The avenue is quite alive to-day. Old wo- | wagon, with its load of flour, and its four fat men are picking up twigs and acorns, and pigs horses. I wonder whether our horse will of all sizes doing their utmost to spare them have the decency to get out of the way. If the latter part of the trouble; boys and girls he does not, I am sure we cannot make him; groping for beech-nuts under yonder clump; and that enormous ship upon wheels, that ark and a group of young elves collecting as many on dry land, would roll over us like the car of dead leaves as they can find to feed the bon- Juggernaut. Really-Oh no! there is no danfire which is smoking away so briskly amongst ger now. I should have remembered that it the trees, a sort of rehearsal of the grand is my friend Samuel Long who drives the millbonfire nine days hence; of the loyal confla- team. He will take care of us. "Thank you, gration of the arch traitor Guy Fawkes, which Samuel!" And Samuel has put us on our is annually solemnized in the avenue, accom- | way, steered us safely past his wagon, escortpanied by as much squibbery and crackery as ed us over the bridge; and now, having seen our boys can beg or borrow-not to say steal. us through our immediate difficulties, has Ben Kirby is a great man on the 5th of No- parted from us with a very civil bow and vember. All the savings of a month, the good-humoured smile, as one who is always hoarded halfpence, the new farthings, the very luck-penny go off in fumo on that night. For my part, I like this daylight mockery better. There is no gunpowder-odious gunpowder! no noise but the merry shouts of the small fry, so shrill and happy, and the cawing of the rooks who are wheeling in large circles overhead, and wondering what is going forward in their territory-seeming in their loud clamour to ask what that light smoke may mean that curls so prettily amongst their old oaks, towering as if to meet the clouds. There is something very intelligent in the ways of that black people the rooks, particularly in their wonder. I suppose it results from their numbers and unity of purpose, a sort of collective and corporate wisdom. Yet geese congregate also; and geese never by any chance look wise. But then geese are a domestic fowl; we have spoiled them; and rooks are free commoners of nature, who use the habitations we provide for them, tenant our groves and our avenues, and never dream of becoming our subjects.

What a labyrinth of a road this is! I do think there are four turnings in the short halfmile between the avenue and the mill. And what a pity, as my companion observes-not that our good and jolly miller, the very representative of the old English yeomanry, should be so rich, but that one consequence of his riches should be the pulling down of the prettiest old mill that ever looked at itself in the Loddon, with the picturesque low-browed irregular cottage, which stood with its lightpointed roof, its clustered chimneys, and its ever-open door, looking like the real abode of comfort and hospitality, to build this huge, staring, frightful, red-brick mill, as ugly as a manufactory, and this great square house, ugly and red to match, just behind. The old buildings always used to remind me of Wollett's beautiful engraving of a scene in the Maid of the Mill. It will be long before any artist will make a drawing of this. Only think of this redness in a picture! this boiled lobster of a house! Falstaff's description of Bardolph's nose would look pale in the compari

son.

Here is that monstrous machine of a tilted

|

civil and good-humoured, but with a certain
triumphant masterful look in his eyes, which
I have noted in men, even the best of them,
when a woman gets into straits by attempting
manly employments. He has done us great
good though, and may be allowed his little
feeling of superiority. The parting salute he
bestowed on our steed, in the shape of an as-
tounding crack of his huge whip, has put that
refractory animal on his mettle. On we go
fast! past the glazier's pretty house, with its
porch and its filbert walk; along the narrow
lane bordered with elms, whose fallen leaves
have made the road one yellow; past that
little farm-house with the horse-chesnut trees
before, glowing like oranges; past the white-
washed school on the other side, gay with
October roses; past the park, and the lodge,
and the mansion, where once dwelt the great
earl of Clarendon ;-and now the rascal has
begun to discover that Samuel Long and his
whip are a mile off, and that his mistress is
driving him, and he slackens his pace accord -
ingly. Perhaps he feels the beauty of the
road just here, and goes slowly to enjoy it.
Very beautiful it certainly is. The park pal-
ing forms the boundary on one side, with fine
clumps of oak, and deer in all attitudes; the
water, tufted with alders, flowing along on
the other. Another turn, and the water winds
away, succeeded by a low hedge, and a sweep
of green meadows; whilst the park and its
paling are replaced by a steep bank, on which
stands a small, quiet, village ale-house; and
higher up, embosomed in wood, is the little
country church, with its sloping church-yard
and its low white steeple, peeping out from
amongst magnificent yew-trees:

Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling and invet'rately convolved."

WORDSWORTH. No village-church was ever more happily placed. It is the very image of the peace and humbleness inculcated within its walls.

Ah! here is a higher hill rising before us, almost like a mountain. How grandly the view opens as we ascend over that wild bank, overgrown with fern, and heath, and gorse,

and between those tall hollies, glowing with tural beauty, developed and heightened by the their coral berries! What an expanse! But perfection of art. All this, indeed, was famiwe have little time to gaze at present; for that liar to me; the colouring only was new. I piece of perversity, our horse, who has walked had been there in early spring, when the over so much level ground, has now, inspired, fragrant palms were on the willow, and the I presume, by a desire to revisit his stable, yellow tassels on the hazel, and every twig taken it into that unaccountable noddle of his was swelling with renewed life; and I had to trot up this, the very steepest hill in the been there again and again in the green leaficounty. Here we are on the top; and in five ness of midsummer; but never as now, when minutes we have reached the lawn gate, and the dark verdure of the fir-plantations, hanging are in the very midst of that beautiful piece over the picturesque and unequal paling, partof art or nature (I do not know to which class ly covered with moss and ivy, contrast so reit belongs,) the pleasure-ground of F. Hill.markably with the shining orange-leaves of Never was the "prophetic eye of taste" ex- the beech, already half fallen, the pale yellow erted with more magical skill than in these of the scattering elm, the deeper and richer plantations. Thirty years ago this place had tints of the oak, and the glossy stems of the no existence; it was a mere undistinguished "lady of the woods," the delicate weeping tract of field and meadow and common land; birch. The underwood is no less picturesque. now it is a mimic forest, delighting the eye The red-spotted leaves and redder berries of the with the finest combinations of trees and old thorns, the scarlet festoons of the bramble, shrubs, the rarest effects of form and foliage, the tall fern of every hue, seem to vie with and bewildering the mind with its green the brilliant mosaic of the ground, now coverglades, and impervious recesses, and appa- ed with dead leaves and strewn with fir-cones, rently interminable extent. It is the triumph of landscape gardening, and never more beautiful than in this autumn sunset, lighting up the ruddy beech and the spotted sycamore, and gilding the shining fir-cones that hang so thickly amongst the dark pines. The robins are singing around us, as if they too felt the magic of the hour. How gracefully the road winds through the leafy labyrinth, leading imperceptibly to the more ornamented sweep. Here we are at the door amidst geraniums, and carnations, and jasmines, still in flower. Ah! here is a flower sweeter than all, a bird gayer than the robin, the little bird that chirps to the tune of "mamma! mamma!" the bright-faced fairy, whose tiny feet come pattering along, making a merry music, mamma's own Frances! And following her guidance, here we are in the dear round room, time enough to catch the last rays of the sun, as they light the noble landscape which lies like a panorama around us, lingering longest on that long island of old thorns and stunted oaks, the oasis of B. Heath, and then vanishing in a succession of gorgeous clouds.

October 28.-Another soft and brilliant morning. But the pleasures of to-day must be written in short-hand. I have left myself no room for notes of admiration.

now, where a little glade intervenes, gay with various mosses and splendid fungi. How beautiful is this coppice to-day! especially where the little spring, as clear as crystal, comes bubbling out from the "old fantastic" beech root, and trickles over the grass, bright and silent as the dew in a May morning. The wood pigeons (who are just returned from their summer migration, and are cropping the ivy berries) add their low cooings, the very note of love, to the slight fluttering of the fallen leaves in the quiet air, giving a voice to the sunshine and the beauty. This coppice is a place to live and die in. But we must go. And how fine is the ascent which leads us again into the world, past those cottages hidden as in a pit, and by that hanging orchard and that rough heathy bank! The scenery in this one spot has a wildness, an abruptness of rise and fall, rare in any part of England, rare above all in this rich and lovely but monotonous county. It is Switzerland in miniature.

And now we cross the hill to pay a morning visit to the family at the great house,-another fine place, commanding another fine sweep of country. The park studded with old trees and sinking gently into a valley, rich in wood and water, is in the best style of ornamental landFirst we drove about the coppice; an ex-scape, though more according to the common tensive wood of oak, and elm, and beech, chiefly the former, which adjoins the park paling of F. Hill, of which demesne, indeed, it forms one of the most delightful parts. The roads through the coppice are studiously wild, so that they have the appearance of mere cart-round the sweep, giving out in summer odours tracts; and the manner in which the ground really Sabæan, and now in this low autumn is tumbled about, the steep declivities, the sun producing an effect almost magical, as the sunny slopes, the sudden swells and falls, huge red trunks, garlanded with ivy, stand out now a close narrow valley, then a sharp as- from the deep shadows like an army of giants. cent to an eminence, commanding an immense In-doors-Oh I must not take my readers inextent of prospect, have a striking air of na-doors, or we shall never get away!—In-doors

routine of gentlemen's seats than the singularly original place which we have just left. There is, however, one distinctive beauty in the grounds of the great house;—the magnificent firs which shade the terraces and sur

court, and fairly to drive through the front garden, thereby destroying sundry curious stocks, carnations, and geraniums. It is a mercy that the unruly steed was content with battering the wall; for the messuage itself would come about our ears at the touch of a finger, and really there is one little end parlour, an after-thought of the original builder, which stands so temptingly in the way, that I wonder the sagacious quadruped missed it. There was quite din enough without that addition. The three insides (ladies) squalling from the interior of that commodious vehicle; the outsides (gentlemen) swearing on the roof; the coachman still half asleep, but unconscious

the sunshine is brighter still; for there, in a lofty lightsome room, sits a damsel fair and arch and piquante, one whom Titian or Velasquez should be born again to paint, leaning over an instrument* as sparkling and fanciful as herself, singing pretty French romances, and Scottish Jacobite songs, and all sorts of graceful and airy drolleries picked up I know not where (an English improvvisatrice! a gayer Annot Lyle! whilst her sister, of a higher order of beauty, and with an earnest kindness in her smile that deepens its power, lends to the piano, as her father to the violin, an expression, a sensibility, a spirit, an eloquence, almost superhuman-almost divine! Oh to hear these two instruments accompany-ly blowing his horn; we in the house screaming my dear companion (I forgot to say that ing and scolding; the passers-by shouting and she is a singer worthy to be so accompanied) hallooing; and May, who little brooked such in Haydn's exquisite canzonet, "She never an invasion of her territories, barking in her told her love,"-to hear her voice, with all its tremendous lion-note, and putting down the power, its sweetness, its gush of sound, so other noises like a clap of thunder. But passustained and assisted by modulations that ri-sengers, coachman, horses, and spectators, all valled its intensity of expression; to hear at once such poetry, such music, such execution, is a pleasure never to be forgotten, or mixed with meaner things. I seem to hear it still.

As in the bursting spring-time o'er the eye

Of one who haunts the fields fair visions creep
Beneath the closed lids (afore dull sleep
Dims the quick fancy) of sweet flowers that lie
On grassy banks, oxlip of orient dye,

And palest primrose and blue violet,
All in their fresh and dewy beauty set,
Pictur'd within the sense, and will not fly:
So in mine ear resounds and lives again

One mingled melody,-a voice, a pair
Of instruments most voice-like! Of the air
Rather than of the earth seems that high strain
A spirit's song, and worthy of the train

That sooth'd old Prospero with music rare.

righted at last; and there is no harm done but to my flowers and to the wall. May, however, stands bewailing the ruins, for that low wall was her favourite haunt; she used to parade backwards and forwards on the top of it, as if to show herself, just after the manner of a peacock on the top of a house; and would sit or lie for hours on the corner next the gate, basking in the sunshine like a marble statue. Really she has quite the air of one who laments the destruction of personal property; but the wall is to be rebuilt to-morrow, with old weather-stained bricks-no patch-work! and exactly in the same form; May herself will not find the difference; so that in the way of alteration this little misfortune will pass for nothing. Neither have we any improvements worth calling such. Except that the wheeler's green door hath been retouched, out of the same pot (as I judge from the tint) with

A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR which he furbished up our new-old pony

VILLAGE.

Ir is now eighteen months since our village first sat for its picture, and I cannot say farewell to my courteous readers, without giving them some little intelligence of our goings on, a sort of parting glance at us and our condition. In outward appearance it hath, I suppose, undergone less alteration than any place of its inches in the kingdom. There it stands, the same long straggling street of pretty cottages, divided by pretty gardens, wholly unchanged in size or appearance, unincreased and undiminished by a single brick. To be sure, yesterday evening a slight misfortune happened to our goodly tenement, occasioned by the unlucky diligence mentioned in my first notice, which, under the conduct of a sleepy coachman, and a restive horse, contrived to knock down and demolish the wall of our

*The dital harp.

chaise; that the shop-window of our neighbour, the universal dealer, hath been beautified, and his name and calling splendidly set forth in yellow letters on a black ground; and that our landlord of the Rose hath hoisted a new sign of unparalleled splendour; one side consisting of a full-faced damask rose, of the size and hue of a piony, the other of a maiden blush in profile, which looks exactly like a carnation, so that both flowers are considerably indebted to the modesty of the "out-ofdoor artist," who has warily written The Rose under each-except these trifling ornaments, which nothing but the jealous eye of a lover could detect, the dear place is altogether unchanged.

The only real improvement with which we have been visited for our sins-(I hate all innovation, whether for better or worse, as if I was a furious Tory, or a woman of three-score and ten) the only misfortune of that sort which has befallen us, is underfoot. The road

wish to be thought young again. In the mean while, shall we walk up the street?

has been adjusted on the plan of Mr. Mac- as if touched by Harlequin's wand, and are Adam; and a tremendous operation it is. I quite offended if one happens to say or do any do not know what good may ensue; but for thing which has a reference to their previous the last six months, some part or other of the condition. My father grievously affronted highway has been impassable for any feet, Sally L. only yesterday, by bestowing upon except such as are shod by the blacksmith; her a great lump of ginger-bread, with which and even the four-footed people who wear iron he had stuffed his pockets at a fair. She immeshoes, make wry faces, poor things! at those diately, as she said, gave it to the "children." stones, enemies to man and beast. However, Now Sally cannot be above twelve to my certhe business is nearly done now; we are co- tain knowledge, though taller than I am.vered with sharp flints every inch of us, except Lizzy herself is growing womanly. I actua "bad step" up the hill, which, indeed, looks ally caught that little lady stuck upon a chest like a bit cut out of the deserts of Arabia, of drawers, contemplating herself in the glass, fitter for camels and caravans than for Chris- and striving with all her might to gather the tian horses and coaches; a point, which, in rich curls that hang about her neck, and turn spite of my dislike of alteration, I was forced them under a comb. Well! if Sally and to acknowledge to our surveyor, a portly gen- Lizzy live to be old maids, they may probatleman, who, in a smart gig, drawn by a pranc-bly make the amende honorable to time, and ing steed, was kicking up a prodigious dust at that very moment. He and I ought to be great enemies; for, besides the MacAdamite enormity of the stony road, he hath actually been guilty of tree-murder, having been an accessary before the fact in the death of three limes along the rope-walk-dear sweet innocent limes, that did no harm on earth except shading the path! I never should have forgiven that offence, had not their removal, by opening a beautiful view from the village up the hill, reconciled even my tree-loving eye to their abstraction. And, to say the truth, though we have had twenty little squabbles, there is no bearing malice with our surveyor; he is so civil and good-humoured, such an honest earnestness in his vocation (which is gratuitous by the by), and such an intense conviction that the state of the turnpike road between B. and K. is the principal affair of this life, that I would not undeceive him for the world. How often have I seen him on a cold winter morning, with a face all frost and business, great-coated up to the eyes, driving from post to post, from one gang of labourers to another, praising, scolding, ordering, cheated, laughed at, and liked by them all! Well, when once the hill is finished, we shall have done with him for ever, as he used to tell me by way of consolation, when I shook my head at him, as he went jolting along over his dear new roads, at the imminent risk of his springs and his bones: we shall see no more of him; for the MacAdam ways are warranted not to wear out. So be it; I never wish to see a roadmender again.

The first cottage is that of Mr. H. the patriot, the illuminator, the independent and sturdy, yet friendly member of our little state, who, stout and comely, with a handsome chaisecart, a strong mare, and a neat garden, might have passed for a portrait of that enviable class of Englishmen, who, after a youth of frugal industry, sit down in some retired place to "live upon their means." He and his wife seemed the happiest couple on earth; except a little too much leisure, I never suspected that they had one trouble or one care. But Care, the witch, will come everywhere, even to that happiest station and this prettiest place. She came in one of her most terrific formsblindness-or (which is perhaps still more tremendous) the faint glimmering light and gradual darkness which precedes the total eclipse. For a long time we had missed the pleasant bustling officiousness, the little services, the voluntary tasks, which our good neighbour loved so well. Fruit trees were blighted, and escaped his grand specific fumigation; wasps multiplied, and their nests remained untraced; the cheerful modest knock with which, just at the very hour when he knew it could be spared, he presented himself to ask for the newspaper, was heard no more; he no longer hung over his gate to waylay passengers, and entice them into chat; at last he even left off driving his little chaise, and was only seen moping up and down the garden walk, or stealing gropingly from the woodpile to the house. He evidently shunned conBut if the form of outward things be all un-versation or questions, forbade his wife to tell changed around us, if the dwellings of man remain the same to the sight and the touch, the little world within hath undergone its usual mutations; the hive is the same, but of the bees some are dead and some are flown away, and some that we left insects in the shell, are already putting forth their young wings. Children in our village really sprout up like mushrooms; the air is so promotive of growth, that the rogues spring into men and women,

what ailed him, and even when he put a green shade over his darkened eyes, fled from human sympathy with a stern pride that seemed almost ashamed of the humbling infirmity. That strange (but to a vigorous and healthy man perhaps natural) feeling soon softened. The disease increased hourly, and he became dependent on his excellent wife for every comfort and relief. She had many willing assistants in her labour of love; all his neighbours

elegant as when she wore frocks and pin-afores, and unconsciously classical, parted her long brown locks in the middle of her forehead, and twisted them up in a knot behind, giving to her finely-shaped head and throat the air of a Grecian statue. Then she was stirring all day in her small housewifery, or her busy idleness, delving and digging in her flower-border, tossing and dangling every infant that came within her reach, feeding pigs and poultry, playing with May, and prattling with an open-hearted frankness to the country lads, who assemble at evening in the shop to enjoy a little gentle gossiping; for be it known to my London readers, that the shoemaker's in a country village is now what (according to tradition and the old novels) the barber's used to be, the resort of all the male newsmongers, especially the young. Then she talked to these visiters gaily and openly, sang and laughed and ran in and out, and took no more thought of a young man than of a gosling. Then she was only fourteen. Now she wears gowns and aprons,-puts her hair in paper, has left off singing, talks, has left off running, walks,-nurses the infants with a grave solemn grace,- has entirely cut her former playmate Mayflower, who tosses her pretty head as much as to say who cares?

-

strove to return, according to their several means, the kindness which all had received from him in some shape or another. The country boys, to whose service he had devoted so much time, in shaping bats, constructing bows and arrows, and other quips and trickeries of the same nature, vied with each other in performing little offices about the yard and stable; and John Evans, the half-witted gardener, to whom he had been a constant friend, repaid his goodness by the most unwearied attention. Gratitude seemed to sharpen poor John's perception and faculties. There is an old man in our parish work-house, who occasionally walks through the street, led by a little boy holding the end of a long stick. The idea of this man, who had lived in utter blindness for thirty years, was always singularly distressing to Mr. H. I shall never forget the address with which our simple gardener used to try to divert his attention from this miserable fellow-sufferer. He would get between them to prevent the possibility of recognition by the dim and uncertain vision; would talk loudly to drown the peculiar noise, the sort of duet of feet, caused by the quick short steps of the child, and the slow irregular tread of the old man; he would turn the conversation with an adroitness and acuteness that might put to shame the proudest intellect. So passed many months. At last Mr. H. was persuaded to consult a celebrated oculist, and the result was most comforting. The disease was ascertained to be a cataract; and now with the increase of darkness came an increase of hope. The film spread, thickened, ripened, speedily and healthily; and to-day the requisite operation has been performed with equal skill and success. You may still see some of the country boys lingering round the gate with looks of strong and wondering interest; poor John is going to and fro, he knows not for what, unable to rest a moment; Mrs. H., too, is the right of retaliation), there is one youth walking in the garden shedding tears of thank- particularly distinguished by her non-notice, fulness; and he who came to support their one whom she never will see or speak to, who spirit, the stout strong-hearted farmer A., stands a very fair chance to carry her off. He seems trembling and overcome. The most is called Jem Tanner, and is a fine lad, with tranquil person in the house is probably the an open ruddy countenance, a clear blue eye, patient: he bore the operation with resolute and curling hair of that tint which the poets firmness, and he has seen again. Think of the are pleased to denominate golden. Though bliss bound up in those four words! He is not one of our eleven, he was a promising in darkness now, and must remain so for some cricketer. We have missed him lately on the weeks; but he has seen, and he will see; and green at the Sunday evening game, and I find that humble cottage is again a happy dwelling. on inquiry that he now visits a chapel about Next we come to the shoemaker's abode. a mile off, where he is the best male singer, All is unchanged there, except that its master as our nymph of the shoe-shop is incomparabecomes more industrious and more pale-faced, bly the first female. I am not fond of betting; and that his fair daughter is a notable exem- but I would venture the lowest stake of genplification of the developement which I have already noticed amongst our young things. But she is in the real transition state, just emerging from the crysalis-and the eighteen months between fourteen and a half and sixteen, would metamorphose a child into a woman all the world over. She is still pretty, but not so

-and has nearly renounced all acquaintance with the visiters of the shop, who are by no means disposed to take matters so quietly. There she stands on the threshold, shy and demure, just vouchsafing a formal nod or a faint smile as they pass, and, if she in her turn be compelled to pass the open door of their news-room (for the working apartment is separate from the house) edging along as slyly and mincingly as if there were no such beings as young men in the world. Exquisite coquette! I think (she is my opposite neighbour, and I have a right to watch her doings,

tility, a silver threepence, that, before the winter ends, a wedding will be the result of these weekly meetings at the chapel. In the long dark evenings, when the father has enough to do in piloting the mother with conjugal gallantry through the dirty lanes, think of the opportunity that Jem will have to escort the