And, while the frugal banquet glows revealed,
Pure and unbought, *—the natives of my field;
While blushing fruits thro' scattered leaves invite,
Still clad in bloom, and veiled in azure light!'
With wine, as rich in years as HORACE sings,
With water, clear as his own fountain flings,
The shifting side-board plays its humbler part,
Beyond the triumphs of a Loriot's art.

Thus, in this calm recess, so richly fraught
With mental light, and luxury of thought,
My life steals on; (O could it blend with thine !)
Careless my course, yet not without design.

So thro' the vales of Loire the bee-hives glide,
The light raft dropping with the silent tide;

So, till the laughing scenes are lost in night,
The busy people wing their various flight,
Culling unnumbered sweets from nameless flowers,
That scent the vineyard in its purple hours.

Rise, ere the watch-relieving clarions play,

Caught thro' St. James's groves at blush of day;

Ere its full voice the choral anthem flings
Thro' trophied tombs of heroes and of kings.
Haste to the tranquil shade of learned ease,*
Tho' skilled alike to dazzle and to please;
Tho' each gay scene be searched with anxious eye,
Nor thy shut door be passed without a sigh.

If, when this roof shall know thy friend no more, Some, formed like thee, should once, like thee, explore; Invoke the lares of his loved retreat,

And his lone walks imprint with pilgrim-feet;

Then be it said, (as, vain of better days,

Some grey domestic prompts the partial praise)
"Unknown he lived, unenvied, not unblest;
Reason his guide, and Happiness his guest.
In the clear mirror of his moral page,

We trace the manners of a purer age.

His soul, with thirst of genuine glory fraught,
Scorned the false lustre of licentious thought.
-One fair asylum from the world he knew,
One chosen seat, that charms with various view!

* Innocuas amo delicias doctamque quietem.

Who boasts of more (believe the serious strain)

Sighs for a home, and sighs, alas! in vain.

Thro' each he roves, the tenant of a day,

And, with the swallow, wings the year away!"

NOTES.

Page 122, line 17.

Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance, pass COSMO of Medicis took most pleasure in his Apennine villa, because all that he commanded from its windows was exclusively his own. How unlike the wise Athenian, who, when he had a farm to sell, directed the cryer to proclaim, as its best recommendation, that it had a good neighbourhood. PLUT. in Vit. Themist.

P. 123, 1. 7.

And thro' the various year, the various day,

Horace commends the house, 'longos quæ prospicit agros.' Distant views contain the greatest variety, both in themselves, and in their accidental variations.

P. 124, 1. 13.

Small change of scene, small space his home requires, Many a great man, in passing through the apartments of his palace, has made the melancholy reflection of the venerable Cosmo: 66 Questa è troppo gran casa à MACH. Ist. Fior. lib. vii.

si poco famiglia."

66

'Parva, sed apta mihi," was Ariosto's inscription over his door in Ferrara; and who can wish to say more? "I confess," says Cowley, "I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast." Essay vi.

When Socrates was asked why he had built for himself so small a house, "Small as it is," he replied, "I wish I could fill it with friends." PHEDRUS, 1. iii. 9.

These indeed are all that a wise man would desire to assemble; "for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."

P. 124, 1. 16.

From every point a ray of genius flows!

By this means, when all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw myself into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, &c. ADDISON.

It is remarkable that Antony, in his adversity, passed some time in a small but splendid retreat, which he called his Timonium, and from which might originate the idea of the Parisian Boudoir, that favourite apartment, ou l'on se retire pour étre seul, mais ou l'on ne boude point. STRABO, 1. xvii. PLUT. in Vit. Anton.

P. 125, 1. 12.

At GUIDO's call, &c.

Alluding to his celebrated fresco in the Rospigliosi Palace at Rome.

P. 125, 1. 19.

And still the Few best loved and most revered

The dining-room is dedicated to Conviviality; or, as Cicero somewhere expresses it, "Communitati vitæ atque victûs." There we wish most for the society of our friends; and, perhaps, in their absence, most require their portraits.

The moral advantages of this furniture may be illus