In the time of Fuller, this profuse hospitality of the Barons had begun to disappear; but lufty yeomen still handed down from father to son reverence for the good things of this life, and due refpect to the demands of hospitality.

"Some hold," fays Fuller, "that when Hofpitality died in England, she gave her laft groan among the yeomen of Kent. And still at our yeomen's tables, you shall have as many joints as dishes. No meat disguised with strange fauces, no ftraggling joynt of a sheep in the midst of a pasture of grasse, beset with salads on every fide; but more folid, fubftantial food; no fervitors (more nimble with their hands, than the guests with their teeth) take away meat before ftomachs are taken away. Here you have that which in itself is good made better by the store of it, and best by the welcome to it."

WANDERING MINSTRELS.

ONG ago the lays of the minstrels were the delight of our ancestors. It was by the trains of the old bards, that infant genius was nurtured; the stern hearts of steel-clad knights, and heroic barons, grew foft beneath the harper's power and it was by the minstrel that the memory of illustrious actions and noble deeds was kept alive in the hearts of the people, and handed down to later ages. We fee through the haze of years the minstrels aroufing the paffions and awakening the flumbering energies of the people against the Norman and Saxon invader; anon, their harps resound in the regal halls, or cheer the rude banquets where lusty barons and warlike knights regale themselves; then in fofter accents, they recount to listening dames the ftories of devoted knights, of gallant deeds of chivalry, and of ladies' fmiles that rewarded the valiant and the brave. In the palace, in the castle, in the rude mansion, amid the mirthful gatherings of the village wakes, among the

merry men of Sherwood, and in the caves of outlaws, the minstrel always found a cordial welcome, and of him it has been truly faid

Thine was the voice that cheer'd the brave and free,
They had their hills, their chainless hands, and-thee.

Pope thus apoftrophizes the memory of the old bards :

Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days,

Immortal heirs of universal praise;

Whose honours will increase if ages grow,

As streams roll down enlarging as they flow;
Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,
And worlds applaud that must not yet be found.

In England's merry days, the charms of mufic were widely felt; and in the days of Elizabeth, we had "musicians equal to any in Europe for their skill, either in compofing or setting of tunes, or finging and playing on any kind of inftrument." Still earlier, in the time of the Venerable Bede, it was the custom "to hand the harp from one person to another in the convivial meetings, and every one who partook of the feftivity played upon it in his turn, finging a fong to the mufic, for merriment fake." Even in this age of monster concerts, Hullah-ism, Tonic-sol-fa Affociations, and mufic for the million, our focial meetings are not fo merry as were those of the old time, when it was

Merry in the hall when beards wagged all.

The love of mufic, which the minstrels created and sustained, was wide-spread through the country. Richard Edwards, in a fine old fong to the lute, fang

Where gripinge grefes the harte would wounde
And doleful dumps the mynde oppresse,
There musicke with her silver sound,

With spede is wont to send redresse:
For trobled minds in every sore,
Sweet musicke hath a silver store.

In joy yt maks our mirthe abounde,
In woe yt cheres our hevy sprites;
Destracted heads relief hath founde

By musickes pleasant swete delightes:
Our senses,-what shall I say more?—
Are subject unto musickes lore.

The charms and influence of mufic were well known to Shake

fpeare:

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me the excess of it; that surfeiting
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again ;-it had a dying fall;

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.

And the people who thus loved mufic were grateful, hofpitable and kind to the minstrel who brought its influence within their reach. Wordsworth, in his "Excurfion," fays of the palmiest

time of the minstrels :

In days of yore how fortunately fared

The minstrel wandering on from hall to hall,
Baronial court or royal; cheer'd with gifts
Munificent, and love, and ladies' praise;
Now meeting on his road an armèd knight,

T

Now resting with a pilgrim by the side
Of a clear brook; beneath an abbey's roof
One evening sumptuously lodged; the next
Humbly in a religious hospital;

Or with some merry outlaws of the wood;
Or haply shrouded in a hermit's cell.
Him, sleeping or awake, the robber spared;
He walk'd-protected from the sword of war,
By virtue of that sacred instrument,
His harp, suspended at the traveller's side:
His dear companion wheresoe'er he went,
Opening from land to land an easy way

By melody, and by the charm of verse.

Some trace of this respect and kindness still lingers in the treatment of the humbler defcendants of the minstrels. In a very pretty modern fong of Linley's, the "ballad-finger" fings:

Waking at early day,
Early I take my way,
Trilling some ancient lay

As I stroll along.
Youthful hearts I cheer,
Age delights to hear,
Gay and grave draw near,

While I sing my song.

Humble though be my fare,

Health is a boon I share,
Little I dream of care,

As thro' life I go.

All some kindness show to me
Where'er I chance to roam;
Tho' a wandering life I lead,
I always find a home.