self how the
Duke of Rohan was assisted in the Protestant war at Rochelle,
notwithstanding the solemn engagement of King Charles under his own
hand! But we are treading too fearlessly upon ground on which, in our
humble capacity, we have scarcely the right to enter. Alas! alas! the
page of History is but a sad one! and the Stuarts and the Cromwells, the
Roundheads and the Cavaliers, the pennons and the drums, are but part
and parcel of the same dust--the dust we, who are made of dust, animated
for a time by a living spirit, now tread upon! Their words, that
wrestled with the winds and mounted on the air, have left no trace along
that air whereon they sported;--the clouds in all their beauty cap our
isle with their magnificence, as in those by-gone days;--the rivers are
as blue, the seas as salt;--the flowers, those sweet things! remain
fresh within our fields as when God called them into existence in
Paradise--and are bright as ever. But the change is over us, as it has
been over them: we, too, are passing. O England! what should this teach?
Even three things--wisdom, justice, and mercy. Wisdom to watch
ourselves, and then our rulers, so that we neither do nor suffer
wrong;--justice to the memory of the mighty dead, whether born to
thrones or footstools;--mercy, inasmuch as we shall deeply need it from
our successors.

We must not longer trifle with or mingle among forbidden themes, but
turn to that which lightens many a heart, and creates of its own power a
magic world of pure and perfect enjoyment.

Many there were, before and during those troublous times, who, heedless
of the turmoils that were taking place around them, sang, as birds will
sometimes sing, during the pauses of a thunder-storm. We would fain con
over the names of a few of those who live with the memories of peace,
and hope, and love, and joy--as so many happy contrasts to the wars and
intrigues, that sin, and its numberless and terrible attendants, have
brought upon this cheerful, and beautiful, and abundantly gifted earth.

A blessing on sweet Poesy! whether she come to us mounted on the gallant
war-horse, trumpet-tongued, awakening our souls and senses unto glory,
hymning with Dryden some bold battle-strain that makes us crow of
victories past, present, and to come;--or with a scholar's trim and
tasselled cap, a flowing gown of raven hue, and many tales of
Chaucer's--quaint, but pleasing--good reading under some old tree close
by a quiet brook, wh