“Voluntaries,” commencing, “The sun that seemed so mildly to retire.”] With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being struck, for the first time, by the town and port of Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as the whole came into my view from the top of the high ground, down which the road, that has since been altered, descended abruptly. My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld the scene spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned amongst us, indicating the sensibility for which she was remarkable.” As a specimen of the “Evening Voluntaries,” take the following:-- “Calm is the air, and loth to lose Day’s grateful warmth, tho’ moist with falling dews. Look for the stars, you’ll say that there are none; Look up a second time, and one by one, You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, And wonder how they could elude the sight! The birds, of late so noisy in their bowers, Warbled awhile with faint and fainter powers, But now are silent as the dim-seen flowers. Nor does the village church clock’s iron tone The time’s and season’s influence disown; Nine beats distinctly to each other bound In drowsy sequence--how unlike the sound That in rough winter, oft inflicts a fear On fireside listeners, doubting what they hear! The shepherd, bent on rising with the sun, Had closed his door before the day was done, And now with thankful heart to bed doth creep, And joins the little children in their sleep. The bat, lured forth where trees the lane o’ershade, Flits and reflits along the dark arcade; The busy dor-hawk chases the white moth With burring note, which industry and sloth Might both be pleased with, for it suits them both. A stream is heard--I see it not but know By its soft music where the waters flow: Wheels and the tread of hoofs are heard no more; One boat there was, but it will touch the shore With the next dipping of its slackened oar; Faint sound that for the gayest of the gay, Might give to serious thought a moment’s sway, As a last token of man’s toilsome day.”