to have originated with him, or at least been first avowed by him; for we can trace it no further back. "A small house and a large garden" was his aspiration; and he obtained it. Somebody, unfortunately, has got our Cowley's Essays-we don't reproach him, for it is a book to keep a good while; but they contain a delightful passage on this subject, which should have been quoted. Take, however, an extract or two from the verses belonging to those Essays. They will conclude this part of our subject well:

‘Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet nests and plenteous food,
Pay with their grateful voice.

Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself, too, mute.

"When Epicurus to the world had taught
That Pleasure was the Chiefest Good,

(And was, perhaps, i' th' right, if rightly understood,)
His life he to his doctrine brought,

And in a garden's shade that sovereign pleasure sought.

46

Where does the wisdom and the power divine

In a more bright and sweet reflection shine-
Where do we finer strokes and colours see
Of the Creator's real poetry,

Than when we with attention look

Upon the third day's volume of the book?
If we could open and intend our eye,
We all, like Moses, should espy,
Ev'n in a bush, the radiant Deity.

"Methinks I see great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made.
I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain
To entice him to a throne again.

"If I, my friends,' said he, 'should to you show
All the delights which in these gardens grow,
'Tis likelier much that you should with me stay,
Than 't is that you should carry me away;
And trust me not, my friends, if every day

I walk not here with more delight,

Than ever, after the most happy fight,

In triumph to the capitol I rode,

To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself, almost a god.'

A noble line that-long and stately as the triumph which it speaks of. Yet the Emperor and the Poet agreed in preferring

a walk down an alley of roses. There was nothing so much calculated to rebuke or bewilder them there, as in the faces of their fellow-creatures, even after the "happiest fight."

CHAPTER X.

RETURN TO SICILY AND MOUNT ETNA.

SUBJECT OF MOUNT ETNA RESUMED-ITS BEAUTIES-ITS HORRORSREASON WHY PEOPLE ENDURE THEM.

LOVE-STORY OF AN

EARTHQUAKE.

N now em

phatically re

turning to Si

cily, though we have ne

ver been entirely absent

from it, while

discussing the pastoral poets of other countries, we shall round our subject properly by finishing the circle where we began it; and in order to render our plan as complete as possible, we have not been without a sense of chronological order. In resuming, therefore, the subject of Etna, we proceed to regard the mountain in relation to the impression it makes on modern times and existing inhabitants.

The reader is aware that our Jar was not intended to be associated with nothing but sweets. Bees, it was observed, extract honey from the bitterest as well as sweetest flowers; and we only stipulated, as they do, for a sweet result;-for something, which by the fact of its being deducible from bitterness, shows the tendency of Nature to that dulcet end, and gives a lesson to her creature man to take thought and warning, and do as much for himself. In truth, were man heartily to do so, and leave off asking Nature to superintend everything for him, and take the trouble off his hands, which it seems a manifest condition of things that she should not, (man looking very like an experiment to see how far he can develop the energies of which he is composed, and prove himself worthy of continuance,) how are we to know that he would not get rid of all such evils as do not appear to be necessary to his wellbeing, and, in the language of the great Eastern poet, make "the morning stars sing for joy?"—sing for joy, that another heaven is added to their list. Mount Etna, for instance, which is one of the safety-valves of the globe, does not force people to live within the sphere of its operations. Why, therefore, should they? Why do not the inhabitants of Catania and other places migrate, as nations have done from the face of an enemy or famine, and plant themselves elsewhere? When the convulsion comes, and destruction hovers over them, the saints are implored as the gods were of old, and everything is referred to the ordinances of Heaven. But the saints might answer, "Why do you continue to live here, in the teeth of these repeated warnings? Why cannot the earth have safetyvalves, but you must needs plant yourselves right in the way of them, as infants may do with steam-engines?" This is the honey that might be extracted from the bitter past. On the