Their style is simple, and their
thoughts are pure. They have, for their keynote, the happiness of
one who loves true liberty in quiet possession of himself. When he
turns to the Latins, his translations are all from those lines which
would have dwelt most pleasantly upon a mind that to the last held
by the devout wish expressed by himself in a poem of his early
youth--(A Vote, in "Sylva"):
"Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.
My garden, painted o'er
With Nature's hand, not Art's, should pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabine field."
H. M.
OF LIBERTY.
The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which
they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of
government; the liberty of a private man in being master of his own
time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of
his country. Of this latter only we are here to discourse, and to
inquire what estate of life does best suit us in the possession of
it.
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