variety and inequality of his conduct; and this most exquisite on either side. He more than once arraigns him for the inconstancy of his judgment, and chapters even his own Aratus on the same head; showing by many examples, produced from their actions, how many miseries they had both occasioned to the Grecians; and attributing it to the weakness of human nature, which can make nothing perfect. But some men are brave in battle who are weak in counsel, which daily experience sets before our eyes; others deliberate wisely, but are weak in the performing part; and even no man is the same to-day which he was yesterday, or may be to-morrow. On this account, says our author, "a good man is sometimes liable to blame, and a bad man, though not often, may possibly deserve to be commended." And for this very reason he severely taxes Timæus, a malicious historian who will allow no kind of virtue to Agathocles, the tyrant of Sicily, but detracts from all his actions, even the most glorious, because, in general, he was a vicious man. "Is it to be thought" (says Casaubon) "that Polybius loved the memory of Agathocles, the tyrant, or hated that of the virtuous Aratus?" But it is one thing to commend a tyrant, and another thing to overpass in silence those laudable actions which are performed by him; because it argues an author of the same falsehood, to pretermit what has actually been done, as to feign those actions which have never been.

132.-SUMMER.

THEN came the jolly Sommer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock coloured greene,
That was unlyned all, to be more light:
And on his head a girlond well beseene
He wore, from which as he had chauffed been
The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore
A bowe and shaftes, as he in forrest greene
Had hunted late the Libbard or the Bore,

And now would bathe his limbs with labor heated sore.

Such is Spenser's description of the jolly Sommer.' The same vigorous pencil has per. sonified the summer months of June and July:

And after her came jolly June, array'd

All in greene leaves, as he a Player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as play'd,
That by his plough-yrons mote right well appeare
Upon a Crab he rode, that him did beare
With crooked crawling steps an uncouth pace,
And backward yode, as Bargemen wont to fare,
Bending their force contrary to their face;

Like that ungracious crew which faines demurest grace.
Then came hot July boyling like to fire,
That all his garments he had cast away:
Upon a Lyon raging yet with ire

He boldly rode, and made him to obay:
(It was the beast that whylome did forray
The Nemean forrest, till the Amphytrionide
Him slew, and with his hide did him array.)
Behinde his backe a sithe, and by his side
Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide.

We will select two summer landscapes, whose scenes are laid in regions far apart. Scott gives us a charming picture of the mild graces of the season

The summer dawn's reflected hue
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue;
Mildly and soft the western breeze
Just kiss'd the lake, just stirr'd the trees,
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy,
Trembled but dimpled not for joy;
The mountain-shadows on her breast
Were neither broken nor at rest;
In bright uncertainty they lie,
Like future joys to Fancy's eye.

The water-lily to the light

Her chalice rear'd of silver bright;
The doe awoke, and to the lawn,
Begemm'd with dew-drops, led her fawn;
The gray mist left the mountain-side,
The torrent show'd its glistening pride;
Invisible in flecked sky

The lark sent down her revelry
The blackbird and the speckled thrush
Good-morrow gave from brake and bush;
In answer coo'd the cushat-dove
Her notes of peace, and rest, and love.

The American poet, Bryant, draws his images from pine-forests and fields of maize, upon which a fiery sun looks down with "scorching heat and dazzling light:"—

It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk

The dew that lay upon the morning grass;

There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade

Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again

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