worthy of a place in the records of literature. His most important prose work is the Lives of Northern Worthies, from which we make a single extract.

THE OPPOSING ARMIES ON MARSTON MOOR.

Fifty thousand subjects of one king stood face to face on Marston Moor, July 2, 1644. The numbers on each side were not far from equal, but never were two hosts speaking one language of more dissimilar aspects. The Cavaliers, flushed with recent victory, identifying their quarrel with their honor and their love; their loose locks escaping beneath their plumed helmets, glittering in all the martial pride which makes the battle-day like a pageant or a festival, and prancing forth with all the grace of gentle birth, as though they would make a jest of death while the spirit-rousing strains of the trumpets made their blood dance, and their steeds prick up their The Roundheads, arranged in thick, dark masses, their steel caps and high-crowned hats drawn close over their brows, looking determination, expressing with furrowed foreheads and hard-closed lips their inly working rage which was blown up to furnace-heat by the extempore effusions of their preachers, and found vent in the terrible denunciations of the Hebrew psalms and prophecies.

The arms of each party were adapted to the nature of their courage the swords, pikes, and pistols of the Royalists, light and bright, were suited for swift onset and ready use; while the ponderous basket-hilted blades, long halberts, and heavy fire-arms of the Parliamentarians were equally suited to resist a sharp attack, and do execution upon a broken enemy. The Royalists regarded their adversaries with that scorn which the gay and high-born always feel or affect for the precise or sour-mannered. The soldiers of the Covenant looked on their enemies as the enemies of Israel, and considered themselves as the Elect and Chosen People-a creed which extinguished fear and remorse together.

It would be hard to say whether there was more praying on the one side or more swearing on the other, VOL. VI.-13

or which to a Christian ear had been the most offensive. Yet both esteemed themselves the champions of the Church. There was bravery and virtue in both but with this high advantage on the Parliamentary side, that while the aristocratic honor of the Royalists could only inspire a certain number of "gentlemen," and separated the patrician from the plebeian soldier, the religious zeal of the Puritans bound officer and man, general and pioneer together, in a fierce and resolute sympathy, and made equality itself an argument for subordination. The captain prayed at the head of his company, and the general's oration was a sermon.Lives of Northern Worthies.

The poems of Hartley Coleridge make a couple of small volumes. A volume of them was published as early as 1833. A new edition of them was put forth in 1850, with a Memoir by his brother, Derwent Coleridge (1800-83), an eminent clergyman and educator, and an author of some repute. One of the pleasantest of these poems is the following:

ADDRESS TO CERTAIN GOLDFISHES.

Restless forms of living light,
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight

With a thousand shadowings;
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams!
Harmless warriors clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale.
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing;
Fleet are ye as fleetest galley,
Or pirate rover sent from Sallee ;
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye in your sea so narrow.

Was the Sun himself your sire?
Were ye born of vital fire?

Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from Eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size
When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were as happy as ye seem;
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleamed in far Cathay.

And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart :
It may be that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your crystal bound,

Is but the task of weary pain,

An endless labor dull and vain ;

And while your forms are gayly shining,
Your little lives are inly pining!—
Nay but still I fain would dream

That ye are happy as ye seem.

Many of the poems of Hartley Coleridge are in the form of sonnets, not a few of them being mournful representations of his own sad and wasted life. Some of these sonnets are among the best in our language.

TO SHAKESPEARE.

The soul of man is larger than the sky;
Deeper than ocean or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed centre. Like that Ark
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,

O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie
That make all worlds. Great Poet, 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whatever love, hate, ambition, destiny,

Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart

Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.

TO WORDSWORTH.

There have been poets that in verse display
The elemental forms of human passions:
Poets have been to whom the fickle fashions,
And all the wilful humors of the day,
Have furnished matters for a polished lay:

And many are the smooth elaborate tribe
Who, emulous of thee, the shape describe,
And fain would every shifting hue portray

Of restless Nature. But thou, mighty Seer! 'Tis thine to celebrate the thoughts that make The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake We to ourselves and to our God are dear.

Of Nature's inner shrine thou art the Priest, Where most she works when we perceive her least.

STILL A CHILD.

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I,
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.

But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and, waking,
I waked to sleep no more; at once o'ertaking

The vanguard of my age, with all arrears

Of duty on my back. Nor child nor man,
Nor youth nor sage, I find my head is gray,
For I have lost the race I never ran :
A rathe December blights my lagging May,
And still I am a child, though I be old;
Time is my debtor for my years untold.