and in return for my homage, let me also join thy band, and live in guileless pleasure with Liberty and thee. In your company let me listen to the early song of the lark as he rises into the sky, and with his note breaks the dull silence of the night as he soars aloft, singing on till the chequered dawn ushers in the day. Then, in spite of care, which I will abandon while I am with you, let me open my window surrounded by sweetbriars and vines and roses, and call 'good-morrow' through the lattice. Meanwhile the lingering shadows of the night will disperse before the crowing of the cock, as he proudly struts before the hens towards the rick or the barn-door. Sometimes let me pause to hear the baying of the hounds and the shrill blast of the huntsman's horn echoing through the deep wood from some frosty hillside and waking the day with cheerful sounds. At others going farther abroad, in the full light of the opening day let me walk beside the tall trees across the rising ground which faces the East, from which the sun, surrounded by a crimson flush toning gradually into light amber, sets forth on his daily round and decks the clouds with a thousand hues in his course. The ploughman meanwhile is whistling as he takes his way across the furrowed land, the milkmaid is singing cheerily, the mower is sharpening his scythe, and the shepherd in the valley is counting his sheep before he drives them out to pasture for the day.

Such pleasures will be mine, and others also afforded by the view of the landscape; plains and fallows of varied hue, where the flocks wander at large and browse on the herbage; mountains bare of vegetation, which serve to attract the storm-laden clouds; well-kept meadows where the verdure is diversified by daisies; shallow brooks and wide rivers.

My eye will rest also on other beauties: it will see, standing far back among the thick foliage of trees, towers and battlements, within which perhaps some fair lady, the object of attraction of all around her, lives;

Where throngs of sights and barns beid.
In weeds of peace ghumpos leid.
With store of actes. whose bright eyes
Ran fuence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, wiem all commend.

while at no great distance the smoke from a cottage rising between two oaks will furnish a pleasing variety to the sight. There the farmer and his wife have met for the mid-day meal, consisting of herbs and other rude fare, skilfully cooked by their humble attendant, who, when she has completed these preparations, hurries forth, in company with her fellowworker, to bind the sheaves, or if earlier in the season, to turn the hay in the meadow. Sometimes I will visit the country villages, and delight myself with listening to the merry peals of the bells, while the young people dance under the trees to the strains of the fiddle; where young and old flock out to spend the happy holiday as long as the light will let them linger, and then go home to drink ale and tell stories of ghosts and sprites-as how Queen Mab feasted, or how one was pinched and dragged about by the fairies because she was a tale-bearer, and how another, following the guidance of the Friar's lantern, saw Robin Goodfellow labouring to earn his bowl of cream, and doing as much cornthreshing in a night as ten men could not accomplish in a day; and how he saw the goblin, after earning his meal and enjoying it, go to sleep in front of the fire, and then hasten out of the house before cock-crowing well fed and satisfied. The stories ended, the simple villagers retire to rest, and the soft winds hush them to sleep.

Passing from these rural scenes I will enjoy the contemplation of lofty cities with their noisy streets, where nobles, their armour being laid aside, keep high revelry with crowds of fascinating ladies who decide who is best in wit and arms, while all vie with each other in courting the favour of the fairest.