"In his fine frame the throstle feels The music that his note reveals; And spite of shafts and nets, How better is the dying bird Than some dumb stone that ne'er was heard, That arrow never threats? "Disdaining man, the mountains rise; Is love less kindred with the skies, Or less their Maker's will? The strains, without a human cause, Flow on, unheeding lies and laws-- Will hearts for words be still? "What cliffs oppose, what oceans roll, What frowns o'ershade the weeping soul, Alas! were long to tell. But something is there more than these, Than frowns and coldness, rocks and seas: Until its hour--farewell!" So sang the vassal bard by night, Beneath his high-born lady's light That from her turret shone. Next morning in the forest glade His corpse was found. Her brother's blade Had cut his bosom's bone. What reap'd Lord Wilfrid by the stroke? Before another morning broke, She, too, was with the blest: And 'twas her last and only prayer, That her sweet limbs might slumber where The minstrel had his rest. J.S. * * * * * FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION THE CORN LAWS. It is remarkable that, while we hear so much of the advantages of free trade, the reciprocity of them is always in _prospect_ only. By throwing open our harbours to foreign nations, indeed, we give _them_ an immediate and obvious advantage over ourselves; but as to any corresponding advantages we are to gain in our intercourse with them, we are still waiting, in patient expectation of the anticipated benefit. Our patience is truly exemplary; it might furnish a model to Job himself. We resent nothing. No sooner do we receive a blow on one cheek, than we turn up the other to some new smiter. No sooner are we excluded, in return for our concessions, from the harbours of one state, than we begin making concessions to another. We are constantly in expectation of seeing the stream of human envy and jealousy run out:-- "Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis: at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum." We are imitating the man who made the experiment of constantly reducing the food on which his horse is to live. Let us take care that, just as he is learning to live on nothing, we do not find him dead in his stall.