at the foot of the scaffold, of my last brave friend, Lord Capel:- least we grow melancholy - dear daughter, I would pray you, before we part-before we part, perhaps for ever-to favour me, for the last time, with one of those ditties which I have so often loved to hear in this solitude.

Kenna. What shall it be? my husband's own ballad, which I once used to sing on the pleasant banks of Lea, in our golden days of life,

I in the pleasant meads would be;

These crystal streams shall solace me!

when he used to love to hear "his Kenna sing a song?" Alas! those pleasant days will never return; and this song now little suits us, with our altered age and fortunes.

Piscator.-No, indeed; not more than the old smooth song of honest Kit Marlowe's

"Come, live with me, and be my love."

which re

'My beloved Kenna, sing to us that song
minds us of the contentedness of a country life.
(Kenna sings :)

Let me live harmlessly, and by the brink
Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place,

And on the world and my Creator think;

While some men strive ill-gotten good t' embrace,
And others spend their time in base excess

Of wine, or worse, in war and wantonness.

Piscator.-Ah! this song remembers me of those times gone by," when we sat down n summers past,

under the broad beech-tree, and the birds seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree near to the brow of the primrose hill, where we sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea. When the milk-maid, that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, sang, like a nightingale, a smooth song which was made by Kit Marlowe now at least fifty years ago, and the milk-maid's mother sang an answer to it, which was made by Sir Walter Raleigh in his younger days!" But we must think no more of these toys. I shall be right content to hear a more serious song of Master Herbert's-that which I did always love.

(Kenna sings :)

Sweet day, so calm, so clear, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky!
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night-
For thou must die.

Sweet Spring! full of sweet days and roses!
My music shews you have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul
Then chiefly lives.

Morley.-And, trust me, this song was as well sung as it is melodious, and sacred, and full of golden thoughts. I shall remember the time I have passed here, when I lie down to rest, I know not

where, among strangers, and I shall dream in a distant land of Kenna's songs!

Piscator.-Yes; and if the dream should make you resolve to return, still, my good Master Morley, you would find the same warm but humble welcome the same PRAYER-BOOK-the same evening and morning hymns and the same songs of Kenna, who will ever gratefully remember her "guide and familiar friend."

Kenna.-Oh! ever indeed gratefully—and, when Sunday night comes, how sadly remember him!

Morley. Then let us now take leave. I wish to retire to solitary communion with God, for the sun is sinking beyond the mountains of Derbyshire. My generous friend, I have seen much of high stations and much, I need not say, of sorrowfor yourself, you will remember, with thankfulness to the giver, the prayer of Agar -"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient."

but,

Piscator.-I thank God that I have always had a thankful and quiet heart; and, though these rooms are poorly furnished, and our thatched roof be low, in the words of the old song, made forty years ago, My mind to me a kingdom is.

I am as happy and contented, with my dutiful Kenna, in this remote corner - (for the tenement and small territory is my own) -as contented and happy as in the most prosperous state of life; for, in that fine strain set by Orlando Gibbons,

The glories of our birth and state

Are shadows, not substantial things.

I am sufficiently blessed in my earthly condition, having a wife as dutiful as Kenna, and a place of humble independence in a world of sorrow.

Kenna. Oh! and how far more delightful than when we lived in the smoke and the noise of Fleetstreet, and were witnesses of the madness of the frantic multitude - where the sullen Presbytery looked so sternly upon us.

pre

Morley.-May those who despoiled us, still serve to you, and your wife and your child, this retirement of virtuous independence; for happiness may dwell here as well as in those halls where I had formerly my academical education; and (now I am so soon to leave this abode of piety and peace) may say, in the language of the sweetest of poets, then familiar to me

I

Fortunate senex, ergo TUA RURA manebunt,
Et tibi magna satis

At nos

Your early studies, my friend, though not as classical as my own, might enable you to answer, from the same affecting eclogue

Sed tamen hac mecum poteris requiescere nocte. To-morrow

Nos PATRIÆ fines et DULCIA LINQUIMUS ARVA;

Nos PATRIAM FUGIMUS.

These lines you might know are from that great

poet Dan Virgilius; I shall endeavour to show Kenna the sense in English:

Oh! fortunate old man! here shalt thou be,

Amid these pleasant fields, enough for thee.

I must apply the other lines, not less affecting, to my own lot:

But we from hence, far hence, alas! shall roam

O'er the wide world, to find no social home.
We from the fields of our lov'd Country fly,
To meet, perhaps, severer destiny.

I will give you, warm-hearted friend, credit for wishing far greater kindness than was expressed by the Mantuan Shepherd:

Yet here, at least, contented thou shalt stay

THIS NIGHT-till Morning comes, with sandals grey,
And beckons thee far o'er the seas away.

So we might beguile our sad thoughts with kindred images of the classical Muses, long since my delightful companions; but, at this hour, it will be mine rather to call your attention to an English writer-a most holy man of our proscribed Sion, who has suffered with me the same deprivations for conscience sake, and who was my University friend. Some of his divine thoughts, perused in his handwriting, now come into my mind. From him we may learn these lessons on contentedness, whatever be our lot here, or in the wide world; and these lessons, from a wiser and more eloquent man, I shall leave as the legacy of a Christian monitor at parting, my last legacy to you, good friend, and your beloved and affectionate Kenna: