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"I will not paint to purchase praise, Nor ope my lips in leasings vain, But temper still my tongue always

The truth to talk, and sooth to say, As Conscience shall my witness be, For flattering fraud be far from me. Attend and hark, all you, I say,

To whom the Lord hath children scnt, And, look you, mark my words alway,

With full accord and whole intent;
Print this for aye on mind and thought,
Unborn is better than untaught.

In youth first them instruct and teach,
God and themselves that they may

know,

And that this rule they may once reach,
Their duties in all points to show,
To this parents are justly bound,
As in God's book is to be found."

In reading these lines and the following, which are more sweet and quaint, it must be kept in view that they are sixteenth-century works by contemporaries of Spenser.

And all that echoes to the song of even, All that the mountain's sheltering bosom yields,

And all the dread magnificence of heavenO how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?"

We shall pluck the next flower from Alexander Hume's "Hymns or Sacred Songs, wherein the right use of Poesie may be espied: whereunto are added the experience of the author's youth, and certain precepts, serving to the practice of sanctification." Of Alexander Hume scarcely anything is known, except that he was born near the middle of the sixteenth century, studied, like many of his countrymen, in France, and aimed at the bar, but ended in the Church, becoming minister of the parish of Logie. His pious poetry, though it failed to obtain notice in its own day, has a double interest in the present, resting not only on its own merits, but on the curious literature it was designed to supersede. The early Reformers of Scotland devised a plan for turning the thoughts of the careless and vicious portion of the population into pious channels, more preposterous than perhaps was ever devised by any other bookish men utterly ignorant of practical human nature. Finding certain ribald With one concord their chords they lay, with the populace, and ever scansongs and ballads highly in favour

"After midnight when dreams doth fall,
Somewhat before the morning grey,
Methought a voice thus did me call,
O lusty youth, arise, I say.

O youth,' he said, 'lift up thy head,
Awake, awake, it is fair day;
How canst thou sleep or keep thy bed,
This fair morning?-arise, I say.

The sun is up with his bright beams,
As though he would with thee no fray,
But beat thee up out of thy dreams,
And raise thee up-arise, I say.

Hark how the birds all with one voice,

With joyful tune thus to rejoice,

And stir thee up-arise, I say.

Behold the field now in like form,

dalising their own pious ears wherever they wended their way, they be

Furnished with flowers both fresh and thought them that if they parodied

gay,

It saith to thee, Thou slothful worm,

Come, walk in me-arise, I say.

The day, the sun, the bird, the field,
Since all these call, thou lump of clay,
Unless shameless now be thy shield,

For very shame, arise, I say.'"

This is a foreshadowing of the fine objurgation of Beattie embodied in the lines

"O how canst thou renounce the boundless store

Of charms which nature to her votary yields

The warbling woodland, the resounding
shore,

The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,
All that the genial ray of morning yields,

these favourite lyrics, substituting pious for ribald words, and holy personages for the mere human creatures, or worse than human creatures, referred to in them, the populace would readily accept the substitution, sing the pious strains instead of the old favourites, and in the end become the children of that grace and acceptance whereof they so sang. As the travestier knows, it is easy to convert the solemn into the ridiculous by a parody, but the ingenuity that can render the there has not yet been exhibited ridiculous solemn through the same process. Thus the most sacred

words and mysteries of Scripture were stuck into the places in which other names and things had wont to be mentioned for ludicrous or licentious purposes. Suppose, for instance, one of the following familiar specimens of the modern lyre, "Nix my dolly pals, fake away," "It was all to astonish the Browns," "All round my hat"-suppose these or any other of the distinguished lyrics which from time to time have had their run upon the streets, and become a dire nuisance, to be so slightly altered in the leading terms as to contain instead of them some of the most sacred names and mysteries in the holy Scripture, the whole framework of the song remaining as it originally was-we would possess something resembling the spiritual and godly songs of the sixteenth century, but something not quite so bad, since the productions which these superseded were not only ludicrous, but often licentious. The results of the peculiar process so exhibited-at least, the more characteristic and telling passages- -are quite unpresentable to good society. Mr Buckle, we are sure, would not have ventured to quote them after his solemn misgivings about the anthology-far less pungent-which he has culled from the prose writings of theCovenanters.

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Hume was among the first who tried to infuse a simple feeling of piety into poetry, as more instructive than these grotesque efforts, but he seems to have been too pious a writer for the taste of his age. His volume of hymns, printed by Waldegrave in 1599, was totally unnoticed until Leyden spoke of it as worthy of revival, and it was afterwards reprinted for the Bannatyne Club. We select for our purpose the "Day Estival, or Thanks for a Summer Day," which, if it be rounded off with a few established pastoralities, yet shows a keen observation of pleasing natural objects, and a ready capacity for describing them. After a short peroration we have the morning twilight announced.

"The shadow of the earth anon

Removes and drawes by,
Then in the east, when it is gone,
Appears a clearer sky."

Then the sunrise

"The golden globe incontinent
Sets up his shining head,
And o'er the earth and firmament
Displays his beams abraid.

For joy the birds with bolden throats,
Against his visage sheen,

Take up their kindly music notes
In woods and gardens green.
Up braids the careful husbandman,
His corns and vines to see,
And every timeous artisan

In booth works busily.
The pastor quits the slothful sleep,
And passes forth with speed,
His little camow-nosed sheep
And rowting kie to feed.'

And so the day goes on until we have this pleasant picture of a sultry

noon :

"The time so tranquil is and still,

That nowhere shall ye find,
Save on an high and barren hill,
The air of peeping wind.

All trees and simples, great and small,
That balmy leaf do bear,
Nor they were painted on a wall,

No more they move or stir.

Calm is the deep and purpure see,

Yea, smoother than the sand;
The wells that weltering wont to be
Are stable like the land.

So silent is cessile air,

That every cry and call
The hills and dails and forest fair
Again repeats them all.

The rivers fresh, the caller streams,
Doun rocks can softly rin,
The water clear like crystel seems,
And makes a pleasant din."

Then follow a variety of sketches of still and active life, appropriate to the several periods of the day's progress; and at last evening brings its own peculiar beauties :

"The gloaming comes, the day is spent,
The sun goes out of sight,
And painted is the occident

With purpour sanguine bright.
The scarlet nor the golden thread,
Who would their beauties tri,
And are nothing like the colour red
And beauty of the sky.

Our west horizon circular,
Fra time the sun be set,
Is all with rubies, as it were,
Or roses red, o'erset.

What pleasure were to walk and see,
Endlong a river clear,
The perfect form of every tree
Within the deep appear!

The salmon out of cruives and creels,
Uphalled into skoutts,
The bells and circles on the wells
Through louping of the trouts.

O then it were a seemly thing,
While all is still and calm,
The praise of God to play and sing,
With cornet and with pscham.'

A poet so affluent as Coleridge required no assistance from the obscure author of the "Day Estival," even had he ever heard of such a writer; but it is curious in itself as a slight coincidence, that there is something in the cadence, and even in the imagery of these passages, reminding one of the Ancient Mari

ner.

Such are a few scattered morsels taken from the club books-taken, not selected, for they are not offered as the choice result of a general survey-they are not even presented as the pick of the stores of a desultory reader-they follow each other with no better connection than the capricious spirit of association has bestowed on them. In the same way we might go on almost indefinitely; but the patience of readers is not possessed of a corresponding expansive power.

Were we to record a just appreciation of the services of those who have put the club books in their present condition, we might be drawn into another long story, leading through extensive tracts of literary biography. As we may have hinted once or twice, the editors of club books are not mere dreary drudges, seeing the works of others accurately through the press, and attending to dates and headings. Around and throughout the large library of volumes issued by these institutions, there run prolific veins of fresh literature pregnant with learning and ability. The style of

work thus set agoing has indeed just the other day been incorporated into a sort of department of state literature, since the great collection called "The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," of which the Master of the Rolls accepts the responsibility, is carried out in the very spirit of the book clubs, in which indeed most of the editors of the Chronicles have been trained.

Without prejudice to others, let us here, before parting, just name a few of those to whom the world is under obligation for the services we have been commenting on. For England, there are James Orchard Halliwell, Sir Frederic Madden, Beriah Botfield, Sir Henry Ellis, Alexander Dyce, Thomas Stapleton, William J. Thoms, Crofton Croker, Albert Way, Joseph Hunter, John Bruce, Thomas Wright, John Gough Nichols, Payne Collier, Joseph Stevenson, and George Watson Taylor, who edited that curious and melancholy book of poems, composed by the Duke of Orleans while he was a prisoner in England after the battle of Agincourt-poems composed, singularly enough, in the English language, and at a period extremely scarce in native vernacular literature.

In Scotland, it was in the earlier issues of the Bannatyne that Thomas Thomson, too indolent or fastidious to commit himself to the writing of a book, has left the most accessible vestiges of that power of practically grasping historical facts and conditions, which Scott admired so much, and acknowledged so much benefit from. He was followed by Professor Innes, who found and taught the secret of extracting from ecclesiastical chartularies, and other early records, the light they throw upon the social condition of their times, and thus extracted matter for the two pleasant volumes which have become so popular. The Bannatyne Club, lately finding no more to do, wound

up with a graceful compliment to David Laing, the man to whom, after Scott, it has been most indebted. And, lastly, it is in the Scotch book-clubs that Joseph Robertson has had the opportunity of exercising those subtle powers of investigation and critical acumen, peculiarly his own, which have had a perceptible and substantial effect in raising archæology out of that quackish repute which it had long to endure under the name of antiquarianism. For Ireland, having already said a good deal about the services of her peculiarly national book-clubs, we merely recall the names of Dean Butler, Dr Reeves, Mr O'Donovan, Mr Eugene Curry, and Dr Henthorn Todd.

There is another and distinct class of services which have been performed through the medium of the club books. The Roxburghe having been founded on the principle that each member should print a volume, to be distributed among his colleagues, an example was thus set to men of easy fortune and scholarly tastes, which has been followed with a large liberality, of

which the public have probably but a faint idea. Not only in those clubs founded on the reciprocity system of each member distributing and receiving, but in those where the ordinary members pay an annual sum, to be expended in the printing of these books, have individual gentlemen come forward and borne the expense of printing and distributing costly volumes. In some instances valuable works have thus been presented to the members at the cost of those who have also undergone the literary labour of editing them.

There is something extremely refined and gentlemanlike in this form of liberality. The recipient of the bounty becomes the possessor of a handsome costly book without being subjected in any way to the obligation of receiving a direct gift at the hands of the munificent donor; for the recipient is a sort of corporation — a thing which the lawyers say has no personal responsibility and no conscience, and which all the world knows to have no gratitude.

LORD CASTLEREAGH.

"THERE is a time for everything;" and every time is good in its way. The present is but a poor time for party politics. The "political lull," of which we wrote four years ago, and our diagnosis of which we find no reason to alter, has spread a lethargy over the action of the rival parties in the State. The old colours have temporarily paled-indeed are almost lost sight of, in the broad neutral tint which has overspread domestic politics. Except the official men, who lead the game of "ins and outs," there are comparatively few who care much at present whether the Government is carried on by Lord Palmerston or Lord Derby; and both in Parliament and in the country are to be witnessed those hesitations and oscillations of political opinion which must precede, and which apparently prognosticate, a reorganisation of parties. If we confine our thought to the immediate present, we must regard such a position of affairs as eminently unsatisfactory. Party-life is the very salt of a constitutional government. It is the abnegation of individual interests in pursuit of a great object. And when it does not exist, Parliamentary government becomes a mere scramble of individuals for place, for pay-each playing his own game with a view to further his own interests. For our own part, we take no desponding view of the position. It has its disadvantages; it is disheartening to every one engaged in leading or influencing the important combats of party. But it indicates good. When all England is of one mind, England must in fact, if not in name, be Conservative. And we undoubt

ingly look forward to the time, not far distant, when the balance of power, at present oscillating, will turn in favour of the Conservative party for a longer term of years and office than has fallen to their lot since the now completed work of reform and innovation began by the passing of the Reform Bill.

One good result of this political lull is, that people are revising their opinions. Or, more correctly, we should say that it is this tendency to reflect, and to reconsider old and stereotyped opinions, that has produced the present truce of parties. We know no healthier sign of national life than this. The nation that can pause, lay to heart the lessons of the past, and recast its political opinions according to the circumstances of the times, is one which thereby gives the most indubitable proof of its capacity for self-government. If, then, the present abeyance of party-spirit be disheartening to the leaders of political opinion, it at least gives to English statesmen and public men of all parties the gratifying assurance that a time comes when patriotic conduct and statesmanlike ability, on whichever side of politics these may be displayed, will meet with a due acknowledgment from their fellow countrymen. The Duke of Wellington was a remarkable example of this honourable trait of British character. For years he was the most unpopular man in England. Reviled as an absolutist, as a rank political despot, by a great majority of the middle-classes, - the incarnation of tyrannical military force in the eyes of all the lower masses of the population; mobbed and all but

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Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart, Second and Third Marquesses of Londonderry, with Annals of Contemporary Events in which they bore a part. From the Original Papers of the Family. By SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart., D.C. L., LL.D., &c.; Author of the "History of Europe," &c. In three volumes. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1861.

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