be pleased to undertake. They were his vassals, and he was in the first stage their baron, or lord; afterward, when the system refined and developed itself more, this order was extended and diversified into lords and earls and marquises and dukes. In this system, framed in such circumstances, it is hardly necessary to add that the desire of extending their several territories, or of defending them, as it might happen-where all claimed the right of assailing his neighbor when he found himself strong enough for the undertaking-must have produced incessant warfare. Those who were barons or lords in reference to the vassals who were dependent on them became themselves vassals in regard to others on whom they in turn felt dependence. Thus the king might be remight be regarded as the head-baron of the nation, and yet there are instances in which even he held his fief as if he were a vassal to some of his own subjects. Naturally, this condition of things, wherever it prevailed, was calculated to retard civilization. It shows that the only thing held in high estimation was, not justice nor arts nor learning nor moral rights of any description, but a brave heart, a strong bow and stout arm. It is not surprising, therefore, that Europe should have been then as one great universal camp of war. Every castle was a fortress, every peasant a soldier, every baron a species of monarch who could summon and sound to battle whenever he pleased. The only spot that was neutral was the Church and its sacred precincts. ony The first great variation from the monotof interior confusion was the crusades. The enthusiasm which that enterprise in spired appears to us like a moral contagion. Like other great events, it produced its evil and its advantageous consequences. It tended to destroy serfage, that species of temperate slavery which prevailed in the Middle Ages. It exhausted the barons and directed against the foreign enemy those fighting propensities which they had hitherto indulged against each other. It enlarged the public mind and imbued it with some notions of navigation, commerce, arts and learning. After this period had passed away literature begins to revive, universities are founded, the State begins to come out of the social relations with features of greater distinctness. Order-at least, of an imperfect kind-begins to take the place of brute force. The features of feudalism begin to fade away, and as we rise into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we discover the public mind as if gazing on the bright dawn of civilization, such as, unhappily, the day has not realized. The East Indies, which had been lost from the map of the world during the Middle Ages, are rediscovered by Portuguese navigators, an Italian sailor plucks up a new hemisphere from the untravelled waters of the Western ocean, printing is invented, architecture and the arts are all revived, Greek and Roman literature become a very passion, and the public mind seemed to enter upon a new career with a young energy, an enthusiasm, a ripeness for improvements, such as the world had never seen before. Such is a general but imperfect outline of what Christendom had passed through up to the beginning of the sixteenth century. During the course of that century a new species of warfare interrupted the progress of the human mind. JOHN HUGHES, D. D. (Archbishop Hughes). THE TOWN CHILD AND THE COUNTRY CHILD. air HILD of the country, free as | The dew beneath the sloe-thorn where Art thou, and as the sunshine fair; the dew Born like the lily, where The greenwood stream, the shady pool, Where trouts leap when the day is cool. Lies odorous when the day The shilfa's nest, that seems to be is new; Fed 'mid the May-flowers like the bee, Nursed to sweet music on the knee, Lulled in the breast to that sweet tune Child of the town, for thee I sigh: A narrow street thy boundless wood; vines And blooming trees, thy sunbeam shines. Child of the country, thy small feet A portion of the sheltering tree, Child of the town, for thee, alas! Child of the country, on the lawn Now spinning like a millwheel round, Child of the town and bustling street, The stream's too strong for thy small bark: A story in each stream and bower; A REVERIE ON A LADY'S PICTURE BY HER LOVER. MY Infelice's face, her brow, her eye, The dimple on her cheek! and such sweet skill And lockt men's looks within her golden Hath from the cunning workman's pencil flown hair, These lips look fresh and lively as her own, Seeming to move and speak. Alas! now I Neither to be so great as to be envied, Fly from Love, he fights; fight, then does he fly on; Love is all on fire, and yet is ever freezing; Nothing of her but this! This cannot speak; Love is much in winning, yet is more in It has no lap for me to rest upon, leesing; No lip worth tasting. Here the worms will Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying; But cannot shield the tempest from them- Thou prayest God to hasten to thine aid; selves. I love to dwell betwixt the hills and dales, Immortal is thy soul: thy heart will heal. Thy glory, name and memory must die, But not thy love: if thou hast loved indeed, Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown? Nae langer drest in silken sheen, Nae langer decked wi' jewels rare, Thy deathless soul will cherish it on high. Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene Translation of HURD & HOUGHTON. THE ROSE. OW fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower, The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast Above all the flowers of the field: When its leaves are all dead and its fine. colors lost, Still how sweet a perfume it will yield! So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, Though they bloom and look gay like the rose, But all our fond care to preserve them is vain : Time kills them as fast as he goes. Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, when thou'rt far awa', Wilt thou not cast a look behind? Say, canst thou face the flaky snaw, Nor shrink before the winter wind? Oh, can that soft and gentle mien Severest hardships learn to bear, Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene Where thou wert fairest of the fair? Oh, Nanny, canst thou love so true Through perils keen wi' me to gae, Or when thy swain mishap shall rue To share with him the pang of wae? Say, should disease or pain befall, Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor, wishful, those gay scenes recall Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die, Wilt thou receive his parting breath? |