Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known; The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste-eyed queen, Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green;

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;
He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet, entrancing voice he loved the best.

They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing ;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay, fantastic round;
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid,
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard.
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to virtue, fancy, art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders in that godlike age
Fill thy recording sister's page;
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,-
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,

-

Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age,
Even all at once together found,
Cecilia's mingled world of sound.
O, bid our vain endeavors cease;
Revive the just designs of Greece;
Return in all thy simple state;
Confirm the tales her sons relate.

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear,
Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim, borne in heedless hum:

Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit,

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial, loved return!

For when thy folding-star, arising, shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp

The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then lead, calm votaress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile,
Or upland fallows gray,

Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers draw

The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve;
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves,
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes,

So long, sure found beneath the sylvan shed,
Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipped Health,
Thy gentlest influence own,

And hymn thy favorite name.

ODE.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,

She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

William Robertson, the son of a Scotch clergyman, was born near Edinburgh in 1721, and at the age of twenty-two became minister of a church. In 1759 he published his first work, History of Scotland under Queen Mary and James VI., which was immediately successful. Ten years later he gave to the world the work by which he is best known to modern readers, the History of Charles V. This history, with additions by Prescott, is still a most valuable work, and one which every student must read, since the author has had no competitor in the same field; although Motley, in his History of the Netherlands, presents many of the same events with far greater effect from a different point of view. Robertson wrote also a History of America.

The style of Robertson is dignified and correct, but never dramatic, and with little imaginative coloring. His works have a certain level excellence that produces a pleasant impression, but there are few, if any, scenes that will bear cutting out from the general narrative. On this account the specimens here given hardly do him justice. He died in 1793.

[From the History of Charles V.]

WHEN Charles and Francis entered the lists as candidates for the imperial dignity, they conducted their rivalship with many professions of regard for each other, and with repeated declarations that they would not suffer any tincture of enmity to mingle itself with honorable emulation. "We both court the same mistress," said Francis, with his usual vivacity; "each ought to urge his suit with all the address of which he is master; the most fortunate will prevail, and the other must rest contented." But though two young and high-spirited princes, and each of them animated with the hope of success, might be capable of forming such a generous resolution, it was soon found that they promised upon a moderation too refined and disinterested for human nature. The preference given to Charles in the sight of all Europe mortified Francis extremely, and inspired him with all the passions natural to disappointed ambition. To this were owing the personal jealousy and rivalship which sub

sisted between the two monarchs during their whole reign; and the rancor of these, augmented by a real opposition of interest, which gave rise to many unavoidable causes of discord, involved them in almost perpetual hostilities.

The pope had equal reason to dread the two rivals, and saw that he who prevailed would become absolute master in Italy. If it had been in his power to engage them in hostilities, without rendering Lombardy the theatre of war, nothing would have been more agreeable to him than to see them waste each other's strength in endless quarrels. But this was impossible. Leo foresaw that, on the first rupture between the two monarchs, the armies of France and Spain would take the field in the Milanese; and while the scene of their operations was so near, and the subject for which they contended so interesting to him, he could not long remain neuter. He was obliged, therefore, to adapt his plan of conduct to his political situation. He courted and soothed the Emperor and the King of France with equal industry and address. Though warmly solicited by each of them to espouse his cause, he assumed all the appearances of entire impartiality, and attempted to conceal his real sentiments under that profound dissimulation which seems to have been affected by most of the Italian politicians in that age.

But the chief attention both of Charles and of Francis was employed in order to gain the King of England, from whom each of them expected assistance more effectual, and afforded with less political caution. Henry VIII. had ascended the throne of that kingdom in the year 1509, with such circumstances of advantage as promised a reign of distinguished felicity and splendor. The union in his person of the two contending titles of York and Lancaster, the alacrity and emulation with which both factions obeyed his commands, not only enabled him to exert a degree of vigor and authority in his domestic government which none of his predecessors could have safely assumed, but permitted him to take a share in the affairs of the continent, from which the attention of the English had long been diverted by their unhappy intestine divisions. The great sums of money which his father had amassed rendered him the most wealthy prince in Europe. The peace which had subsisted under the cautious administration of that monarch had been of sufficient length to recruit the population of the kingdom after the desolation of the civil wars, but not so long as to enervate its spirit; and the