The Little
French Lawyer,

A& i. Sc. i.

Such was the paffage referred to, and underneath it a pencil reference to Beaumont and Fletcher, which I ran to ground. It was

this.

"You to whom nature

Gave with a liberal hand most excellent form;
Your education, language, and difcourfes,
And judgment to distinguish: when you shall
With feeling forrow understand how wretched
And miferable you have made yourself,
And but yourself have nothing to accuse,
Can you with hope from any beg compaffion ?”

Currit agens mannos ad villam hic præcipitanter
Auxilium tectis quafi ferre ardentibus inftans;
Ofcitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villæ :
Aut abit in fomnum gravis, atque oblivia quærit,
Aut etiam properans urbem petit, atque revifit.
Hoc fe quifque modo fugit."

Lib. iii. 1073, &c.

Davies's lines on "The Immortality of the Soul," are not lines to be

paffed by.

"We that acquaint ourselves with every zone,

And pafs both tropics, and behold each pole,
When we come home are to ourselves unknown,
And unacquainted ftill with our own foul."

Southey's Edit. p. 688.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The Neceffity of Increafing the Rational
Enjoyments of the Poor.

"O thoughtful harte, tombled all about
Upon the fea of ftormy ignorance,
For to faile forthe thou art in greate doubt
Over the waves of great encombraunce,
Without any comfort fave of efperaunce,
Which the exhorteth, hardely to fayle
Unto thy purpose, with diligent travayle."

"There cannot be a better glass wherein to difcern the face of our hearts than our pleafures; fuch as they are, fuch are we, whether vain or holy."

"For know, to man, as candidate for heaven,

The voice of the Eternal faid, Be free:

And this divine prerogative to thee

Does virtue, happinefs, and heaven convey;

For virtue is the child of liberty,

And happiness of virtue; nor can they

Be free to keep the path, who are not free to ftray."

AY what we may of the Anglo-
Saxon times, of Norman ftrong-
holds, of ferfdom, and of vaffalage,
-and in these days of liberty we

can hardly realize what thofe times were,-the

Hawes, The
Paftime of
Pleasure.

Bp. Hall's
Cont., John
Baptift be-
headed, Vol.
ii. 119. Folio.
Beattie's
Minstrel, II.
xxxi.

"The funda-
mental character
of Society in
England as late
as the xivth
century was

Anglo-Saxon."
The Domefday

of St. Paul's,
Archdeacon
Hale, p. cvii.

people of those days did nevertheless contrive to enjoy themselves vaftly, and there was great freedom of manner and speech between mafter and man. In Saxon times the Eadelman, and the Miller and his Knave, and the people of the Vale, all knew each other thoroughly. A roughish perfon fometimes was a Saxon King, and his Theyns were rougher ftill; but if they had not looked to their dependants, their Thanelands would have done them little good. The Miller would most certainly have been drowned in his dam, and there would have been no grift, if he and his Knave and the Eadelman had fet their heads together to curtail the sports of the village green.

The lordly Norman again, in his turn, was rude and cruel, burly and outrageous, and his Baronial Keep had deep dungeons, with rings, and hooks, and chains there, but he too would never have held his ground, not even by force of arms, if he had not humoured his ferfs and vaffals,--if in the courtyard he had prohibited tilting, or hawking on the hill fide, or jollity in the hall. As long as fuch rough beards wag all!" liberty was to be had it was a small thing to fit" below the falt '." Like children at the fide

Our modern long-beards show at once the meaning of the old catch, 'Tis merry in the hall, Where

1 A well-known expreffion. Men, as they loft cafte, brought the

table of a great feaft, they that did fo only
enjoyed themselves the more. The different

accounts of Henry the Second's banqueting
hall, as has been obferved before, contain a full
illuftration of what is here alluded to. Depend
upon it Arundel's water-bailiff had had few
fwans on the swan-hopping' day, and there had
been few fish left in the Swanbourne Lake,
if the retainers of the Caftle had not had their
sports. Thousand, thousand pities, that the
Old Mill, as I remember it, was done away!
The Mill and the Swanbourne Lake together
were unmatchable for beauty!
Baron in the oldeft days of that old Caftle
never committed a crueller act!

The oldeft

Our forefathers, perhaps, were over much given to noisy sports and games,—to wakes and vigils, Scotales, filctales, church-ales, and litch-ales,-hunting, and fhooting, and fishing,--and, in short, to all the boisterous and exciting amusements of a not highly educated people. But, mind and body work together, and we their fons-many of us at least-have

indignity upon themselves. A well-earned falary has no real indignity in itself.

1 "A corruption," Mr. Tierney fays, "of the term fwan-upping, which fignifies the taking up of the fwans or cygnets, for the purpose of marking them." Hiftory of Arundel, Vol. ii. 723.

Virg. Æn. vi.

637

Ibid. viii. 102.

not thought enough of this, more especially as regards the relaxations of the poor. I forget what Latin Poet wrote the lines, but they run in my head as wife ones.

"Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis

Ut poffis animo quemvis fufferre laborem."

And on this fubject the Old Vicar was clear and decided, and although he declared that it was high time to fweep off the rubbish of Roman Catholic holidays, which fimply entailed idleness, yet did he maintain that those ran into a contrary extreme who had curtailed the rational enjoyments of the people. Often have I heard the good man fay, (his mind was well ftored even in age with all the fineft paffages in the Roman and Greek Poets,) "There is something quite fresh in Virgil's description even of his realms of blifs, where fpiritual fubftances freed from corporeal bars, ftill participate in innocent enjoyment; and the whole episode of Æneas' vifit to Evander, and the feftival he found him celebrating is delightful." Upon which he would add, "Milton's mind, you know, fternly Puritan as it was, was foftened by fuch recollections. It is a very grand paffage in his Paradise Loft that, in which Uriel, defcending on a fun