Milton; and many other examples might we take from him, and dear, dear Shakspeare!

SUSAN.-Do you remember how fond Akenside is of it?

MARIA.-What! his convalescent enjoying his "fresh-born vigour ?" or his verdant plains fresh watered from the mountains?

SUSAN. And, above all, that exquisite pic

ture:

Venus, when she rose

Effulgent on the pearly car, and smiled,
Fresh from the deep.

MARIA. All true poets must feel the thing, and love the expression. To go back to our oldest :-Chaucer is delicate in its use; he is loth to wear it out on unmeet subjects: I think, in the description of the pilgrims, the squire is the only one whom he honours with it; and to him he gives a mantle broidered with fresh flowers; and himself he describes as being "as freshe as is the month of May." In the Knight's tale, Emily is "Fresher than

the May with flowers newe,"-to do honour to whom, "yclothed was she freshe:" she is every where the "freshe Emilie," the "freshe beautie." Then, in his most beautiful dream of The Flower and the Leaf, how he sees the grasse so "freshe of hew;" and, in the arbour, "freshe and cold,” he sees the seats of " new turf freshly turned," and revels in the shade of the "freshe greene laurel-tree." There he enjoys the sight of the "freshe," i. e. spirited "coursers," and the knights "freshly or gallantly steering them." But I need not name every fresh in that charming poem.

SUSAN. I only know Chaucer through Dryden's modern rendering of some of his Tales; and, had you not forestalled me, I was going to remind you of The Flower and the Leaf:—I remember, well, six varieties of fresh which he introduces there.

MARIA. I remember them, too; in Dryden's versions you have the most beautiful translations possible, and I recollect nothing, at this moment, more charming to my ear than his versification in The Flower and the

Leaf: but still, Chaucer's has a freshness which I miss in the translation.

I

SUSAN. 'Tis a pity to stop you; but I hear my father's summons: he is longing, I dare say, for the refreshment of his tea. We must go: but I like this sort of chat so well, that I shall challenge you "to-morrow to fresh words and meanings new."

A LETTER FROM BONN.

You ask me, my dear Caroline, why we like Germany so much, and what are the amusements of so small a town as Bonn.

I don't know whether I can give you any satisfactory explanation, or justify, to an English young lady, the enjoyment we derive from pleasures so beneath her notice. The Germans are not ashamed of being pleased with trifles, nor of being pleased in very humble company: they think only whether they enjoy; and, if their enjoyment costs little money and little trouble, why, so much the better.

I will try to give you some idea of their

pleasures; but, unless I could make you feel and understand the simple and cheerful spirit which makes them pleasures, my picture will want all the life of the original.

The Germans love their old customs and traditional festivals much better than we do, and keep to them more faithfully. Formerly, you know, many days were days, not only of religious observance, but of festivity for the people; and each had its appropriate shows and pastimes: but these are nearly all forgotten; and the few which are remembered are turned into days of importunate begging, or coarse riot; and the pleasures are such as people of refinement and taste can take no share in, nor love to witness: and thus they sink lower and lower, and the chasm between rich and poor grows wider and wider, for want of some common enjoyment, to which the high might give order and refinement, and the low cordiality and simplicity and such an enjoyment, I think, is Kirmes.

66

What is that? you will ask, as I did. What, then?" said my German friend, "have

M