s of nineteen to
twenty-four, and which have been recently followed to their graves by
the mother that gave them birth--he made shift, notwithstanding the
expenses of their college education, and keeping up the reputation of
a truly hospitable table, to collect, from year to year, a certain
number of volumes, according to a certain sum of money appropriated
for the purchase of them; generally making himself master of the
principal contents of the first year's purchase, before the ensuing
one was placed upon his shelves. He lives in a large ancestral house;
and his library is most advantageously situated and delightfully
fitted up. Disliking such a wintry residence as Thomson has
described[165]--although fond of solemn retirement, and of Cowper's
"boundless contiguity of shade,"--he has suffered the rules of common
sense always to mingle themselves in his plans of domestic comfort;
and, from the bow-windowed extremity of his library, he sees realized,
at the distance of four hundred yards, Caesar's gently-flowing river
_Arar_,[166] in a stream which loses itself behind some low shrubs;
above which is a softly-undulating hill, covered with hazel, and
birch, and oak. To the left is an open country, intersected with
meadows and corn fields, and terminated by the blue mountains of
Malvern at the distance of thirteen miles. Yet more to the left, but
within one hundred and fifty yards of the house, and forming something
of a foreground to the landscape, are a few large and lofty elm trees,
under which many a swain has rested from his toil; many a tender vow
has been breathed; many a sabbath-afternoon[167] innocently kept; and
many a village-wake cordially celebrated! Some of these things yet
bless the aged eyes of ORLANDO!

[Footnote 165:

"In the wild depth of Winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat
Between the groaning forest and the shore,
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, sheltered, solitary scene!"----

_Winter._

One would like a situation somewhat more _sheltered_, when
"The ceaseless winds blow ice!"]

[Footnote 166: "Flumen est _Arar_, quod per fines Aeduorum et
Sequanorum in Rhodanum fluit, incredibili lenitate, ita ut
oculis, in utram partem fluat, judicari nos possit." _De
Bell. Gall._, lib. i., Sec. x. Philemon might as happily
have compared Orlando's quiet stream t