n-book.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Kynge Johan_, a Play in Two Parts. By John Bale. Edited for the
Camden Society by J. Payne Collier, Esq., F. S. A., from the
Manuscript of the Author in the Library of the Duke of Devonshire.
1838.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT ROOMS AND THEIR ORNAMENTS.

The sun shines brightly to-day, and his beams glance lovingly from the
flowers without to those within the room, and rest upon the 'Eve' that
stands among them; the light is toned into softness by this green
drapery, and reminds us of the leaves and tracery which peep in at the
windows. We find, in the effect of the whole, such a delicate reflex
of the nature outside, that we live with a half-conscious perception
that but a tent-like division exists between us and the birds and
blossoms in the garden. We love this room as we do few others, not for
the evidences of wealth in it, though these exist, but because the
idea regulating its arrangement is predominant through all its
details. Affection and love of beauty were present at its creation for
home-life, and worked it into harmony. All rooms might have this kind
of beauty, subject only to slight modifications from position and
wealth.

Character, in reality, has everything to do with it. Rooms tell us
much of their inhabitants. No one will doubt who remembers the stiff,
formal arrangement of the drawing-room 'at school,' where the chairs
stood in the primmest rows and couples, and the whole place breathed
such an air of strict propriety, that we doubted whether a hearty
laugh would not be unbecoming in it; or the uncomfortable, seldom
used, conventional drawing-room, which has such fine-looking,
unreadable books on its polished tables; or the cheerful tiny room of
the friend who has very little money, but very much taste, and who
hangs an engraving there, and puts flowers here, and makes a shrine
out of an ordinary garret. In some rooms, we see that life is
respectably got through in a routine of eating, sleeping,
comfort-loving; in others, that it glances to the stars, and lives
with the flowers; in others, again, that it finds out good in shady
nooks or crowded cities, and is filled with affection and
intelligence.

There are very few rooms, except among the poorest and most degraded,
that have not in them some indications of the love of beauty, which is
so universal in human nature. Influenced by the same feeling, the
cottager's wife scours her tins, arranges her little cupboard o