3. Strath, a long extent of level ground, found in many topographical words, such as Strathmore, Strathearn, &c.

210. THE SHEPHERD-LORD.

Lord Clifford, of Cumberland, a fierce partisan of the Red Rose, killed, under circumstances of great atrocity, in the rout of Wakefield, the young Edmund Earl of Rutland, second son of the Duke of York. His name became in consequence so hateful to the Yorkists, that, even after his own death-at Ferrybridge, the day before Towton, 1461-the friends of the family thought it necessary to bring up his young heir as a shepherd; nor did this inheritor of a noble name recover his ancestral title and estates until the accession of Henry VII., 1485.

From THE SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE.'

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know

How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed :
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

In him the savage virtue of the Race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage-hearth;
The Shepherd-lord was honoured more and more;
And, ages after he was laid in earth,

"The good Lord Clifford " was the name he bore.

211. WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, Sep. 3, 1802.

The following poem describes the appearance of the great city, as seen early in the morning from the top of the Dover coach.

Earth hath not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty :
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

212. CHARACTER OF PETER BELL THE POTTER.

From PETER BELL.'

He roved among the vales and streams,
In the green wood and hollow dell;
They were his dwellings night and day,—
But nature ne'er could find the way
Into the heart of Peter Bell.

In vain, through every changeful year,
Did nature lead him as before;

1

A primrose by a river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.

Small change it made in Peter's heart
To see his gentle panniered 2 train
With more than vernal pleasure feeding,
Where'er the tender grass was leading
Its earliest green along the lane.

In vain, through water, earth, and air,
The soul of happy sound was spread,
When Peter on some April morn,
Beneath the broom or budding thorn,
Made the warm earth his lazy bed.
At noon, when, by the forest's edge
He lay beneath the branches high,
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
On a fair prospect some have looked
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as steadfast as the scene
On which they gazed themselves away.

1. Primrose spelt more correctly in M. E. primerole, Fr. primerole, th. fr. Lat. primula, primula veris. The modern spelling is doubtless owing to a desire to connect the word with rose.

2. Panniered: pannier, Fr. panier, comes from L. L. panarium, a breadbasket (Lat. panis, from which also come pantry and pantler).

Within the breast of Peter Bell
These silent raptures found no place;
He was a Carl 3 as wild and rude

As ever hue-and-cry 4 pursued,
As ever ran a felon's race.

Of all that lead a lawless life,
Of all that love their lawless lives,
In city or in village small,

He was the wildest far of all ;

He had a dozen wedded wives.

Nay, start not!-wedded wives-and twelve!
But how one wife could e'er come near him,
In simple truth I cannot tell;
For, be it said of Peter Bell,

To see him was to fear him.

Though nature could not touch his heart
By lovely forms, and silent weather,
And tender sounds, yet you might see
At once, that Peter Bell and she
Had often been together.

A savage wildness round him hung

As of a dweller out of doors;

In his whole figure and his mien

A savage character was seen

Of mountains and of dreary moors.

To all the unshaped half-human thoughts
Which solitary Nature feeds

'Mid summer storms or winter's ice,
Had Peter joined whatever vice
The cruel city breeds.

3. Carl: originally the same word as churl, but, like churl, having wandered far from its original meaning, which was simply man, O. E. carl. However, in the form ceorl it was applied in a special sense to a member of the mass of nonnoble freemen; and as they sank to a lower and finally lowest condition from

political causes, the word sank with them, becoming eventually our modern churl. The German form is kerl.

4. Hue and cry: this is the only remaining use of the old word hue, fr. Fr. huer, to cry, said by Diez to be formed by onomatopoeia; the same root also existing in huette, an owl.

His face was keen as is the wind

That cuts along the hawthorn-fence ;--
Of courage you saw little there,
But, in its stead, a medley 5 air
Of cunning and of impudence.

He had a dark and sidelong 6 walk,
And long and slouching was his gait;
Beneath his looks so bare and bold,
You might perceive, his spirit cold
Was playing with some inward bait.7

His forehead wrinkled was and furred;
A work, one half of which was done
By thinking of his 'whens' and 'hows';
And half, by knitting of his brows
Beneath the glaring sun.

There was a hardness in his cheek,
There was a hardness in his eye,
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,

Against the wind and open sky!

5. Medley: see note 22, extract 18. 6. Sidelong: see note 19, extract 15. 7. Bait, O. E. bát, seems to be derived from bite, as also, doubtless, is bait, to feed; see note 2, extract 31.

8. Furred, furrowed. Furrow is the diminutive of O. E. furh, which, by Grimm's Law, is the same word as Lat. porca, Goth. f representing the classical

8

p. Compare fire with Gk. up, feather with πτερόν, fare with πόρος, fee with pecus, full with Lat. plenus, Gk. #λéos. There seems to exist the same relation between furrow and farrow, as between porca and porcus, the image of a hog rooting in a straight line across a field easily suggesting that of a plough also.

213. MILTON.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: 1
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen;
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower

1. This hour: 1802, when this sonnet was written.