been smitten, and, humbly begging pardon for his ignorance, yielded up his club and his keys, and proclaimed open gates and free passage to all.

9. After this pretty device, six trumpeters, clad in long garments of silk, and standing upon the wall of the gate, with their silvery trumpets of five feet long sounded a tune of welcome. While they were thus playing, the queen passed across the tilt-yard and rode into the inner gate, and here she was surprised with the sight of a floating island on a large pool. On the island was a beautiful female figure, representing the Lady of the Lake, surrounded by many ladies in rich silks who acted as her attendants. A small boy now rose up from the lake and greeted Her Majesty with another poem, on the age and beauty of the castle, and the dignity of the Earls of Leicester. This pageant was closed with a burst of music, and a new scene was presented to view.

10. Here was a beautiful bridge, seventy feet long and twenty feet wide, leading over a valley to the castle gates. As the queen passed along over this bridge she was presented with various offerings by persons dressed in many different styles and colours. In this way she reached the inner court, and there alighting from her palfrey she was conveyed -up to a chamber. Immediately there followed a great peal of guns and the lighting of many fireworks.

11. While the queen stayed at Kenilworth

there were also tilts and tournaments,' deer-hunting in the park, bear-baiting and bull-baiting, Italian tumblers and rope-dancers, a country bridal ceremony, running, dancing, racing, the most brilliant fireworks, and the best of good cheer. The clock was not allowed to strike, its hands were kept pointing at two o'clock, for that was the hour of banquet, and thus a continual feast was indicated.

12. After the departure of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester came occasionally to reside at Kenilworth. He spent large sums of money in improving the castle and the domains which surround it. He built very extensive stables, and laid out a beautiful pleasure garden; he also adorned and defended the castle by a lake, which was partly artificial. Beyond the lake was the park, where red deer, fallow deer, and all kinds of game abounded. Amidst its lofty trees the towers of the castle seemed to rise in majestic beauty.

13. During the civil war in the reign of Charles I., Kenilworth was seized by Oliver Cromwell, and was given by him to some of his officers. These men soon reduced it to a ruin. They drained the lake, ravaged the woods, beat down the walls, dismantled the towers, destroyed the gardens, and divided the park and the lands among themselves.

1 Tilts and tournaments were entertainments in which the performers engaged in encounters with blunt weapons. The word tilt is perhaps derived from the custom of riding into the field with the lances raised, i.e. tilted. In a tournament the combatants showed their skill in managing their horses, making them wheel and turn in the encounter.

A CONTENTED PEASANT.

THOUGH poor the peasant's hut, his feast though

small,

He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous 1 palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls,2 the finny deep,

Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks that brighten at the blaze-
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

1 Contiguous, lying close by.

2 Trolls, a word used for pike fishing; here applied to all kinds of fishing.

Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And e'en those ills that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign'd;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
Yet let them only share the praises due :
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest;
Whence from such lands each pleasing science' flies
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy ;

Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a smould'ring fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer

On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

1 Science, kind of knowledge.

GOLDSMITH.

A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER FOR A

NIGHT.

PART I.

I. ' WILLIE,

my lad, I shall have to go on

shore for more oil for the lamps. I had no idea my stock had got so low. There's not enough in the cans to last the night. You will not mind staying alone till I come back?'

'No, father,

I shall not mind.
You will have

good time to be

back before it's

'Quite; so good-bye, my boy.'

dark.'

2. Kenneth Mayne was the keeper of a lighthouse on the north-east coast of Scotland. As most