"Now say not so, thou holy friar,

I

pray thee say not so;

My love he had the truest heart,

Oh, he was ever true!

"And art thou dead, thou much-lov'd youth,

And didst thou die for me?

Then farewell, home; for evermore

A pilgrim I will be.

"But first upon my true-love's grave

My weary limbs I'll lay,

And thrice I'll kiss the green-grass turf

That wraps his breathless clay."

"Yet stay, fair lady, rest awhile

Beneath this cloister wall;

See, through the hawthorn blows cold the wind,

And drizzly rain doth fall."

Oh, stay me not, thou holy friar;

Oh, stay me not, I pray ;

No drizzly rain that falls on me
Can wash my fault away."

"Yet stay, fair lady, turn again,
And dry those pearly tears;
beneath this gown of grey

For see, beneath this

Thy own true-love appears.

Here, forced by grief and hopeless love,
These holy weeds I sought,

*

And here amid these lonely walls
To end my days I thought.

"But haply, for my year of grace
Is not yet pass'd away,

Might I still hope to win thy love,
No longer would I stay."

"Now farewell grief, and welcome joy

Once more unto my heart;

For since I have found thee, lovely youth,
We never more will part."

T. PERCY.

The Friar of Orders Gray.-Friar (from French frere, Latin frater, a brother) was a name given to the members of various religious orders in the Catholic Church. Goldsmith's ballad of "Edwin and Angelina" may be profitably compared with this one. The two are founded

on a similar incident.

To tell his beads.-A bead is a little perforated ball to be strung on a thread. In the Catholic Church, they are used in prayer, especially in confession, when a bead is thrown off for every prayer or confession made. This string of beads is called a rosary. To tell means to number, which is the old meaning of the word. So the noun tale means number. Thus (Exodus v. 18), “Ye shall deliver the tale of bricks."

Pilgrim's weeds.-Pilgrim's dress. We still use the word weeds for dress, but generally in the phrase "widow's weeds."

By his cockle-hat and staff, &c.-These two lines describe the ordinary dress of pilgrims. So Byron describes Childe Harold as having "sandal-shoon and scallop

shell." Shoon is the old plural of shoe. Many old plurals were formed in this way. We have (Daniel iii. 21) hosen, the plural of hose; eyne (Scottish een) was a familiar plural of eye.

Six proper youths.-The word proper was used in the sense of comely, handsome. Thus, in "Julius Cæsar," Act i., scene 1, we have " as proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork." Our joys as winged dreams do fly.—Compare Burns's "Tam O'Shanter

"But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow-fall in the river,

A moment white, then melts for ever."

One foot on sea.-The sea has always been the emblem of inconstancy and change.

Young men ever were fickle found.-Compare Coleridge's "Christabel":—

"Constancy lives in realms above,

And life is thorny, and youth is vain.”

My year of grace.-The year of probation. Those who enter monasteries are allowed a certain period of probation before finally taking the vows upon them.

EXERCISES.

1. Explain the various allusions in this ballad.

2. With what other ballad may it be compared ?

3. Point out and explain all the figurative expressions used in this ballad.

4. Give the meaning of these phrases-(a) A lady in pilgrim's weeds; (b) Many a tear bedewed his grave; (c) Some ghostly com> fort seek; (d) Do not my sorrow now reprove; (e) Grief but aggravates thy loss; (f) My year of grace is not yet passed away. 5. Give the meaning of the parts of the following words which are in italics :-Pilgrim, flaxen, bedewed, comfort, reprove, sweetest, aggravates, leafy, breathless, awhile.

e-qui-vo-ca'-tion, lie, a double san'-guine, hopeful.

meaning.

hal'-lowed, sacred, holy.

in-haled', drew in.

ri'-vals, competitors.

spell, charm, power.

spurned, made nought of, cast aside.

stu'-di-o, workshop.

in-dul'-gence, kindness.

ward, keep off.

IT stood in the artist's studio: and all Florence came to look at it, all examined it with curiosity, all admired it with eagerness; all pronounced it the master-piece of Donatello. The whole town was in raptures; and lovely ladies, as they bent from their carriages to answer the salutes of the Princes and Dukes, said, "Have you seen the new statue by Donatello?"

I told thee, Donatello," said one, "thou wouldst excel all thy rivals!"

"Fling by thy chisel now," cried another, "thou canst add nothing to that."

"I shall cease, hereafter, my devotion to the antique," cried a third.

Among the crowds who flocked to the studio of

Donatello, there was a youth who had given some promise of excellence. Many said that with intense study he might one day make his name heard beyond the Alps; and some went so far as to hint that in time he might tread close on the heels even of Donatello himself: but these were sanguine men, and great friends of the young man; besides, they spoke at random.-They called this student Michael Angelo.

He had stood a long time regarding it with fixed eyes and folded arms. He walked from one position to another, measured it with his keen glances from head to foot, regarded it before, behind, and studied its profiles from various points. The venerable Donatello saw him, and awaited his long and absorbed examination, with the flattered pride of an artist, and the affectionate indulgence of a father. At length Michael Angelo stopped once more before it, inhaled a long breath, and broke the profound silence. "It wants only one thing," muttered the gifted boy.

"Tell me,” cried the successful artist, "what it wants. This is the first censure which my St. George has elicited. Can I improve? Can I alter? Is it in the clay or the marble? Tell me!" But the critic had disappeared.

Donatello knew the mighty genius of Michael Angelo. He had beheld the flashes of the sacred fire, and watched the development of the spirit within him.