who took him to his hermitage on Rawcliff:

"Not long alone did I thus grieve:

A form approach'd, haggard and grim;
My parent's corpse I would not leave,
Else had I fled in fear from him:
His long loose robes of sackcloth made,
His forehead brown'd by summer's heat;
His limbs were naked, and he had

Sandals of wood beneath his feet.
His white beard down his bosom hung,
His hair was o'er his shoulders flung,
His rigid face was wrinkled o'er,
And in his hand a cross he bore:
You know quite well, by his attire,
The hermit was a crouched friar.

Wonderful liberality, certainly, for that age: but Wycliffe's doctrines were spreading, like his disentombed ashes,* despite of priestly persecution, and the crutched friar goes mad with bigotry against the Lollards:

"He led me to his wild abode

On Rawcliff's frowning height;

I saw the mighty power of God

In the deep blue ocean far abroad-
A glorious, wond'rous sight.

He daily taught me to revere

The Lord of heaven, and earth, and sea:

There did I learn to love and fear

That God who saw the orphan's tear,

For ever great, for ever near

A God reveal'd in persons three.

* John of Wycliffe died in 1384, at Lutterworth; and, having escaped the stake during his life-time, through the protection of the Duke of Lancaster, the Romish Church ordered his bones to be taken up and burnt, forty years after his funeral, and cast into the Swift, a beck that flows along the foot of the hill on which Lutterworth is built. "This brook," says the truly-quaint FULLER, "hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean and thus the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over."

This harp was his; he tutor'd me
In lore of song and minstrelsy:
O had you heard him touch the string,
And to the tones enraptured sing;
While the dark ocean murmuring 'neath,
Seem'd in sweet harmony to breathe;

As the thundering waves roar'd deep and loud,
Wild, fast, and high, and fitful flow'd
The hermit's voice and the music's tone,
Then died away in the ocean's moan-
You'd deem that he must surely be
Some spirit of the mighty sea.

Firm was his step, and terrorless
Down the steep cliff he'd go ;
And, seated on dread precipice,
Where nought but gull or eagle is,
Watch the white waves below.

The heretics he ill could brook;

Then only did I feel afraid,

When, with clench'd hand, and frenzied look,

And voice that my awed spirit shook,

He utter'd curses on their head."

Cursing the heretics, the mad hermit dashes himself from the top of Rawcliff during a storm; but, unfortunately, did not destroy bigotry and superstition along with him. They only are to be driven from men's minds by teaching to all the sublime truths of science, and the true religion of the holy Jesus as set forth in his inspired Sermon on the Mount. for the hermit :

"Men told how fragments of a corpse

Were found, far off, upon the strand,
With a crouch'd friar's staff and cross
Clasp'd firmly in a dead man's hand.
They lie beneath stone cross, 't is said,
Full low and deep, in Leatham Dell:
Who rear'd the cross, or tomb'd the dead,
And the crouch'd staff with the relics laid,

No human wight may surely tell."

As

So endeth the second canto, of which there are six in all: the third relates Edward the Third's first invasion of France; the fourth, the sieges of Hennebon and Auberoch; the fifth, the heroical battle of Cressy; and the sixth, the

1

memorable Tournament in Smithfield, held to commemorate the English victories in France and Edward's fiftieth birthday. "The battle of Cressy," says WALKER ORD, "is written with much care; and, for high lyrical force, must be considered the chef d'ouvre of the poem: it is also quite equal and wellsustained throughout, without any breaks or falls; and proves beyond question that Mr. Holme is endowed with the full animus, and life's blood, and inspiration of a poet." The work has for some time been out of print; as has also his Psalms and Hymns, Original and Select, for Public Worship, published the same year.

Mr. Holme has published occasional Sermons, in a cheap form, by request of his parishioners; and, in 1861, in conjunction with his brother, the Rev. Thomas Holme, vicar of East Cowton, a small volume of original Hymns and Sacred Poetry. In 1850, I happen to know that he had three works in manuscript, but I have never heard of his publishing them, viz., one entitled The Village Lyre, containing many religious and moral poems, with two on the abominable Slave Trade; Reminiscences by a Village Pastor, containing a number of tales, and sketches of character, which formed a part of his own experience; and The Pagan, the Papist, and the Puseyite, interspersed with sketches from ecclesiastical history, "showing how Satan's plan has ever been the same in seducing into error." He has also been repeatedly solicited to either edit Dr. Burn's History of Westmoreland, or to write a new one of his native county. Since his resignation of the vicarage of Kirkleatham, he has been more than once offered a benefice; but, being in possession of a comfortable competency, he has preferred to take charge of pastoral duties for other clergymen, and has been for some years at Bolton, near Bradford, in the west-riding of Yorkshire.

THE REV. THOMAS HOLME.

The Rev. Thomas Holme, alluded to above, is the elder of the two brothers. He was born at Orton, in Westmoreland, August 8th, 1793; ordained deacon, by the Bishop of Durham, September 22nd, 1816, to the curacy of Kirk Harle; ordained priest, by the Bishop of Carlisle, to the curacy of Lowther,

in Westmoreland, July 18th, 1819; and instituted to the vicarage of East Cowton, by the Bishop of Ripon, October 25th, 1842. He published, in 1861, in conjunction with his brother, the before-noticed Rev. James Holme, B.A., a small volume of original Hymns and Sacred Poetry, dedicated to Sir Walter C. Trevelyan, Bart., in which the pieces by the two brothers are given separately. The following is a specimen of the elder brother's hymning:

"Almighty Father, King of Kings!

In thee I live, and think, and move;
From Thee each earthly blessing springs,
And richest streams of heavenly love.
Assist me, Lord, with willing speed,
In duty's happy paths to run;
May every thought, and word, and deed,
Confirm this prayer,- Thy will be done.'

And should some wish that 's near my heart
Conceal no sin, nor hurtful be,
Kindly the wish'd-for gift impart;

The time and way I leave to Thee.
But would that gift ensnaring prove,
O, then the rebel thought dethrone;
My anxious prayer denied in love,

Help me to say, 'Thy will be done.'

When life's bright scenes shall fade away,
And dark'ning clouds of grief appear,
Be Thou my light, my hope, my stay,

And still each murmur, doubt, and fear.

With heart and eyes upraised to Thee,

When joys, and health, and friends, are gone,

Then shall my prayer through Jesus be,

'Thy will, good Lord, not mine, be done.""

The vicar of East Cowton is well known as an earnest labourer for the Temperance Societies, and here is an hymn written specially for them :

"In brotherhood we meet,

Lord sanctify each heart; Our earnest counsels to direct, Thy gracious light impart. Thy word our guide, we trust Our aim Thou dost approve;

To rescue drunkards from their sin,

By self-denying love.

Th' inebriating cup

We cheerfully forego,

[world

As the foul stream which steeps the
In wickedness and woe.

In 1862, the Rev. Thomas Holme published a small religious tractate, entitled The Serene Sunset of a Young Pilgrim in the Twenty-First Year of her Age, which is an affectionate memorial of his daughter,

MARY JANE HOLME,

the eldest child of his second family, who was born on the twenty-third of April, 1840, and died December second, 1860. She appears to have been an amiable young lady, of great promise in the work of education, for which she was being trained; and, in her thirteenth year, commenced a manuscript family-periodical amongst her juvenile cousins, her father's pupils, to which she contributed the following Hymn, dated January 1st, 1853.

Almighty Father! God of love,

Whose will first gave me light,
Should I not serve Thee all the day,
And think of Thee at night?

While yet I'm young, oh guide my steps,
Give me a humble mind;

Forgive my sins for Thy dear Son;
Who died to save mankind.

If I grow old, oh! grant me peace,
The peace of Thy dear Son:
Carry me gently to my grave

When my short race is run."

[Since the above was in type, I have learnt that the Rev. Thomas Holme departed this life, at East Cowton, universally respected, on Saturday morning, January 20th, 1872, aged 78 years. He may be said to have died in harness, having officiated at a marriage on the previous Saturday.]