And yet the fields are not "beloved in vain :" neither was my childhood a stranger to suffering. My life has had strong lights and shades upon it from its commencement; but upon the whole I am grateful; and the pleasures I have enjoyed make me love even the memory of some of the pains.

66

"A dram of sweet is worth a pound of sour." How could Gray say that his fields were beloved in vain," when the sight of them, in pain or melancholy, could still please him in this manner; and when he cultivated flowers in his cottage window to the last? Nature is never beloved in vain. Shakespere, after running the whole round of humanity, went to live and die in his native fields. Rousseau's botany never forsook him. The oaks are firm friends, and we can love the most blooming of roses in our old age.

Leigh Hunt.

There is a troublesome humour some men have, that if they may not lead they will not follow; but had rather a thing were never done than not done their own way, though otherwise very desirable. This comes of an overfulness of ourselves, and shows we are more concerned for praise than the success of what we think a good thing.

Dr. T. Fuller.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit Jessica, look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion, like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubin :
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Merchant of Venice.

SATAN CAST FORTH FROM HEAVEN.

Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of hell; say first, what cause
Moved our grand parents in that happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off
From their Creator, and transgress His will
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?
The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from heaven, with all his host
Of rebel angels; by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,
With vain attempt.

Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,

Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded though immortal. But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him.

Round he throws his baleful eyes,

That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
At once, as far as angels ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild;

A dungeon horrible on all sides round,

As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible,
Served only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell; hope never comes,
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed

With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice had prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far removed from God and light of heaven
As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.

O, how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns; and weltering by his side
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beelzebub. To whom the Arch-Enemy,

And thence in heaven called Satan, with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus began :

"If thou beest he; but O, how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light,
Clothed with transcendent brightness, did'st outshine
Myriads though bright! If he, whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,

Joined with me once, now misery hath joined

In equal ruin! Into what pit thou seest,

From what height fallen; so much the stronger proved

He with his thunder; and till then who knew

The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent or change,

Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, And high disdain, from sense of injured merit,

That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of spirits armed,

That durst dislike His reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of heaven,

And shook His throne.

"What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall His wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify His power,
Who, from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted His empire; that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy, and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage, by force or guile, eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,

Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heaven!"

So spake the apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;
And him thus answered soon his bold compeer.

"O Prince! O Chief of many thronéd Powers,
That led the embattled seraphim to war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endangered heaven's perpetual King,
And put to proof His high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate;
Too well I see and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat,

Hath lost us heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as gods and heavenly essences

Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

Though all our glory extinct and happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.

But what if He our conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe almighty, since no less

Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)
Hath left us this our spirit and strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice His vengeful ire,
Or do Him mightier service, as His thralls
By right of war, whate'er His business be,
Here in the heart of hell to work in fire,
Or do His errands in the gloomy deep;
What can it then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment ?”

Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied: "Fallen Cherub! to be weak is miserable,

Doing or suffering; but of this be sure,
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist. If then His providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve Him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destined aim.

"But see! the angry victor hath recalled
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the gates of heaven; the sulphurous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge that from the precipice