The Garden Seat. "A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dim, And airy tongues that syllable men's names."-MILTON. "In him the pure well head of Poesy did dwell."-SPENSER. On the stone seat reclined, with half-closed eyes, Thy magic wand: Lo! what a shadowy file Of forms re-people these thick shades: the wise, Each in his different age's garb and style: Shorn crown, plum'd hat, cowl'd frown, mustachio'd smile; Ruffler, and priest, and knight, in motley guise; In these gray college-halls—far, from the throng ("The Flower and Leaf" perchance) of early rhyme. *Those who favour the supposition that Chaucer was educated at Oxford, in preference to Cambridge, fix Merton as his college, probably because his friends Occleve and Strove were there. The Sun Dial. "Non numero horas nisi serenas." "What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelment of lead and brass; its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens, Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spake of moderate pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe of the old world. Adam could scarce have missed it in paradise. It was the measure appropriate for sweet flowers and plants to spring by; for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by; for flocks to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd carved it out quaintly in the sun,' and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones."--CHARLES LAMB, What was the magic, gray and time-worn stone, With gaze half vacant, dream-like reverie; Or did I see in thee Time's shrine, whereon The Present sacrificing to the Past? Wycliffe.* "The ashes of Wycliffe were thrown into the river Swift, which conve yed them into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow Seas, they into the main Ocean. And thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over."-FULLER. "Of the book that had been a sealed up book He tore the clasps, that the nation, O! Wycliffe, when Rome's malice from the grave Reform's first English champion; thou who fought * Wycliffe, though at first a Commoner of Queen's College, subsequently became a Postmaster, (Portionista) and Fellow of Merton. There is nothing new under the Sun! Wordsworth, in his Sonnet on Wycliffe, puts into the mouth of " that ancient voice which streams can hear," (without acknowledgment) the words of old Fuller, thus "As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear "Into the Avon, Avon to the tide "Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas, "Into main Oceans they, this deed accurst "An emblem yields to friends and enemies "How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctioned "By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed." Is this plagiarism? Is Byron's Shipwreck in Don Juan, beginning 'At half-past ten o'clock, booms, hencops, spars, &c. ?' or may the Poet say with the audacity of old Montaigne, ' je re-prend mon bien on je le trouve ?' Shadows of Pre-Existence. ei “ Κατ ̓ ἔκεινον γε τὸν λόγον, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰ ἀλήθης ἔστιν ὃν σὺ εἴωθας θαμὰ λεγεῖν, ὅτι μάθησις οὐκ ἀλλὸ τι ἡ ἀνάμ νησις τυγχάνει οὖσα, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτον ἀνάγκη ποὺ ἡμας ἐν προτερῶ τίνι χρονῶ μεμαθήκεναι ἃ νῦν ἀναμιμνησκόμεθα, τοῦτο δε ἀδύνατον εἰ μὴ ἦν ποῦ ἡμων ἢ ψύχη πρὶν ἐν τῶδε τῶ ἀνθρωπινῶ εἴδει γένεσθαι.”—ΡLΑΤΟ. "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home."-WORDSWORTH. "Like a thought A dream remembered in a dream."-COLERIDGE. "The thing that hath been is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the Sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, see this is new? It hath been already of old time which was before us."-ECCL. Ch. 1-9. Say, have you never felt a conscious start At some chance passing act, or trivial speech; The when, and where, we took the selfsame part So all familiar; yet, when we would reach It fades like ghost of necromantic art? CCXXX. The Rookery. "Light thickens, and the crow Dark plumag'd commonwealth for ages past, High on ancestral trees secure and fast Hath rock'd thy city free; contented they Who from these halls and groves have pass'd away, In winter; and to watch in busy Spring |