'Are days of old familiar to thy mind, Oh reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour Pass unperceiv'd, whilst thou in fancy lived With high-born beauties and enamor'd chiefs, Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy, Whose expectation touched the verge of pain, Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore Has ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts The groves of Penshurst. SYDNEY here was born, Sydney, than whom no gentler, braver man His own delightful genius ever feign'd, Illustrating the vales of Arcady, With courteous courage and with loyal loves. Upon his natal day an acorn here Was planted; it grew up a stately oak, And in the beauty of its strength it stood And flourished, when his perishable part Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately oak Itself hath perished now, but Sydney's fame Endureth in his own immortal works.' ILLUSTRATIONS. Before the extension of commerce and manufactories in Europe, the hospitality of the rich and the great, from the sovereign down to the smallest baron, exceeded every thing which in the present times we can easily form a notion of. Westminster Hall was the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently perhaps not be too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas a Becket that he strewed the floor of his hall with clear hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and squires who could not get seats might not spoil their fine clothes when they sat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great Earl of Warwick is said to have entertained every day, at his different manors, thirty thousand people; and though the number may have been exaggerated, it must however have been very great to admit of such exaggeration. The personal expenses of the great proprietors having gradually increased with the extension of commerce and manufactures, it was impossible that the number of their retainers should not as gradually diminish. Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the play-things of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesmen in a city. WEALTH OF NATIONS: BOOK III., CHAP. IV. The _planta-genista_ or broom having been ordinarily used for strewing floors, became an emblem of humility, and was borne as such by Fulke, Earl of Anjou, grandfather of Henry II., King of England, in his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The name of the royal house of Plantagenet is said to be derived from this circumstance. HUNT'S EXEMPLARS OF TUDOR ARCHITECTURE.