Watts.

Far above all the flowers of the field, When its leaves are all dead and its colours áll lost. I And while a false nymph was his theme, A willow supported his head.-Rowe.

The licenses taken in dactylic verse are sometimes such that they disguise the measure, and render it equivocal; as in this uncommon specimen :

Oh! what a pain is love!

How shall I bear it?
She will unconstant prove,
I greatly fear it.
Please her the best I may,
She looks another way;
Alack and well-a-day,

Phillida flouts me!

Ellis's Specimens.

But this great confusion of meaThe allowed sure is not often made. licenses are to curtail the last foot, sometimes by one syllable, as in the lines quoted above; but more usually by two; which, as compositions of this kind are chiefly for music, makes a better close: such isUnder the blossom that hangs on the bough.

It is allowed in the beginning of a line to substitute for the proper foot a trochee, as

Songs of shepherds and rustical roundelays. Old Ballad.

or a single accented syllable may stand for it, even for two feet together, as

Come, see rural felicity.

The license has been carried still farther in the singular measure following:

One long | Whitsun | holiday,

It was a jolly day,

Stout Ralph, buxom | Phillida, &c. The writer of this, a man renowned in our annals, as a maker and singer of ballads, and familiarly called Tom Durfey, t is said to have contrived this odd metre in order to puzzle the composer, Purcell, how to frame a tune for it: but the story is probably without foundation; for the words readily accommodate themselves to music, and the bare recital would direct any musician to set them to jig-time.

Drayton.

morning, that I found myself, after traversing several miles of brown moor, at the entrance of one of the deep, wild, and romantic delves or dells of Derbyshire. An entrance between two rocks conducted me into a kind of rude hall, which, rising pillar over pillar, presented to fancy the rudiments of architecture, rough hewn by Nature from her everlasting rocks. The floor was bedded with grass, and sprinkled with flowers; while the rocky walls, gray, and sending from their seams and joints thousands of shrubs and flowers, ascended many feet, and, bending over like a dome, left a space which the ingenuity of man had formerly supplied with a window. Through this rude aperture, the sky, now colouring fast with the morning light, was seen overhead, while the flowers and shrubs, desirous of light and heat, directed their heads towards the opening, and some of them, climbing through, waved dewy and green from the summit. An opening, or door, overlooked the deep and beautiful dell below, into which a zig-zag pathway-more the labour of nature than of man, descended abruptly; and down in the bottom I heard the plash and gurgle of a small brooklet, or spring, which dropped from the walls of rock through a thousand fissures.

Before I descended by this rude pathway into the dell, I turned to look on the natural temple, or church, of rock. The walls bore token to many vicissitudes of occupation-the haunt of birds of prey-of robbers of anchorites-of outlaws-perhaps of bold and romantic Robin Hood -of lovers' meetings of a burial ground, and a church. Here were bended bows, and cloth-yard arrows, and flying deer, carved-the names of lover and maiden-the sign of the cross-a kneeling hermit-inscriptions recording those hurried by violence to the grave, or carried by the fulness of years: the rude outline of a skull above, and of an hourglass below, sufficiently intimated their original purpose. Above this, and placed between two of the pillars, a kind of pulpit projected, and seemed still frequented from devotion or curiosity, for its notched pathway was marked by recent feet. Over one of its corners hung a chap

let of flowers fresh pulled, and moist with morning dew; and below I could perceive where some one had lately knelt, for the grass was still bruised down-early as my coming was, visitors had been there before me.

While I stood looking on the chap→ let, I heard a voice, slow and prolonged, coming from the dell below. It seemed the feeble and tremulous voice of old age, and scarcely made its way above the rocky barrier with which the place was bounded. To this another voice was presently added

gentle, and sweet, and piercing: it seemed the note of sixteen mingling with that of seventy. I glided for ward, and looked down into the bosom of the dell. For some time I saw nothing, save a slender stream winding and shining like a serpent among the grass and flowers-the upright and light gray walls which hemmed in, from the upland waste, this romantic nook-and a raven, large and old, seated on an opposite crag, watching, with an outstretched neck, something which it marked for prey below. I took another step, and stood on a projecting ledge, which overhung the dell, and there I saw below me an old manhis head white with age as the driven snow, seated beside a small fountain, which, descending like a thread of silver from the upper rock, filled and o'erbrimmed a basin of hewn stone, and then, escaping into the little brooklet, marked out its way with a moister and livelier green. He was tall and straight; labour and old age had failed in pulling down the external elegance of a frame once sinewy and strongthe dust of the way was on his shoes -a staff and a crust of bread lay beside him he was silent, and seemed about to busy himself in private devotion-his hands were closely clasped, and his eyes were cast on a small mound that might be a grave, by the side of the fountain. A fair-haired girl sat beside him; her hands clasped, and her looks directed to the little mound-her feet, her arms, and her head, were bare; and a flat hat of plaited straw, bound with green ribbon, which lay at her feet, seemed all the charms of dress which this Derbyshire maiden had called in to the aid of a form full of

beauty, and swelling into woman hood. They sat silent for a little space, and then I heard the old man say, "Anna, my love-the stream runs fair and pure-the grass grows green and long-and the flowers which grow on that grave are as ripe and as full blown as they were when, sixty years ago, I nursed them, and watered them, and bade them flourish. Man has spared this hallowed nook cattle have not profaned Eyam Dell by browzing on the sod where I have dropt many a tear-even the little birds build not their nests in the bushes; but, with a slow wing and a softened song, seem to lament with me. To thee, my love, it may seem strange, that thin hairs, and a frame which a few years must soon take to the grave, should seek to recal the joys and the sions of youth, and that the bosom of eighty should still throb like that of seventeen. But as my love was not like the love of other men, neither did I love her as other men do-I lost her not by my own folly, or the folly of others-by the fickleness of woman's heart, nor by the falsehood of friends-nor did death take her away as other maidens have been taken, fading slowly by day, and withering slowly by night, like a flower on its stalk: I left her at even, lovely and laughing among the maidens of Eyam, and next even I

pas

found her silent and lifeless as that flower is which thou holdest in thy hand; the breath of heaven had passed from between her lips; and her kindred had perished with herfor the angel of the Lord passed through Eyam, and smote of her sons and of her daughters two hundred and forty and seven."

"Grandfather," said the maiden, gazing in the old man's face, with a look which wished to wile him from his mood, "shall I sing one of the mournful old ballads which you love, and which I so often sing when melancholy thoughts are with you?" "Sing, child, I pray thee," said the old man; "there is devotion in a mournful song-it takes man's mind away from the vanities of the world, and presents to his eye pathetic images which lift his thoughts above: sing, I pray thee; and let thy song be thy mother's ballad of Eyam Banks-a thousand times have her lips chaunted it to me-and thy voice, Anna, is like thy mother's." In a sweet, a low, and an artless way, the girl sang her mother's song: the old man placed his face between the palms of his hands, and I heard him sob as the verses paused-and the raven, which still retained its station on the cliff, looked more earnestly down; for the song spoke more of the dead than of the living.