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that he would be our governor,
And of our Talès judge and réporter,

And set a supper at a certain price;
And we would rulèd be at his device
In high and low.

With the dawn of day the pilgrims fet forth, the host having reminded them of their engagement of the previous evening, respecting implicit obedience to his rule; and when fairly on their road, the knight commenced that series of tales in which Chaucer has fo fuccessfully depicted the inner life, the habits, form of expreffion, and thoughts of the English people during the stirring times of the Plantagenets.

At Walfingham, in the county of Norfolk, there was also a famous fhrine of "Our Lady," at which many pilgrims paid their homage, and in connexion with it there is one of the choicest of England's old ballads :

As ye came from the holy land

Of blessed Walsingham,

O met you not with my true love,
As by the way ye came?

"How should I know your true love
"That have met many a one,
"As I came from the holy land,

"That have both come and gone?"

My love is neither white nor browne,
But as the heavens faire;
There is none hath her form divine,
Either in earth or ayre.

"Such a one did I meet, good sir,

"With an angelicke face;

"Who like a nymphe, a queene appeard "Both in her gait, her grace."

Yes she hath cleane forsaken me,

And left me all alone;

Who some time loved me as her life,

And called me her owne.

"What is the cause she leaves thee thus,

"And a new way doth take;

"That some time loved thee as her life, "And thee her joy did make?"

I that loved her all my youth,
Growe old now as you see :
Love liketh not the falling fruite,

Nor yet the withered tree.

For Love is like a carelesse childe,

Forgetting promise past;

He is blind, or deaf, whenere he list;

His faith is never fast.

His fond desire is fickle found,

And yieldes a trustlesse joye; Wonne with a world of toil and care, And lost ev'n with a toye.

Such is the love of womankinde,
Of Love's faire name abusde,
Beneath which many vaine desires
And follyes are excusde.

But true love is a durable fyre,
In the mind ever burnynge,
Never sycke, never ould, never dead;
From itself never turninge.

THE OLD ABBEYS OF ENGLAND.

OOCOOOOOOOO HE old Abbeys of England! how pic

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turesque they stand in their ruins! proud

and defolate memorials of a time when the new-born freedom of thought and

mind indulged in the wildest freaks of its youthful exceffes; and, aided by fovereign power, marked its progress towards reflecting manhood by the wanton deftruction of some of the nobleft edifices of our country. Time, the ruthless deftroyer, ftill fpares the old abbeys; and Nature kindly clothes them with the mantling ivy, to protect them in their green old age.

I do love these ancient ruins :

We never tread upon them, but we set
Our foot upon some rev'rend history;
And questionless, here in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries

Of stormy weather, some lie interred,

Loved the church so well, and gave so largely to 't,
They thought it should have canopied their bones
Till doomsday; but all things have their end;
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,
Must have like death that we have.

Many a one who has gazed upon an old abbey noble in its ruins, the rank grafs growing in its deferted cloifters, the chambers and refectories, once the bufy haunts of men, now filent and tenantless, will have felt something of that feeling which Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Cromwell

The infant yet unborn

Will curse the time the altars were pulled down.

I pray now, where is Hospitality?

Where now may poor distressed people go
For to relieve their need, or rest their bones
When weary travel doth oppress their limbs?
And where religious men should take them in,
They'll now be kept back by a mastiff dog.

A Norman abbey, while yet some of its glories clung around it, is thus described by Byron :

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley,

Crown'd by high woodlands, where the druid oak

Stood like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally

The dappled foresters-as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmur'd like a bird.

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