Orlando (continued Philemon) had from his boyhood loved books and book-reading. His fortune was rather limited; but he made shift—after bringing up three children, whom he lost from the ages of nineteen to twenty-four, and which have been recently followed to their graves by the mother that gave them birth—he made shift, notwithstanding the expenses of their college education, and keeping up the reputation of a truly hospitable table, to collect, from year to year, a certain number of volumes, according to a certain sum of money appropriated for the purchase of them; generally making himself master of the principal contents of the first year's purchase, before the ensuing one was placed upon his shelves. He lives in a large ancestral house; and his library is most advantageously situated and delightfully fitted up. Disliking such a wintry residence as Thomson has described[165]—although fond of solemn retirement, and of Cowper's "boundless contiguity of shade,"—he has suffered the rules of common sense always to mingle themselves in his plans of domestic comfort; and, from the bow-windowed extremity of his library, he sees realized, at the distance of four hundred yards, Cæsar's gently-flowing river Arar,[166] in a stream which loses itself behind some low shrubs; above which is a softly-undulating hill, covered with hazel, and birch, and oak. To the left is an open country, intersected with meadows and corn fields, and terminated by the blue mountains of Malvern at the distance of thirteen miles. Yet more to the left, but within one hundred and fifty yards of the house, and forming something of a foreground to the landscape, are a few large and lofty elm trees, under which many a swain has rested from his toil; many a tender vow has been breathed; many a sabbath-afternoon[167] innocently kept; and many a village-wake cordially celebrated! Some of these things yet bless the aged eyes of Orlando!
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"In the wild depth of Winter, while without The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat Between the groaning forest and the shore, Beat by the boundless multitude of waves, A rural, sheltered, solitary scene!"—— Winter. |
One would like a situation somewhat more sheltered, when "The ceaseless winds blow ice!"
[166] "Flumen est Arar, quod per fines Æduorum et Sequanorum in Rhodanum fluit, incredibili lenitate, ita ut oculis, in utram partem fluat, judicari nos possit." De Bell. Gall., lib. i., § x. Philemon might as happily have compared Orlando's quiet stream to "the silent river"
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——quæ Liris quietâ Mordet aquâ—— |
which Horace has so exquisitely described, in contrast with
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——obliquis laborat Lympha fugax trepidare rivo. Carm., lib. i., Od. xxxi., lib. ii., Od. ii. |
Yet let us not forget Collin's lovely little bit of landscape—
"Where slowly winds the stealing wave."