EETROSPECTION.
��THE pleasure derived from recurring to the scenes slightly sketched in this volume, is not impaired by the interval that has elapsed since they were beheld. Still their pictures hang unfaded in Memory s halls, and brighten many a musing hour. Some of their imagery has, indeed, assumed a different aspect, through the progress of man, and the providence of God.
One of th*e most striking changes has been the paci fication of two great realms, for ages at enmity. Of this event, History gave no prediction, save a transient gleam at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or when their mailed hands grasped each other in the Crusades. Now, they seem wisely to have determined no longer to verify the assertion of one of their own poets, that
" Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor tach other."
May the united strength of these reconciled neigh bors again close the temple of Janus, and restore to Europe the olive under which, for nearly forty years, she had found rest.
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