And truth she makes so precious, that to paint

Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint,

And bring him in his turn the crowds that press
Round Guido's saints, or Titian's goddesses.

Our trivial poet hit upon a theme

Which all men love, an old, sweet household dream,
Such as comes true with some, and might with all,
Were liberty to build her wisest hall,

Though to the loss of, here and there, a wall :
For call the building by some handsome name,
College, or square, not parallelogram,

And who would scorn to pass consummate hours,
Bless'd against care and want, in reverend bowers,
With just enough of toil to sweeten ease,

And music, ringing through their evening trees?

I own I shouldn't: I could even bear

To some majestic table to repair,

And dine for three-pence on luxurious fare.

A HOUSE AND GROUNDS.

A FRAGMENT.

WERE this impossible, I know full well
What sort of house should grace my garden-bell,-
A good, old country lodge, half hid with blooms
Of honied green, and quaint with straggling rooms,
A few of which, white-bedded and well swept,

For friends, whose names endear'd them, should be kept.
Of brick I'd have it, far more broad than high,
With green up to the door, and elm trees nigh;
And the warm sun should have it in his eye.
The tiptoe traveller, peeping through the boughs
O'er my low wall, should bless the pleasant house,

And that my luck might not seem ill-bestow'd,

A bench and spring should greet him on the road.

My grounds should not be large; I like to go To Nature for a range, and prospect too,

And cannot fancy she'll comprise for me,
Even in a park, her all-sufficiency.

Besides, my thoughts fly far; and when at rest,
Love, not a watch-tower, but a lulling nest.
But all the ground I had should keep a look
Of Nature still, have birds'-nests and a brook;
One spot for flowers, the rest all turf and trees;
For I'd not grow my own bad lettuces.
I'd build a walk, however, against rain,
Long, peradventure, as my whole domain,
And so be sure of generous exercise,

The youth of age, and med'cine of the wise.
And this reminds me, that behind some screen
About my grounds, I'd have a bowling-green;
Such as in wits' and merry women's days
Suckling preferred before his walk of bays.

You may still see them, dead as haunts of fairies,
By the old seats of Killigrews and Careys,

Where all, alas, is vanished from the ring,

Wits and black eyes, the skittles and the king!*

* Bowls are now thought vulgar: that is to say, a certain number of fine vulgar people agree to call them so.

once otherwise. Suckling prefers

A pair of black eyes, or a lucky hit

At bowls, above all the trophies of wit.

The fashion was

Piccadilly, in Clarendon's time, "was a fair house of entertainment and gaming, with handsome gravel walks for shade, and where were an upper and a lower bowling-green, whither very many of the nobility and gentry of the best quality resorted, both for exercise and conversation."-Hist. of the Rebellion, vol. ii. It was to the members of Parliament what the merely indoor club-houses are now, and was a much better place for them to refresh their faculties in. The robust intellects of the Commonwealth grew there, and the airy wits that succeeded them.

A PICTURE OF NAIADS.

THEY, towards the amorous noon, when some young

poet,

Strips him to bathe, and yet half thrills to do it,
Hovering with his ripe locks, and fair light limbs,

And trying with cold foot the banks and brims,
Win him into the water with sweet fancies,

Till in the girdling stream he pants and dances.
There's a whole bevy there, in that recess,

Rounding from the main stream: some sleep, some

dress

Each other's locks, some swim about, some sit

Parting their own moist hair, or fingering it

Lightly to let the curling air go through :
Some make them green and lilied coronets new ;

And one there from her tender instep shakes