In sickness, or in health, in joy or tears,
In summer-days, or cold adversity;
And still it feels Heav'n's breath, reviving, steal
On its lone breast--feels the warm blessedness
Of Heaven's own light about it, though its leaves
Are wet with ev'ning tears!
So smiles this flow'r:
And if, perchance, my lay has dwelt too long.
Upon one flower which blooms in privacy,
I may a pardon find from human hearts,
For such was my poor Mother![4]

[4] Daughter of Dr. Grey, author of Memoria Technica, &c. rector of
Hinton, Northamptonshire, and prebendary of St. Paul's.

We pass over some marine sketches, which are worthy of the _Vernet_ of
poets, a touching description of the sinking of a packet-boat, and the
first sound and sight of the sea--the author's childhood at Uphill
Parsonage--his reminiscences of the clock of Wells Cathedral--and some
real villatic sketches--a portrait of a _Workhouse Girl_--some caustic
remarks on prosing and prig parsons, commentators, and puritanical
excrescences of sects--to some unaffected lines on the village school
children of Castle-Combe, and their annual festival. This is so charming
a picture of rural joy, that we must copy it:--

If we would see the fruits of charity.
Look at that village group, and paint the scene.
Surrounded by a clear and silent stream,
Where the swift trout shoots from the sudden ray,
A rural mansion, on the level lawn,