Or on food were your thoughts placed, Would you have all these in one, Name my mistress, and 'tis done." "And this other is still more curiously elegant." SONG. "Ask me no more where Jove bestows, Ask me no more whither doth stray Ask me no more whither doth haste Ask me no more, if east or west "And where will you find a sweeter pastoral, than this sylvan dialogue between a shepherd and a nymph ?" Shep. This mossy bank they press'd. Nym. That Did canopy the happy pair Cho. Here let us sit and sing the words they spoke, I' th' cowslip's bell, and rose's ear: Nym. Those streaks of doubtful light usher not day, But show my sun must set; no morn Shall shine till thou return; The yellow planets, and the gray Dawn, shall attend thee on thy way. Shep. If thine eyes gild my paths, they may forbear Their useless shine. Nym. My tears will quite Extinguish their faint light. Shep. Those drops will make their beams more clear, Love's flames will shine in ev'ry tear. Cho. They kiss'd and wept; and from their lips and eyes, In a mix'd dew of briny sweet, Their joys and sorrows meet; But she cries out. Nym. Shepherd, arise, The sun betrays us else to spies. Shep. The winged hours fly fast, whilst we embrace; But when we want their help to meet, They move with leaden feet. Nym. Then let us pinion time, and chase The day for ever from this place. Shep. Hark! Nym. Ay, me, stay! Shep. For ever. Nym. No, arise, We must be gone. Shep. My nest of spice. Cho. Neither could say farewell, but through their eyes Grief interrupted speech with tears supplies." "Carew possessed naturally but little humour; but there is a dignified, pleasing, sly gravity in the lines upon Lord Chief Justice Finch, on paying his addresses to Lady Anne Wentworth. It possesses, moreover, Benedict, what you so much admire, a sort of classical air, which, by the way, is rather a stiffishness of manner than an excellence." "Read the poem," said the Bachelor, and the Nymph read, "Hear this, and tremble all A government tyrannical In love's free state; Justice hath to the sword of your edged eyes In love's soft lap, which must be just and wise. Hark how the stern law breathes Forth amorous sighs, and now prepares No fetters, but of silken wreaths And braided hairs; His dreadful rods and axes are exiled Whilst he sits crown'd with roses: Love hath filed His native roughness, Justice is grown mild. The golden age returns, Love's bow and quiver useless lie; His shaft, his brand, nor wounds nor burns, Is sunk to hell: the fair shall all be kind; Astræa hath possest An earthly seat, and now remains In Finch's heart, but Wentworth's breast With her she dwells, yet hath not left the skies, CHAP. XV. THE EXCOMMUNICANT. ONE morning, after a long debate in the House of Commons on the Catholic question, the Nymph and the Bachelor fell into conversation in reading the report of the speeches in the Morning Chronicle."I think," said she, "that none of the orators venture to touch the marrow of this important subject." "How! what do you mean ?" replied Benedict, anticipating, from the tone in which she had made the remark, something paradoxical," what other marrow is there in the subject, than that the law as it stands deprives millions of their undoubted political rights ?" "The law as it stands, you ought rather to say, prevents those millions from disturbing public affairs, merely because such is the state and circumstances of their minds, that they can neither reason nor exercise their judgment like other men.-There can be no emancipation of the Catholic but by himself.-He should show that he is as free a moral agent as the rest of the species, before he can hope that they will permit him to take a part in their common affairs." "In what way," said the Bachelor," are they to do this? I am sure in all things the Roman Catholic shows himself as much a man, and as good a subject, as any other Christian." "He does no such thing," replied the Nymph, somewhat fervently, at hearing her beloved repeat this stale assertion. "In the first place, he acknowledges a power to reside in other men, which, were he in a condition to exercise his judgment freely, he would feel himself obliged to confess is not consistent with human nature. I mean the priestly remission of sin;-and, moreover, in believing the irrational doctrine of transubstantiation, he denies the evidence of his own senses. Now, what sort of confidence should we be disposed to give to a person, who asserted that he was intrusted with supernatural powers, and maintained that fire was ice,-treating with contempt the opinion, that supernatural power can never be possessed by man, and asserting that all deserved eternal perdition who did not believe that the fire which he called ice, in despite of the sensations of touch and vision, was ice ?" "But not to grow polemical," interrupted the Bachelor," those sort of absurdities are mere speculative opinions, and as such have probably as little influence on the conduct of the Catholic as any theoretical dogma whatever has on that of the more philosophical Protestant. It is therefore hard, that |