he preferreth rather to entertain his people with wholesome cold meat which was on the table before, than with that which is hot from the spit, raw and half-roasted. Yet, in repetition of the same sermon, every edition hath a new addition, if not of new matter, of new affections. Of whom," saith St. Paul, "we have told you OFTEN, and Now we tell you weeping." (Phil. iii. 18.)

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XIII. He makes not that wearisome, which should ever be welcome.Wherefore his sermons are of an ordinary length, except on an extraordinary occasion. What a gift had John Halsebach, Professor at Vienna, in tediousness! who, being to expound the Prophet Isaiah to his auditors, read twenty-one years on the first chapter, and yet finished it not.

XIV. He counts the success of his ministry the greatest preferment.— Yet herein God hath humbled many painful pastors, in making them to be clouds, to rain, not over Arabia the Happy, but over the Stony, or Desert so that they may complain with the herdsman in the poet :

Heu mihi, quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo!

"My starveling bull,

Ah woe is me!

In pasture full,

How lean is he!"

Yet such pastors may comfort themselves, that great is their reward with God in heaven, who measures it, not by their success, but endeavours. Besides, though they see not, their people may feel benefit by their ministry. Yea, the preaching of the word in some places is like the planting of woods, where, though no profit is received for twenty years together, it comes afterwards. And grant, that God honours thee not to build his temple in thy parish, yet thou mayest, with David, provide metal and materials for Solomon thy successor to build it with.

XV. To sick folks he comes sometimes before he is sent for-As counting his vocation a sufficient calling. None of his flock shall want the extreme unction of prayer and counsel. Against the communion, especially, he endeavours that Janus's temple be shut in the whole parish, and that all be made friends.

XVI. He is never plaintiff in any suit but to be right's defendant.—If his dues be detained from him, he grieves more for his parishioners' bad conscience than his own damage. He had rather suffer ten times in his profit, than once in his title, where not only his person, but posterity, is wronged; and then he proceeds fairly and speedily to a trial, that he may not vex and weary others, but right himself. During his suit he neither breaks off nor slacks offices of courtesy to his adversary; yea, though he loseth his suit, he will not also lose his charity. Chiefly he is respectful to his patron; that as he presented him freely to his living, so he constantly presents his patron in his prayers to God.

XVII. He is moderate in his tenets and opinions.-Not that he gilds over lukewarmness in matters of moment with the title of "discretion;" but, withal, he is careful not to entitle violence, in indifferent and inconcerning matters, to be zeal. Indeed, men of extraordinary tallness, though otherwise little deserving, are made porters to lords; and those of unusual littleness are made ladies' dwarfs: whilst men of moderate stature may want masters. Thus many, notorious for extremities, may find favourers to prefer them; whilst moderate men in the middle truth may want any to advance them. But what saith the apostle?" If in this life only we had hope, we are of all men the most miserable.” (1 Cor. xv. 19.)

XVIII. He is sociable and willing to do any courtesy for his neighbour-ministers.-He willingly communicates his knowledge unto them. Surely, the gifts and graces of Christians lay in common, till base envy made the first inclosure. He neither slighteth his inferiors, nor repineth at those who in parts and credit are above him. He loveth the company of his neighbour-ministers. Sure, as ambergris is nothing so sweet in itself, as when it is compounded with other things; so both godly and learned men are gainers by communicating themselves to their neighbours.

XIX. He is careful in the discreet ordering of his own family.—A good minister, and a good father, may well agree together. When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melancthon, he found him in his stove, with one hand dandling his child in the swaddling clouts, and in the other hand holding a book and reading it. Our minister also is as hospitable as his estate will permit, and makes every alms two, by his cheerful giving it. He loveth also to live in a well-repaired house, that he may serve God therein more cheerfully. A clergyman who built his house from the ground, wrote in it this counsel to his successor :—

"If thou dost find

An house built to thy mind
Without thy cost,

Serve thou the more

God and the poor;

My labour is not lost."

XX. Lying on his death-bed he bequeaths to each of his parishioners his precepts and example for a legacy.-And they, in requital, erect every one a monument for him in their hearts. He is so far from that base jealousy that his memory should be outshined by a brighter successor, and from that wicked desire that his people may find his worth by the worthlessness of him that succeeds, that he doth heartily pray to God to provide them a better pastor after his decease. As for outward estate, he commonly lives in too bare pasture to die fat. It is well if he hath gathered any flesh, being more in blessing than bulk.

Ir has been objected to Milton that in his 'Lycidas' he enumerates among "vernal flowers" many of those which are the offspring of Midsummer, and of a still more advanced season. The passage to which the objection applies is the following:

"Ye Valleys low, where the mild whispers use
Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

To strow the laureat hearse where Lycid lies."

A little consideration will show that Milton could distinguish between the flowers of Spring and the flowers of Summer. The "Sicilian Muse" is to "call the vales, and bid them hither cast their bells, and flow'rets of a thousand hues." There were not only to be cast the "quaint enamell'd eyes " of "vernal flowers," but every flower that sad embroidery wears;" or, in the still clearer language of the original manuscript of the poem, every bud that sorrow's livery wears." The

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"vernal flowers" were to indicate the youth of Lycidas; the flowers of "sorrow's livery" were emblems of his untimely death. The intention of Milton is distinctly to be traced in his first conception of the passage. After the "rathe [early] primrose," we have,

"And that sad flower that strove

To write his own woes on the vermeil grain."

This is the hyacinth, the same as "the tufted crow-toe." He proceeds with more of sorrow's livery

"Next add Narcissus, that still weeps in vain."

Then come "the woodbine," and "the pansy freak'd with jet." In the original passage "the musk-rose" is not found at all. Milton's strewments for the bier of Lycidas, we hold, are not confined to vernal flowers, and therefore it is unnecessary to elevate Shakspere at the expense of Milton. "While Milton and the other poets had strung together in their descriptions the blossoms of Spring and the flowers of Summer, Shakspere has placed in one group those only which may be found in bloom at the same time."* The writer alludes to the celebrated passage in the 'Winter's Tale,' where Perdita, at the summer sheep-shearing, bestows the 'flowers of middle summer' upon her guests "of middle age," and wishes for " some flowers o' the spring" that might become the "time of day" of her fairest virgin friends:

"O, Proserpina,

For the flowers, now, that, frighted thou lett'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,

The flower-de-luce being one! O! these I lack
To make you garlands of."

SHAKSPERE.

This is indeed poetry founded upon the most accurate observation-the perfect combination of elegance and truth.

The exquisite simplicity of our first great poet's account of his love for the daisy may well follow Shakspere's spring-garland. Rarely could he move from his books; no game could attract him; but when the flowers began to spring,

"Farewell my book and my devotion."

Above all the flowers in the mead he loved most

"these flowrés white and red,

Such that men callen Daisies in our town;

To them have I so great affection,
As I said erst, when comen is the May,
That in my bed there daweth me no day
That I n'am up and walking in the mead
To see this flow'r against the sunné spread,

*Patterson on the Insects mentioned by Shakspere.

When it upriseth early by the morrow;

That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow;
So glad am I when that I have presénce

Of it, to doen it all réverence."

Chaucer welcomes the "eye of the day" when "the month of May is comen." Another true poet has immortalized that solitary mountain daisy that he turned down with his plough on a cold April morning:

ROBERT HERRICK is, in his quaint way, a master of his art:

"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,

Until the hasting day