Sweet is spring, and sweet the morning, my beloved, my beloved;
Now for us doth spring, doth morning, wait upon the year's increase,
And my prayer goes up, "Oh, give us, crowned in youth with marriage glory,
Give for all our life's dear story,
Give us love, and give us peace!"

JEAN INGELOW.

FREEDOM.

1. No quality of Art has been more powerful in its influence on
public mind; none is more frequently the subject of popular
praise, or the end of vulgar effort, than what we call "Freedom."
It is necessary to determine the justice or injustice of this
popular praise.

2. Try to draw a circle with the "free" hand, and with a single
line. You cannot do it if your hand trembles, nor if it hesitates,
nor if it is unmanageable, nor if it is in the common sense of the
word "free." So far from being free, it must be under a control as
absolute and accurate as if it were fastened to an inflexible bar
of steel. And yet it must move, under this necessary control, with
perfect, untormented serenity of ease.

3. I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free
creature than in the common house-fly. Nor free only, but brave;
and irreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could
by any philosophy exalt himself to. There is no courtesy in him;
he does not care whether it is king or clown whom he teases; and
in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of