e of the merits of Sydney, has but
given a suitable expression to sentiments which find an echo in every
bosom:

'Are days of old familiar to thy mind,
Oh reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceiv'd, whilst thou in fancy lived
With high-born beauties and enamor'd chiefs,
Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy,
Whose expectation touched the verge of pain,
Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore
Has ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts
The groves of Penshurst. SYDNEY here was born,
Sydney, than whom no gentler, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feign'd,
Illustrating the vales of Arcady,
With courteous courage and with loyal loves.
Upon his natal day an acorn here
Was planted; it grew up a stately oak,
And in the beauty of its strength it stood
And flourished, when his perishable part
Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak
Itself hath perished now, but Sydney's fame
Endureth in his own immortal works.'

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Before the extension of commerce and manufactories in Europe, the
hospitality of the rich and the great, from the sovereign down to the
smallest baron, exceeded every thing which in the present times we can
easily form a notion of. Westminster Hall was the dining-room of William
Rufus, and might frequently perhaps not be too large for his company. It
was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas a Becket that he strewed
the floor of his hall with clear hay or rushes in the season, in order
that the knights and squires who could not get seats might not spoil their
fine clothes when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The
great Earl of Warwick is said to have entertained every day, at his
different manors, thirty thousand people; and though the number may have
been exaggerated, it must however have been very great to admit of such
exaggeration. The personal expenses of the great proprietors having
gradually increased with the extension of commerce and manufactures, it
was impossible that the number of their retainers should not as gradually
diminish. Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau, for a mess of
pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty
for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the play-things of children than
the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any
substantial burgher or tradesmen in