And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow-lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,

For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

τα

ICLIF, JOHN DE, an English reformer; born at Spreswell, near Richmond, Yorkshire, about 1330; died at Lutterworth, Leicestershire, December 31, 1384. His name, variously written Wycliffe, Wicklif, etc., is Wiclif in official documents of his time. At the age of fifteen he entered Oxford, then in its glory, with at one time the astonishing number of 30,000 students. About 1360, he became Master of Balliol College; and for a while was royal chaplain. His life was full of work and stirring events, in his support of the King against Papal claims, his publishing the principles of the Reformation (anterior to other reformers), opposing the ecclesiastical corruptions, sending forth preachers to the people, and giving to the people the Bible in their own tongue the translation by him and his helpers, from the Latin Vulgate, having been finished about the time of his death. He was repeatedly arraigned for heresy, and, finally prohibited from teaching in the university, retired to his rectory of Lutterworth. His buried remains, by order of the rival

pope, Clement VIII., were disinterred, burned, and the ashes cast into the Swift, a branch of the Avon River. In the following selection from his polemical writings the ancient spelling is modernized:

THE SCRIPTURES.

I have learned by experience the truth of what you say (with reference to my appeal to the Scriptures). The chief cause, beyond doubt, of the existing state of things is our want of faith in Holy Scripture. We do not sincerely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or we should abide by the authority of His Word, in particular that of the Evangelists, as of infinitely greater weight than any other. Inasmuch as it is the will of the Holy Spirit that our attention should not be dispersed over a large number of objects, but concentrated on one sufficient source of instruction, it is His pleasure that the books of the Old and New Law should be read and studied, and that men should not be taken up with other books, which, true as they may be, and containing even Scripture truth, as they may by implication are not to be confided in without caution and limitation. Hence St. Austin often enjoins on his readers not to place any faith in his word or writings, except in so far as they have their foundation in the Scriptures, wherein, as he often sayeth, all truth, either directly or implicitly, is contained. Of course we should judge in this manner with reference to the writings of other holy doctors, and much more with reference to the writings of the Roman Church, and of her doctors in these later times. If we follow this rule, the Scriptures will be held in due respect.

We ought to believe in the authority of no man, unless he say the Word of God. It is impossible that any word or deed of the Christian should be of equal authority with Holy Scripture. The right understanding of Holy Scripture is being taught to us by the Holy Ghost just as the Scriptures were opened to the Apostles by Christ. But while Holy Scripture includes

in itself all truth, partly mediately, partly immediately, reason is indispensable to the right understanding.

The whole Scripture is one word of God; also the whole Law of Christ is one perfect word proceeding from the mouth of God; it is, therefore, not permitted to sever the Holy Scripture, but to allege it in its integrity according to the sense of the author.

If God's word is the life of the world, and every word of God is the life of the human soul, how may any Antichrist, for dread of God, take it away from us that be Christian men, and thus suffer the people to die for hunger in heresy and blasphemy of men's laws, that corrupteth and slayeth the soul?.

The fiend seeketh many ways to mar men in belief and to stop them by saying that no books are belief. For if thou speakest of the Bible, then Antichrist's clerks say, How provest thou that it is Holy Writ more than another written book? Therefore men must use caution, and ask the question whether Christ left His Gospel here in order to comfort His Church. And if they say that He did, ask them which are these Gospels? These we call Holy Writ. But as Christian men should speak plainly to Antichrist, we say that Holy Writ is commonly taken in three manners. On the first manner Christ Himself is called in the Gospel Holy Writ. On the second manner Holy Writ is called the Truth, and this truth may not fail. On the third manner Holy Writ is the name given to the books that are written and made of ink and parchment. And this speech is not so proper as the first and second. But we take by belief that the second Writ, the truth written in the Book of Life, is Holy Writ, and God says it. This we know by belief, and this one belief makes us certain that these truths are Holy Writ. Thus though Holy Writ, on the third manner, be burnt or cast in the sea, Holy Writ on the second manner, may not fail, as Christ sayeth.- BUDDENSIEG's John Wiclif's Life and Writings.

IELAND, CHRISTOPH MARTIN, a German poet; born at Oberholzheim, Swabia, September 5, 1733; died at Weimar, January 20, 1813. He composed German and Latin verses. in his twelfth year; six years later he published Ten Moral Letters, and a poem, Anti-Ovid. After study at Tübingen, his epic on Arminius brought him into association with Bodmer of Zurich. He translated twenty-two of Shakespeare's plays (1762-66). In 1769 he became Professor of Philosophy at Erfurt; and later preceptor of the Grand-Duke Charles Augustus, with title of Councillor. His collected works are voluminous, consisting of poems, novels and satires in verse and prose. The Geschichte der Abderiten (1774) has been translated into English as The Republic of Fools (1861). His principal poetic work was an epic, Oberon (1780), a canto of which, with an ethical defence of Wieland, is in Longfellow's Poetry of Europe. The following selections, from W. Taylor's translation (1829), are curiously suggestive in form, though not in poetic genius, of Tennyson's later Idyls of the King. Geron (Gyron) the Courteous was the favorite romance of Francis I. of France. The motto on Geron's sword was, "Loyalty surpasses all, as falsity disgraces all."

GERON THE COURTEOUS.

A purpled canopy o'erhung the seat.

Of Arthur and his queen; an ivory stool

Was placed between them for the worthy Branor.
When these were seated, others took their places,

In order due, beside the spacious board.
Now twenty youths in pewter dishes brought