"Why stand'st there, quoth he, thou brutish block? "The mouldy moss which thee accloyeth "It chanced after upon a day The husbandman's self to come that way, And his trees of state in compass round; "O my liege lord! the God of my life, "Greatly aghast with this piteous plea, His coloured crime with craft to cloak:- With flowering blossoms to furnish the prime, VOL. VII. D d So beat his old boughs my tender side, That oft the blood springeth from woundes wide, That been the honour of your coronal; "To this the Oak cast him to reply And often crossed with the priest's crew, And broughten this oak to this misery; For nought mought they quitten him from decay; The block oft groaned under his blow, Tho down to the ground he fell therewith. His wondrous weight made the ground to quake, Now stands the Brere like a lord alone, For eftsoons winter gan to approach, The biting frost nipt his stalk dead, Of cattle, and brouzed, and sorely hurt. 66 Central principles associated in their completest form of Catholicity can attract the old, then, by a consideration that they not only teach men to recognize the services which their age is capable of rendering, but also that they tend to ameliorate its condition in every respect, by securing for it the veneration and love of those with whom it is surrounded, and who, on seeing it, may cry, Ay, here's the ground whereon my filial faculties must build an edifice of honour or of shame to all mankind." This, again, is an instance of adherence to the ancient sentiments of humanity. "I respect your age," says Orestes, "the sight of your grey hairs fills me with veneration, and prevents me from speaking." Pliny, even in his forest wanderings, seems to be thinking about what service he can render the old; for when treating on trees he fails not to distinguish those which, by the lightness of their wood, furnish the best staffs for aged men *. It would be very significative to remark the tender solicitude evinced towards the old, wherever Catholicity sways a people. As the oaks upon the Cap de Buch, in La Guienne, nearly surrounded by sea, are only kept alive by means of the maritime pines which shelter them; or, as stumps of white pines, which have been cut down, continue to grow, by means, as some think, of root nourishment received by the stump from a neighbouring living tree of the same species, the roots of which have become united with those of the cut tree by their having grown together; so are the old of human kind kept fresh at the heart, and often flourishing externally by the sheltering care and generous prodigality of those who have been taught and formed by the old instructions of Catholicism, long since passed into nature, and who feel it to be their holiest duty to tend and love them. How many, too, within the stricter sphere of this influence, devote themselves, like St. Mecthild, to visit and tend the aged and in *Nat. Hist. lib. xiii. 42. "Since old firm, even when personally unconnected with them! age," say the hermits of Camaldoli, "is a perpetual sickness, the aged must be tenderly cherished; and therefore all the fathers are exhorted in the bowels of Jesus Christ to show themselves full of regard, and humanity, and compassion for the old; and those who act otherwise are to be punished severely *." "He who has attained the fiftieth year of profession," says Ingulph, speaking of the different classes of monks in England, "shall be called a Sempecta, and he shall have a good chamber assigned to him by the prior in the infirmary; and he shall have an attendant or servant especially appointed to wait on him, who shall receive from the abbot an allowance of provision, the same in mode and measure as is allowed for the servant of a knight in the abbot's hall. To the sempecta the prior shall every day assign a companion, as well for the instruction of the junior as for the solace of the senior; and their meals shall be supplied to them from the infirmary kitchen, according to the allowance for the sick. As to the sempecta himself, he may sit or walk, or go in or go out, according to his own will and pleasure. He may go in and out of the choir, the cloister, the refectory, the dormitory, and the other offices of the monastery, with or without a frock, how and when he pleases. Nothing unpleasant respecting the concerns of the monastery shall be talked of before him. Nobody shall vex him about any thing; but in the most perfect peace and quietness of mind he shall wait for his end +." Such was the condition of old age in the cloister. What must it have been in the kind home where central principles were ever in action, to secure as far as possible domestic tenderness? Hence, the poet of a country still greatly influenced by Catholicism says, pour garder toujours la beauté de son âme, Pour se remplir le cœur, riche ou pauvre, homme ou femme, Vous avez ce qu'on peut, après Dieu, sur la terre, Contempler de plus saint et de plus salutaire, Un père en cheveux blancs!" Beautifully does a poet, too, in a London popular journal, express the ancient sentiment in regard to age: "I love the old, to lean beside And pass my fingers softly o'er * Constitut. Eremit. Camaldulensis, c. 7. † Ap. Maitland, The Dark Ages. To press my glowing lips upon "To fold the pale and feeble hand "Oh! youth, thou hast so much of joy, Then turn awhile from these away The wasted heart-spring with a stream "Thou treadest now a path of bloom, 66 Springs proudly on, as tho' it mocked But they have march'd a weary way, Then soothe the toil-worn spirits, 'ere "Yes, love the aged-bow before So soon to seek beyond the sky A shelter from the storm. Aye, love them; let thy silent heart, With reverence untold, As pilgrims very near to Heaven, Thoughtful and observant minds have been impressed with a painful sense of contrast when they looked around them, in the absence of central principles, and, wherever faith seemed to be eclipsed, with all the sentiments that are gathered round it, surveyed the condition of the old. Reverence once had wont to wait on age; formerly, as we have seen, the old man resembled the oak, which is not left solitary in its declining years; bright green mosses growing about its venerable roots. It is no longer generally so, where central principles have yielded to antago nistic influences. Stained with no crime, yet "that which should accompany old age-as honour, love, obedience, troops of |