(as seems to be natural) he had left his money where it would be associated with more money and kept well together. His heir was a cousin also, but in the next degree—an old bachelor, who was already wealthy; and he had left Madam Liberality five pounds to buy a mourning ring.

It had been said that Madam Liberality was used to disappointment, but some minutes passed before she quite realised the downfall of her latest visions. Then the old sofa-cushions resumed their importance, and she flattened the fire into a more economical shape, and set vigorously to work to decorate the house with the Christmas evergreens.

Mrs. Ewing

Visitor

H

WER little face is like a walnut shell

With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns Her either brow in quaint, straight curls, like horns; And all about her clings an old, sweet smell.

Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl.

Well might her bonnets have been born on her.
Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother

The subject of a real religious call?

In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs,
Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray,
Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns,

All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales:
A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom's way,
Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails.

W. E. Henley

Lucy Lyttleton

To the Memory of

LUCY LYTTLETON,

daughter of Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh,
in the county of Devon, esq.
father to the present Earl of Clinton,
by Lucy his wife,

the daughter of Matthew Lord Aylmer,
who departed this life the 19th of Jan. 1746-7,
aged twenty-nine;

having employed the short time assigned to her here in the uniform practice of Religion and Virtue.

Made to engage all hearts, and charm all eyes,
Though meek, magnanimous, though witty, wise;
Polite, as all her life in courts had been,
Yet good, as she the world had never seen;
The noble fire of an exalted mind,
With gentlest female tenderness combin'd.
Her speech was the melodious voice of love,
Her song the warbling of the vernal grove.
Her eloquence was sweeter than her song,
Soft as her heart, and as her reason strong,
Her form each beauty of her mind exprest,
Her mind was Virtue by the Graces drest.

Anon.

XV

MOTHERS

Look! how this love, this mother, runs thro' all
The world God made-even the beast-the bird!
Lord Tennyson ("Becket")

Eve

FRO

ROM this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend
Saw undelighted all delight, all kind

Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honour clad
In naked majesty, seemed lords of all,
And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure—
Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,
Whence true authority in men: though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed;
For contemplation he and valour formed,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She, as a veil down to the slender waist,
Her unadorned golden tresses wore

Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved.
As the vine curls her tendrils-which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received
Yielded, with coy submission, modest pride.

John Milton

The Mother of Marcella

I

THINK I see her now, with that goodly presence, looking as if she had the sun on one side of her and the moon on the other; and above all, she was a notable house-wife, and a friend to the poor; for which I believe her soul is at this very moment in heaven.

Pedro, in "Don Quixote"

A Roman Wife

WON

OMAN, a word with you!
Round-ribbed, large-flanked,

Broad-shouldered (God be thanked!)
Face fair and free,

And pleasant for a man to see

I know not whom you love; but-hark! be true.

Partake his honest joys;

Cling to him, grow to him, make noble boys

For Italy.

T. E. Brown

Dame Hester Temple

DAME

AME Hester Temple, daughter to Miles Sands, Esquire, was born at Latmos in this County; and was married to Sir Thomas Temple of Stow, Baronet. She had four sons and nine daughters, which lived to be married, and so exceedingly multiplied, that this Lady saw seven hundred extracted from her body. Reader, I speak within compass, and have left myself a reserve, having bought the truth hereof by a wager I lost. Besides, there was a new generation of marriageable females just at her death; so that this aged vine may be said to wither, even when it had many young boughs ready to knit.

Had I been one of her Relations, and as well enabled as most of them be, I would have erected a Monument for her, thus designed. A fair tree should have been erected, the said Lady and her Husband lying at the bottom or the root thereof; the Heir of the family should have ascended both the middle and top-bough thereof. On the right-hand hereof her younger sons, on the left her daughters should, as so many boughs, be spread forth. Her grand-children should have their names inscribed on the branches of those boughs; the greatgrand-children on the twiggs of those branches; the great-great-grand-children on the leaves of those twiggs. Such as survived her death should be done in a lively green, the rest (as blasted) in a pale and yellow fading colour.

...

Thus, in all ages, God bestoweth personal felicities on some, far above the proportion of others. The Lady Temple dyed anno Domini 1656.

Thomas Fuller