"Why stand'st there, quoth he, thou brutish block?
Nor for fruit nor for shadow serves thy stock.
Seest how fresh my flowers been spread,
Dyed in lilly white and crimson red,
With leaves engrained in lusty green,
Colours meet to clothe a maiden queen?
Thy waste bigness but cumbers the ground,
And dirks the beauty of my blossoms round;

"The mouldy moss which thee accloyeth
My cinnamon smell too much annoyeth:
Wherefore soon, I rede thee, hence remove,
Lest thou the price of my displeasure prove.
So spake this bold Brere with great disdain;
Little him answered the Oak again;
But yielded, with shame and grief adowed
That of a weed he was over-crowed.

"It chanced after upon a day

The husbandman's self to come that way,
Of custom to suview his ground

And his trees of state in compass round;
Him, when the spiteful Brere had espied,
He causeless complained, and loudly cried
Unto his Lord, stirring up stern strife ;—

"O my liege lord! the God of my life,
Please of you pond your suppliant's plaint,
Caused of wrong and cruel constraint,
Which I your poor vassal daily endure;
And, but your goodness the same secure,
Am like for desperate dole to die,
Through felonous force of mine enemy.

"Greatly aghast with this piteous plea,
Him rested the goodman on the lea,
And bade the Brere in his plaint proceed.
With painted words tho gan this proud weed
(As most usen ambitious folk)

His coloured crime with craft to cloak:-
Ah, my sovereign! lord of creatures all,
Thou placer of plants both humble and tall,
Was not I planted of thine own hand,
To be the primrose of all thy land,

With flowering blossoms to furnish the prime,
And scarlet berries in summer time?
How falls it then that this faded Oak,
Whose body is sere, whose branches broke,
Whose naked arms stretch unto the fire,
Unto such tyranny doth aspire.
Hindering with his shade my lively light,
And robbing me of the sweet sun's sight?

VOL. VII.

D d

So beat his old boughs my tender side,

That oft the blood springeth from woundes wide,
Untimely my flowers forced to fall,

That been the honour of your coronal;
And oft he lets his canker-worms light
Upon my branches, to work me more spite,
And oft his hoary locks down doth cast,
Wherewith my fresh flowrets been defast.
For this, and many more such outrage
Crave I your goodlyhead to assuage
The rancorous rigour of his might:
Nought ask I but only to hold my right,
Submitting me to your good sufferance,
And praying to be guarded from grievance.

"To this the Oak cast him to reply
Well as he couth, but his enemy
Had kindled such coals of displeasure,
That the goodman nould stay his leisure,
But home him hasted with furious heat,
Increasing his wrath with many a threat;
His harmful hatchet he hent in hand
(Alas! that it so ready should stand!)
And to the field alone he speedeth
(Aye little help to harm there needeth)
Anger nould let him speak to the tree,
Enaunter his rage mould cooled be,
But to the root bent his sturdy stroke,
And made many wounds in the wasted Oak;
The axe's edge did oft turn again,
As half unwilling to cut the grain;
Seemed the senseless iron did fear,
Or to wrong holy eld did forbear;
For it had been an ancient tree,
Sacred with many a mystery,

And often crossed with the priest's crew,
And often hallowed with holy water due;
But like fancies weren foolery,

And broughten this oak to this misery;

For nought mought they quitten him from decay;
For fiercely the goodman at him did lay.

The block oft groaned under his blow,
And sighed to see his near overthrow;
In fine the steel had pierced his peth;

Tho down to the ground he fell therewith.

His wondrous weight made the ground to quake,
The earth sunk under him, and seemed to shake;
There lieth the Oak, pitied of none.

Now stands the Brere like a lord alone,
Puffed up with pride and vain pleasance :
But all this glee had no continuance ;

For eftsoons winter gan to approach,
The blustering Boreas did encroach
And beat upon the solitary Brere,
For now no succour was seen him near.
Now gan he repent his pride too late ;
For, naked left and desolate,

The biting frost nipt his stalk dead,
The watery wet weighed down his head,
And heaped snow burthened him so sore
That now upright he can stand no more;
And, being down, is trod in the dirt

Of cattle, and brouzed, and sorely hurt.
Such was the end of this ambitious Brere,
For scorning eld."

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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,
De pensers bienveillants,

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
The antique, easy chair,

And pass my fingers softly o'er
A wreath of silvered hair;

* Constitut. Eremit. Camaldulensis, c. 7.

† Ap. Maitland, The Dark Ages.

To press my glowing lips upon
The furrow'd brow, and gaze
Within the sunken eye, where dwells
The lights of other days.'

"To fold the pale and feeble hand
That on my youthful head
Has lain so tenderly, the while
The evening prayer was said.
To nestle down close to the heart,
And marvel how it held
Such tomes of legendary lore,
The chronicles of Eld.

"Oh! youth, thou hast so much of joy,
So much of life, and love,
So many hopes; Age has but one-
The hope of bliss above.

Then turn awhile from these away
To cheer the old and bless

The wasted heart-spring with a stream
Of gushing tenderness.

"Thou treadest now a path of bloom,
And thine exulting soul

66

Springs proudly on, as tho' it mocked
At Time's unfelt control.

But they have march'd a weary way,
Upon a thorny road,

Then soothe the toil-worn spirits, 'ere
They pass away to God.

"Yes, love the aged-bow before
The venerable form,

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,
Regard and love the old."

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