Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main! 3. Yet more, thy depths have more! Thy waves have rolled Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old, 4. Yet more! thy billows and thy depths have more ! The battle-thunders will not break their rest. Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave! Give back the true and brave. 5. Give back the lost and lovely! Those for whom 6. To thee the love of woman hath gone down; Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, Mrs Hemans. mys-te'-ri-ous, strange and wonder- | rev'-el-ry, merry-making. 37 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY-I. The [Sir Roger de Coverley is one of the best known characters in the Spectator, of which Joseph Addison was the principal writer. Spectator consisted of short papers-many of them descriptive of the manners of the people of England during the reign of Queen Anne.] 1. Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing speculations. 2. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humour, lets me rise and go to bed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the gentlemen of the county come to see him, he only shows me at a distance. As I have been walking in his fields, I have observed them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. 3. I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it consists of sober and staid persons; for as the knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him : by this means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. 4. You would take his valet-de-chambre for his brother, his butler is gray-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-councillor. You see the goodness of the master even in the old housedog, and in a gray pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years. 5. I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domestics, upon my friend's arrival e at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old knight, with a mixture of the father and master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. 6. This humanity and good-nature engages every body to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good-humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with; on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants. 7. My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend. 8. My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man, who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very regular life and obliging conversation. He heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's esteem, so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than as a dependent. coun'-ten-an-ces hu-man'-i-ty ac-com'-pan-ied, went along with. par-tic-u-lar con-ver-sa'-tion pru'-dent es-teem' re-frain', hold back; stop. in-firm'-i-ty, weak health. priv'-y-coun'-cil-lor, a member of ven'-er-a-ble, worthy of reverence. the private council of the sove-de-pend'-ent, servant. reign. |