Part 45 (1/2)

Little I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone, (A _very plain_ brown stone will do,) That I may call my own;-- And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun

Plain food is quite enough for ood as ten;-- If Nature can subsist on three, Thank Heaven for three Aht cold victual nice;-- My _choice_ would be vanilla-ice

I care not e here and there,-- So railroad share,-- I only ask that Fortune send A _little_ more than I shall spend

Honors are silly toys, I know, And titles are but empty names; I would, _perhaps_, be Plenipo,-- But only near St James; I'm very sure I should not care To fill our Gubernator's chair

Jewels are baubles; 'tis a sin To care for such unfruitful things;-- One good-sized dias,-- A ruby, and a pearl, or so, Will do for h at show

My dame should dress in cheap attire; (Good, heavy silks are never dear;)-- I own perhaps I _ht_ desire Some shawls of true Cashmere,-- Some marrowy crapes of China silk, Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk

I would not have the horse I drive So fast that folks ait--two, forty-five-- Suits le spurt_, Some seconds less would do no hurt

Of pictures I should like to own titians and Raphaels three or four,-- I love so much their style and tone,-- One Turner, and no olden dirt,-- The sunshi+ne painted with a squirt)

Of books but few,--some fifty score For daily use, and bound for wear; The rest upon an upper floor;-- Soleaes as these, Which others often show for pride, _I_ value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride;-- _One_ Stradivarius, I confess, _Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;-- Shall not carv'd tables servepomp its double share,-- I ask but _one_ recu for Midas' golden touch; If Heaven ifts deny, I shall notlent Of simple tastes and mind content

_Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies;-- Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower--but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should knohat God and man is_

TENNYSON

LXXVIII THE BRITISH CONStitUTION

THE RIGHT HON WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE--1809-

_From_ KIN BEYOND SEA

The Constitution has not been the offspring of the thought of man The Cabinet, and all the present relations of the Constitutional powers in this country, have grown into their present dimensions, and settled into their present places, not as the fruit of a philosophy, not in the effort to give effect to an abstract principle; but by the silent action of forces, invisible and insensible, the structure has come up into the view of all the world It is, perhaps, the most conspicuous object on the wide political horizon; but it has thus risen, without noise, like the temple of Jerusale; Like so”

When es are made in heaven,” what they mean is that, in theup of the family, the issues involved in the nuptial contract, lie beyond the best exercise of huovernood the defect in our imperfect capacity Even so would it see influences and powers, which brings about the composite harmony of the British Constitution More, it must be admitted, than any other, it leaves open doors which lead into blind alleys; for it presuood faith of those ork it If, unhappily, these personages reat arena of a nation's fortunes, as jockeys ainst the others, the power of the animal he rides; or as counsel in a court, each to procure the victory of his client, without respect to any other interest or right: then this boasted Constitution of ours is neither more nor less than a heap of absurdities The undoubted competency of each reaches even to the paralysis or destruction of the rest The House of Co of the Supplies That House, and also the House of Lords, is entitled to refuse its assent to every Bill presented to it The Crown is entitled to make a thousand Peers to-day, and as many to-morrow: it may dissolve all and every Parliament before it proceeds to business; ainst all the world;unlimited responsibilities, and even vast expenditure, without the consent, nay without the knowledge, of Parliament, and this not merely in support or in development, but in reversal, of policy already known to and sanctioned by the nation But the assumption is that the depositaries of poill all respect one another; will evince a consciousness that they are working in a common interest for a coether with not less than an average intelligence, of not less than an average sense of equity and of the public interest and rights When these reasonable expectations fail, then, it er

Apart fro only of folly or of crie Not only in the long-run, as e, but also, like the human body, with a quotidian life, a periodical recurrence of ebbing and flowing tides Its old particles daily run to waste, and give place to new What is hoped a us is, that which has usually been found, that evils will becorown to be intolerable

Meantireat political philosophers; and we contend with an earnest, but disproportioned, vehees which are palpable, such as the extension of the suffrage, or the redistribution of Parliae which work beneath the surface, and in the dark, but which are even lish character reflects the English Constitution in this, that it abounds in paradox; that it possesses every strength, but holds it tainted with every weakness; that it seems alternately both to rise above and to fall below the standard of average huation of praise or blame which, in some one of the aspects of its many-sided formation, it does not deserve; that only in the ression, the people of this United Kingdom either have heretofore established, or will hereafter establish, their title to be reckoned a the children of men, for the eldest born of an ih I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change

I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip Thou dost not fall_