When gods beset the woodland ways,
And lay in wait by all the streams.

One could be sure of something then
Severely simple, simply grand,
Or keenly, subtly sweet, as when

Venus and Love went hand in hand.

Now I would give (such is my neel)
All the world's store of rhythm and rhyme

To see Pan fluting on a reed

And with his goat-hoof keeping time!

MAURICE THOMPSON.

BOOKS.

FROM THE KALÉDER OF SHEPERDES," 1528.

He that many bokes redys,
Cunnyinge shall he be.
Wysedome is soone caught;
In many leues it is sought:
But slouth, that no boke bought,
For reason taketh no thought;

His thryfte cometh behynde.

ANONYMOUS.

THE SCHOLAR.

FROM EDWIN THE FAIR."

THIS life, and all that it contains, to him
Is but a tissue of illuminous dreams

Filled with book-wisdom, pictured thought and love.
That on its own creations spends itself.

All things he understands, and nothing does.
Profusely eloquent in copious praise

Of action, he will talk to you as one

Whose wisdom lay in dealings and transactions;
Yet so much action as might tie his shoe
Cannot his will command; himself alone
By his own wisdom not a jot the gainer.
Of silence, and the hundred thousand things
"T is better not to mention, he will speak,
And still most wisely.

SIR HENRY TAYLOR.

THE BOOK-STALL.

Ir stands in a winding street,
A quiet and restful nook,
Apart from the endless beat
Of the noisy heart of Trade;
There's never a spot more cool
Of a hot midsummer day
By the brink of a forest pool,
Or the bank of a crystal brook
In the maples' breezy shade,
Than the book-stall old and gray.

Here are precious gems of thought
That were quarried long ago,
Some in vellum bound, and wrought
With letters and lines of gold;

Here are curious rows of "calf,"

And perchance an Elzevir;

Here are countless "mos" of chaff,
And a parchment folio,

Like leaves that are cracked with cold,
All puckered and brown and sear.

In every age and clime

Live the monarchs of the brain:
And the lords of prose and rhyme,
Years after the long last sleep
Has come to the kings of earth
And their names have passed away,
Rule on through death and birth;
And the thrones of their domain
Are found where the shades are deep
In the book-stall old and gray.

CLINTON SCOLLARD.

BOOKS.

FOR why, who writes such histories as these
Doth often bring the reader's heart such ease,
As when they sit and see what he doth note,
Well fare his heart, say they, this book that wrote!

JOHN HIGGINS.

V.

THE ARTS.

66

INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.

FROM KING HENRY EIGHTH," ACT III. sc. 1.

ORPHEUS, with his lute, made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing;
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting Spring

Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads, and then lay by.

In sweet music is such art,

Killing care, and grief of heart—
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die!

MUSIC.

SHAKESPEARE.

66

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE," Act v. sc. 1.

LORENZO.-How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music

362

Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls:
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive.

Therefore the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and

floods;

Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

SHAKESPEARE.

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,—

Odors, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.