Crotchet Castle

?ναβ?τε? ?π?πλ

, they cleft the

merrily, by strong trotting horses, against the stream of the Thames. They passed from the district of chalk, successively into the districts of clay, of sand-rock, of oolite, and so forth. Sometimes they dined in their floating

in these great reservoirs of books whereof no man ever draws a sluice, Quorsum pertinuit stipere Platona Menandro? What is done here for the classics? Reprinting German editions on better paper. A great boast, verily! What for mathematics? What for metaphysics? What for history? What for anything worth knowing? This was a seat of learning in the days of Friar Bacon. But the Friar is gone, an

ng to have a great reservoir of learning

for. But the system of dissuasion from all good learning is brought here to a pitch of perfection that baffles the keenest aspirant. I run over to myself the names of the scholars of Germany, a glorious catalogue: but ask for those of Oxford,-Where a

t; and if the good things of this world, which ought to be the rewards of learning, become the mere gifts of self-interested patronage; you m

e me on a toast, with a white napkin wrapped round it. Nothing trundles along the high road of preferment so trimly as a well-biassed sconce, picked clean within and polished without; totus teres atque rotundu

of Rosamond; and, proceeding on their voyage,

re romance is mixed up with it. The great enchanter has made me learn many things which I

r is that? There are two enchanters:

illo.-

ury, has produced two pantomimes a year, to the delight of children of all ages; including myself at all ages. That is the enchanter for me. I am

you do not class lit

heraldry, falconry, minstrelsy, scenery, monkery, witchery, devilry, robbery, poachery, piracy, fishery, gipsy-astrology, demonology, architecture, fortification, castrametation, navigation; the same running base of love and battle. The main difference is, that the one set of amusing fictions is told in music and action; th

a.-Very amus

liott.-Very amus

rthern enchanter is, that he has gros

ng. Sober truth is but dull matter to the reading rabble. The angler, who puts not on his hoo

xhibiting some of its knights and ladies in the colours of refinement and virtue, seein

e, not, as you suppose, much better. No one would infer from his pictures

butions with fire and sword; plundering, torturing, ravishing, burying his captives in loathsome dungeons, and broiling them on gridirons, to force from them the surrender of every particle of treasure which he suspected them of

er, too, that these lords were petty princes, and made war on each other as legitimately as the heads of larger communities did or do. For their system of revenue, it was, to be sure, more rough and summary than that which has succeeded it, but it was certainly less searching and less productive. And as to the people, I content myself with these great points: that every man was armed, every man was a good archer, every man could and would fight effectively, wi

se colours of chivalry, thrown too attractive a light on their abominable doings. As to the people, he keeps them so much in the background, that he can hardly be said to have represented them at

t to their simple industry. When oppression interfered with them in that, then they s

ved by B., knocks down C., do you

hat depends on w

he twelfth century too brightly for one, and too darkly for the other of you, I should say, as an impartial man, he has represented it fairly. My quarrel with him is, that his works contain nothing worth quoting; and a book that furnishes