From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirits stole upon him which he had never been used to: yet, being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor, (which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages that might then have been laid hold of,) he resisted those indispositions. But after the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he, who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness, and less pleasantness of the visage, a kind of rudeness of incivility, became, on a sudden, less communicable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness, and industry, and expense, than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious but too negligent and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary, or casual addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men (strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious; from which no mortal man was ever more free. When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any, thing which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word peace, peace; and would passionately profess, "that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart." This made some think, or pretend to think, "that he was so much enamoured on peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect on conscience or honour, could have wished the king to have committed a trespass against either. And yet this senseless scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit: for at the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friend passionately reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to danger, (for he delighted to visit the trenches, and nearest approaches, and to discover what the enemy did,) as being so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, "that his office could not take away the privilege of his age; and that a secretary in war might be present at the greatest secret in danger;" but withal, alleged seriously, "that it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other men; that all might see that his impatiency for peace proceeded not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own person." In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself in the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers: from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly: and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning; till when there was some hope that he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his disposition, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age; having so much despatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency: whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him. Trees. TREES-so beautiful in their individual attributes, so magnificent in their forest groups-are amongst the most lovely and glorious of the materials which Nature spreads before the poets. Spenser makes his Catalogue of Trees full of picturesque association, by his wonderful choice of epithets : And forth they pass with pleasure, forward led, Which, therein shrouded from the tempest's dread, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors The fruitful olive, and the plantane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. SPENSER Scott associates the "forest fair" with the feudal grandeur of hunt and falconry: The scenes are desert now, and bare, And peopled with the hart and hind. spears Yon lonely thorn would he could tell Would he could tell how deep the Have fenced him for three hundred A thousand mingled branches made; And through the foliage show'd his With narrow leaves and berries red; "The mighty stag at noontide lay: With lurching step around me prowl, Then oft from Newark's riven tower, A thousand vassals muster'd round, And I might see the youth intent And falc'ners hold the ready hawk; Attentive, as the bratchet's bay And bugles ringing lightsomely." SCOTT Keats makes the "leafy month of June" fresher and greener, with remem brances of the "Sherwood clan "--the No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden fall Of the leaves of many years: Many times have winter's shears, Frozen north, and chilling east, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men knew not rents nor leases. woodland heroes of the people's ballads No, the bugle sounds no more, On the fairest time of June All are gone away and past! He would swear, for all his oaks, KEATS. A living writer dwells upon the solemn stillness of the forest, with a poet's love built upon knowledge. No one can understand that peculiar stillness who has not passed many a thoughtful hour beneath the " 'melancholy boughs,” amidst which there is ever sound which seems like silence :: I love the forest; I could dwell among The chirp and flutter of some single bird, Only to feel the after stillness more! MILNES. The American poet's reverence for the forest rises into devotion: Father, thy hand Hath rear'd these venerable columns, thou Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun |