COUNTY GUY.

From QUENTIN Durward.

1

Sir Walter Scott.

АH! County Guy the hour is nigh,

The sun has left the lea,

The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.

The lark, his lay who thrill'd all day,
Sits hush'd his partner nigh;

Breeze, bird, and flower, confess the hour,
But where is County Guy?

The village maid steals through the shade,
Her shepherd's suit to hear;

To beauty shy, by lattice high,
Sings high-born Cavalier.

The star of Love, all stars above,
Now reigns o'er earth and sky;
And high and low the influence know
But where is County Guy?

TO A CHILD OF QUALITY.

FIVE YEARS OLD, 1704; THE AUTHOR SUPPOS'D FORTY.

Matthew Prior.

LORDS, knights, and 'squires, the numerous band,
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summon'd by her high command,
To show their passions by their letters.

1 County, count or lord.

My pen among the rest I took,

Lest those bright eyes that cannot read Should dart their kindling fires, and look The power they have to be obey'd.

Nor quality, nor reputation,

Forbid me yet my flame to tell,
Dear five-years-old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silkworms beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads
In papers round her baby's hair;

She

may receive and own my flame,

For, though the strictest prude should know it, She'll pass for a most virtuous dame,

And I for an unhappy poet.

Then too, alas! when she shall tear

The lines some younger rival sends,

She'll give me leave to write, I fear,
And we shall still continue friends.

For, as our different ages move,

'Tis so ordain'd, (would Fate but mend it!)

That I shall be past making love,

When she begins to comprehend it.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

Lord Byron.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes :
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART.

William Wordsworth.

O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art

A creature of a "fiery heart":—
These notes of thine

they pierce and pierce;

Tumultuous harmony and fierce!

Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite

Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.

I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come-at by the breeze:

He did not cease; but cooed — and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed:
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;

Of serious faith, and inward glee;

That was the Song - the Song for me!

RECOLLECTIONS OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.

Charles Lamb.

To comfort the desponding parent with the thought, that, without diminishing the stock which is imperiously demanded to furnish the more pressing and homely wants of our nature, he has disposed of one or more perhaps out of a numerous offspring, under the shelter of a care scarce less tender than the paternal, where not only their bodily cravings shall be supplied, but that mental pabulum1 is also dispensed, which He hath declared to be no less necessary to our sustenance, who

1 pabulum, food, nourishment.

said, that "man shall not live by bread alone": for this Christ's Hospital unfolds her bounty. Here, neither on the one hand are the youth lifted up above their family, which we must suppose liberal, though reduced; nor on the other hand, are they liable to be depressed below its level by the mean habits and sentiments which a common charity school generates. It is, in a word, an Institution to keep those who have yet held up their heads in the world from sinking; to keep alive the spirit of a decent household, when poverty was in danger of crushing it; to assist those who are the most willing, but not always the most able, to assist themselves: to separate a child from his family for a season, in order to render him back hereafter with feelings and habits more congenial to it than he could even have attained by remaining at home in the bosom of it. It is a preserving and renovating principle, an antidote for the res angusta domi,2 when it presses, as it always does, most heavily upon the most ingenuous natures.

This is Christ's Hospital; and whether its character would be improved by confining its advantages to the very lowest of the people, let those judge who have witnessed the looks, the gestures, the behavior, the manner of their play with one another, their deportment towards strangers, the whole aspect and physiognomy of that vast assemblage of boys on the London foundation, who freshen and make alive again with their sports the else mouldering cloisters of the old Grey Friars which strangers who have never witnessed them, if they pass through Newgate Street or by Smithfield, would do well to go a little out of their way to see.

For the Christ's Hospital boy feels that he is no charityboy; he feels it in the antiquity and regality of the foundation to which he belongs; in the usage which he meets with

2 the res angusta domi, narrow means, poverty.