Mock this gift of thy bestowing,
Though my soul be overflowing-

Sudden silence, as of tears.

Hush, though the hearts of men refuse to dance
To my small pipings, yet I well may pause
Before I break my lute, and watch them prance
To many a drinking-booth's obscene applause.
Is this the song that moves them? Then perchance,
My doubt may lift me to diviner laws!

I am a poet still-because-because

Because I'm with the swallow, however far he flies,
Because the lark within me leaps upwards to the skies,
Because, where'er there's singing of birds on hill or plain,
We catch each other's meaning and join in one refrain ;
Because the forest temples where God has made his throne
Can rustle to a rising chaunt they sing to me alone;
Because, where'er I find them among the waving grass,
The daisies and the violets nod shyly as I pass;

Because the flowers have secrets that few men seem to see,
And yet they ope their bosoms and tell their tales to me;
Because the earth is fairer, because the roses blow
With a loveliness and purity that few men care to know;
Because the heavens are higher than many dare to think,
Because the heavens are nearer; I tremble on their brink;
And, oh, because to all the joys of birds and beasts and flies,
The myriad joys that move the earth and fill the summer
skies,

There's something in this heart of mine, there's something that replies.

Because those other singers whom death has granted fame Stand by my side in solemn hours and call me by my

name;

Because I dare to meet their gaze and seem to understand The language which proclaims them all of one great father

land;

Because their touch is on me, because in accents mild
They hail me as a follower, a servant, yet a child;
Because the fairies hearken; I call them at mine ease;
Because I hear the angel's harps in the pauses of the breeze;
Because a spirit's with me, where'er my steps have trod,
Whose eyes have something of myself, and, oh, far more of
God;

Because when night is silent, I watch the planets roll,

And hear their solemn melodies in the centre of my soul;
Because of one great action I feel myself the part,

A life whose sphere is nature, a life whose voice is art,
And in my breast re-echo the pulsings of its heart.

Because my thoughts are splendour, because my thoughts are sin,

With a shock, as if of armies amid the battle's din;

Because the shades of former days go with me on my way, And because to-morrow's sunshine is on my path to-day; Because my heart-strings tremble to the pressure of thy hand,

And because I live a sorrow which none can understand.

Then by that deeper life which meets my own,
The while the crowds unheeding pass their way,
And cheat and chaffer through the live-long day,
Then by that strength of love which doth enthrone
My love in all that lives, no more alone,
King among equals, ruling to obey,

Then by the harmonies of earth and heaven,
Which, thrilling through the universe, have smote
Thy thousand singers of the heart and throat
To one all-thankful, all-triumphant note,
Then by the sympathy which thou hast given,
And by the veil which, from thy darkness riven,
Reveals some deeper glory of the whole,
Then by the inner answer of my soul:-
Men's little cooking-fires make smoke, not night,
And even in thy sun's all-radiant sight-
Nay, falter not, O heart!-my little light is light!

And thou thyself, who art

The poetry of the human heart,

Who knowest all my weakness, and the lie Within me, and my love's despairing cry, Who gavest wings, teach thou me how to fly, On high for evermore, and evermore on high !

The Sleeping Premier.

LORD NORTH, to whom we may apply the above epithet, was a statesman who could command somnolence as he could command votes; and Gibbon the historian-who was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard in 1774-has described him as "slumbering between the two great legal pillars of his administration, Thurlow and Wedderburn." North was a big, burly, good-humoured man, and it is perhaps no discredit to him that while Parliamentary bores wearied the House with their dreary platitudes, he crushed his hat over his eyes and went off to sleep. But when he desired to be awake, he could be very wide-awake indeed, as his opponents found to their cost. Burke, one of his keenest opponents, thus referred to North a few days only before he became Prime Minister:-"The noble lord who spoke last, after extending his right leg a full yard before his left, rolling his flaming eyes, and moving his ponderous frame, has at length opened his mouth." Yet Burke forgot to add that he opened it to some purpose. Many eminent statesmen have had every sense but common-sense; but this was Lord North's saving grace. Defects of form and gesture were forgotten in the excellence of his matter and his genial pleasantry; and while he could lay no claim to eloquence, a familiar line will admirably explain his potency in debate"Behold how plain a tale shall put thee down!"

Frederick, Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guildford, was born in 1733. After being educated at Eton and Oxford, he proceeded to the Continent, where he remained for three years. Unlike many clever men, he never lost his classical attainments, and while he was abroad he made himself master in addition of French, German, and Italian. When he came of age he was returned to Parliament for the family borough of Banbury; and in 1759, he was named a Lord of the Treasury through the influence of his kinsman, the Duke of Newcastle. As at this time he was twentysix years of age, he cannot be said to have been a precocious politician like Pitt. North retired from office at the formation of

the first Rockingham Administration, but in 1766 he was appointed by Lord Chatham Joint Paymaster of the Forces, and, in the year following, succeeded the brilliant but erratic Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He never sought honours or promotion, and yet both fell to his lot, and he became the best-beloved of all the Ministers of George III. At the same time he incurred no small share of unpopularity because of the responsibility he was compelled to assume in connection with the American War.

In an interesting autobiographical speech delivered in 1769which may be styled his apologia pro vitá sua-Lord North observed, "I do not dislike popularity, but it so happens that for the last seven years I have never given my vote for any one of the popular measures. In 1763 I supported the Cider Tax"this tax was more fiercely denounced than Robert Lowe's famous Match Tax-" and I afterwards opposed the repeal of that tax; a vote of which I never repented. In 1765 I was for the American Stamp Act; and when, in the following year a bill was brought in for the repeal of that Act I directly opposed it, for I saw the danger of repeal. And when again in 1767 it was thought necessary to relieve the people by reducing the land tax to the amount of half a million, I was against that measure also. Then appeared on the public stage that strange phenomenon of popularity, Mr. Wilkes. I was the first to move his expulsion in 1764. Every subsequent proceeding against that man I have supported; and I will again vote for his expulsion if he again attempts to take his seat in this House. In all my memory, therefore, I do not recollect a single popular measure I ever voted for; no, not even the Nullum Tempus Bill"—a measure to secure the property of a subject at any time after sixty years' possession from any dormant pretension of the Crown-" nor the declaration of law in the case of General Warrants. I state this to prove that I am not an ambitious man. Men may be popular without being ambitious, but there is rarely an ambitious man who does not try to be popular." What would be thought at the present day of any leading statesman who made it his special boast that he had never supported a popular measure!

It is a curious thing that although Lord North was not a man of genius, and suffered from many physical defects—including extreme near-sightedness-he had yet such intellectual gifts, combined with high character and unfailing courage, that he was able to stand firm for years against the efforts of Fox and Burke, of Dunning and Savile, and, last but not least, the younger Pitt. His cheerful temper was never ruffled, and while his opponents