L'ENVOI

GOOD-BYE to you, KELLY, your fetters are

broken!

Good-bye to you, CUMBERLAND, GOLDSMITH has spoken!

Good-bye to sham Sentiment, moping and mumming,

For GOLDSMITH has spoken and SHERIDAN'S coming;

And the frank Muse of Comedy laughs in free

air

As she laughed with the Great Ones, with SHAKESPEARE, MOLIÈRE!

PROLOGUE TO

ABBEY'S "QUIET LIFE”

EVEN as one in city pent,

Dazed with the stir and din of town,

Drums on the pane in discontent,

And sees the dreary rain come down, Yet, through the dimmed and dripping glass,

Beholds, in fancy, visions pass

Of Spring that breaks with all her leaves,
Of birds that build in thatch and eaves,
Of woodlands where the throstle calls,
Of girls that gather cowslip balls,
Of kine that low, and lambs that cry,
Of wains that jolt and rumble by,
Of brooks that sing by brambly ways,
Of sunburned folk that stand at gaze,
Of all the dreams with which men cheat
The stony sermons of the street,
So, in its hour, the artist brain

Weary of human ills and woes,
Weary of passion and of pain,

And vaguely craving for repose, Deserts awhile the stage of strife To draw the even, ordered life,

The easeful days, the dreamless nights,
The homely round of plain delights,
The calm, the unambitioned mind,
Which all men seek, and few men find.

EPILOGUE.

LET the dream pass, the fancy fade!
We clutch a shape, and hold a shade.
Is Peace so peaceful? Nay,-who knows
There are volcanoes under snows.

DEDICATION OF

"THE STORY OF ROSINA"

(TO AN IDEAL READER)

WHAT would our modern maids to-day?

I watch, and can't conjecture:

A dubious tale?—an Ibsen play ?—
A pessimistic lecture?

I know not.

But this, Child, I know

You like things sweet and seemly, Old-fashioned flowers, old shapes in Bow, "Auld Robin Gray" (extremely);

You with my "Dorothy "1-delight
In fragrant cedar-presses;
In window corners warm and bright,
In lawn, and lilac dresses;

You still can read, at any rate,
Charles Lamb and "Evelina;"

To you, My Dear, I dedicate
This "STORY OF ROSINA."

1 See ante, p. 104.

PROLOGUE TO

"EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VIGNETTES"

(THIRD SERIES)

"Versate

Quid valeant humeri."-HOR, Ars Poetica.

HOW shall a Writer change his ways?
Read his Reviewers' blame, not praise

In blame, as Boileau said of old,
The truth is shadowed, if not told.

There! Let that row of stars extend
To hide the faults I mean to mend.
Why should the Public need to know
The standard that I fall below?
Or learn to search for that defect
My Critic bids me to correct?
No in this case the Worldly-Wise
Keep their own counsel-and revise.

Yet something of my Point of View
I may confide, my Friend, to You.
I don't pretend to paint the vast
And complex picture of the Past:
Not mine the wars of humankind,
"The furious troops in battle joined;"