Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come, and aid thy sister muse;
Now, while Phoebus, riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong.
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal:
The mountains round, unhappy fate!
Sooner or later, of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,

And sinks the newly risen hill.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,

What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapors intervene,
But the gay, the open scene,
Does the face of nature show,
In all the hues of heaven's bow;
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Below me trees unnumbered rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.
And beyond the purple grove,

Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!
Gaudy as the opening dawn,

Lies a long and level lawn,

On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wandering eye!
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood,
His sides are clothed with waving wood,
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;

Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps :
So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence find.

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode ;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds,
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary mouldered walls.
Yet Time has seen-that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow—
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state;
But transient is the smile of Fate!
A little rule, a little sway,

A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun.
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep,
Like human life, to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wandering thought;
Thus she dresses green and gay,
To disperse our cares away.

See, on the mountain's southern side,
Where the prospect opens wide,
Where the evening gilds the tide,
How close and small the hedges lie!
What streaks of meadows cross the eye:
A step, methinks, may pass the stream,
So little distant dangers seem;

So we mistake the future's face,
Eyed through hope's deluding glass;
As yon summits soft and fair,

Clad in colors of the air,

Which to those who journey near,

Barren, brown, and rough appear;
Still we tread the same coarse way,
The present's still a cloudy day.

Now, even now, my joys run high,
As on the mountain turf I lie ;
While the wanton zephyr sings,
And in the vale perfumes his wings;
While the waters murmur deep,
While the shepherd charms his sheep,
While the birds unbounded fly,
And with music fill the sky,

Now, even now, my joys run high.

Be full, ye courts; be great who will; Search for Peace with all your skill; Open wide the lofty door,

Seek her on the marble floor :

In vain you search, she is not there;
In vain you search the domes of Care!
Grass and flowers Quiet treads,
On the meads and mountain heads,
Along with Pleasure close allied,
Ever by each other's side:
And often, by the murmuring rill,
Hears the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill.

DYER, THOMAS HENRY, an English historian and biographer, born in London, May 4, 1804; died at Bath, January 30, 1888. He was privately educated. For some years he was employed in a West India house, but after the emancipation of the negroes, he established himself in London and adopted literature as a profession. He travelled extensively on the continent and particularly studied the topography and antiquities of Rome, Athens, and Pompeii. He was presented, in 1865, with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of St. Andrews. He published a Life of Calvin (1850); History of Modern Europe (1861); History of the City of Rome (1865); History of Pompeii (1867); History of the Kings of Rome (1868); Ancient Athens (1873), and Imitative Art, Its Principles and Progress (1882). He also published many articles in the Classical Museum and in Smith's Dictionaries of Biography and Geography.

Mrs. Oliphant, in her Victorian Age of English Literature, says: "Foreign history has never had very much attraction for English writers, but there have been a certain number of exceptions in our time. Thomas Henry Dyer is well known for his elaborate and conscientious History of Modern Europe, from the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 to the close of the Crimean War. It is remarkable for the lucid manner in

which it deals with the curious revolution that followed upon the establishment of the Turks in Europe, the exchange of the old religions for a new political unity, and the gradual building-up of our modern Europe and its ideas upon the balance of power, the explanation of which problem was Dyer's principal object."

THE PICTURES IN THE POCILË.

The first picture in the Pocilë represented the Athenians drawn up in order of battle, and preparing to engage the Lacedæmonians. Pausanias then proceeds to speak of the middle wall; whence we may conclude with Siebelis that the portico was closed on three sides, and that the middle wall, or that facing the entrance, was double the length of the side walls, as it appears to have contained two pictures, and the others only one. The first of the pictures on the centre wall represented Theseus and the Athenians combating the Amazons. The subject of the second picture was the Greeks and their kings debating about the outrage of Ajax on Cassandra after the capture of Troy. Here Ajax himself was represented, as well as Cassandra and other captive

women.

The last of the paintings had for its subject the battle of Marathon. In the foreground the Athenians and Platæans-the only Greeks who aided them against the Persians were seen engaged with the Persians in equal combat, the Platæans aided by Boeotian dogs. Beyond these, in the middle ground, the barbarians were flying, and pushing one another into the marsh. This lake or marsh was that formed by the Charadras, under the hills of the isthmus of Rhamnus. In the extreme distance were the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks slaying the barbarians who were attempting to get on board. In the picture were also represented the divinities and heroes who were thought to have aided the Athenians in the fight; as the hero Marathon, son of Apollo, after whom the district was named; Theseus ascending