"So fails, so languishes, grows dim, and dies," The grey-haired Wanderer pensively exclaimed, "All that this world is proud of. From their spheres The stars of human glory are cast down; Perish the roses and the flowers of kings, Princes, and emperors, and the crowns and palms Of all the mighty, withered and consumed! Nor is power given to lowliest innocence Long to protect her own. The man himself Departs; and soon is spent the line of those Who, in the bodily image, in the mind, In heart or soul, in station or pursuit, Did most resemble him. Degrees and ranks, Fraternities and orders-heaping high New wealth upon the burthen of the old, And placing trust in privilege confirmed And re-confirmed-are scoffed at with a smile Of greedy foretaste, from the secret stand Of Desolation, aimed: to slow decline These yield, and these to sudden overthrow : Their virtue, service, happiness, and state Expire; and nature's pleasant robe of green, Humanity's appointed shroud, enwraps

Their monuments and their memory. The vast Frame
Of social nature changes evermore

Her organs and her members with decay
Restless, and restless generation, powers
And functions dying and produced at need,-

And by this law the mighty whole subsists:

With an ascent and progress in the main;
Yet, oh! how disproportioned to the hopes
And expectations of self-flattering minds !

The courteous Knight, whose bones are here interred, Lived in an age conspicuous as our own

For strife and ferment in the minds of men,
Whence alteration in the forms of things,
Various and vast. A memorable age!
Which did to him assign a pensive lot—
To linger 'mid the last of those bright clouds
That, on the steady breeze of honour, sailed
In long procession calm and beautiful.

He who had seen his own bright order fade,
And its devotion gradually decline,
(While war, relinquishing the lance and shield,
Her temper changed, and bowed to other laws)
Had also witnessed, in his morn of life,
That violent commotion, which o'erthrew,
In town and city and sequestered glen,
Altar, and cross, and church of solemn roof,
And old religious house-pile after pile;
And shook their tenants out into the fields,
Like wild beasts without home! Their hour was come;
But why no softening thought of gratitude,

No just remembrance, scruple, or wise doubt?
Benevolence is mild; nor borrows help,

Save at worst need, from bold impetuous force,
Fitliest allied to anger and revenge.

But Human-kind rejoices in the might
Of mutability; and airy hopes,

Dancing around her, hinder and disturb
Those meditations of the soul that feed
The retrospective virtues. Festive songs
Break from the maddened nations at the sight
Of sudden overthrow; and cold neglect

Is the sure consequence of slow decay.

Even," said the Wanderer, "as that courteous Knight, Bound by his vow to labour for redress

Of all who suffer wrong, and to enact
By sword and lance the law of gentleness,
(If I may venture of myself to speak,
Trusting that not incongruously I blend
Low things with lofty) I too shall be doomed
To outlive the kindly use and fair esteem
Of the poor calling which my youth embraced
With no unworthy prospect. But enough;
-Thoughts crowd upon me-and 'twere seemlier now
To stop, and yield our gracious Teacher thanks
For the pathetic records which his voice
Hath here delivered; words of heartfelt truth,
Tending to patience when affliction strikes ;
To hope and love; to confident repose
In God; and reverence for the dust of Man."

END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.

THE EXCURSION.

BOOK VIII.

THE PARSONAGE.

VOL. VII.

U

ARGUMENT.

Page 291, Pastor's apology and apprehensions that he might have detained his Auditors too long, with the Pastor's invitation to his house-292, Solitary disinclined to comply-rallies the Wanderer-292, and playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of the Knight-errant-294, which leads to Wanderer's giving an account of changes in the Country from the manufacturing spirit-295, Favourable effects-296, The other side of the picture, and chiefly as it has affected the humbler classes-298, Wanderer asserts the hollowness of all national grandeur if unsupported by moral worth-299, Physical science unable to support itself-300, Lamentations over an excess of manufacturing industry among the humbler Classes of Society-301, Picture of a Child employed in a Cotton-mill -303, Ignorance and degradation of Children among the agricultural Population reviewed-306, Conversation broken off by a renewed Invitation from the Pastor-307, Path leading to his House-307, Its appearance described-308, His Daughter309, His Wife-310, His Son (a Boy) enters with his Companion-311, Their happy appearance-312, The Wanderer how affected by the sight of them.