Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

MILTON.

[Notes: _L'Allegro_ the Cheerful man: as Il Penseroso, the Thoughtful
man, (the title of the companion poem).

_Cerberus_. The dog that guarded the infernal regions.

_Cimmerian_. The Cimmerians were a race dwelling beyond the ocean
stream, in utter darkness.

_Euphrosyne_ Mirth or gladness.

_In unreproved pleasures_ = In innocent pleasures.

_Then to come_ = Then (admit me) to come.

_Corydon and Thyrsis_. Names for a rustic couple taken from the
mythology of the Latin poets. So _Phillis and Thestylis_.

_Rebecks_. Musical instruments like fiddles.

_Junkets_. Pieces of cheese or something of the kind.

_By friar's lantern_ = Jack o' Lantern or Will o' the Wisp.

_In weeds of peace_ = the dress worn in time of peace.

_Hymen_. God of wedlock.

_Jonson_. (See previous note to _Ben Jonson_.)

_Sock_. The shoe worn on the ancient stage by comedians as the buskin
was by tragedians.

_Lydian airs_. Soft and soothing, as opposed to the Dorian airs, which
expressed the rough and harsh element in ancient music.]

* * * * *

THE PLEASURES OF A LIFE OF LABOUR.

I wish to show you how possible it is to enjoy much happiness in very
mean employments. Cowper tells us that labour, though the primal curse,
"has been softened into mercy;" and I think that, even had he not done
so, I would have found out the fact for myself. It was twenty years
last February since I set out a little before sunrise to make my first
acquaintance with a life of labour and restraint, and I have rarely had
a heavier heart than on that morning. I was but a thin, loose-jointed
boy at the time--fond of the pretty intangibilities of romance, and of
dreaming when broad awake; and, woful change! I was now going to work
at what Burns has instanced in his "Twa Dogs" as one of the most
disagreeable of all employments--to work in a quarry. Bating the passing
uneasiness occasioned by a few gloomy anticipations, the portion of my
life which had already gone by had been happy beyond the common lot. I
had been a wanderer among rocks and wood--a reader of curious books when
I could get them--a gleaner of old traditionary stories; and now I was
going to exchange all my day-dreams, and all my amusements, for the kind
of life in which men toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and
eat e