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island, and it was now a mere accident which enabled me to spend a dozen of hours in the very heart of all my ancient associations.

The fire blazed brightly, and we had scarcely finished our first bottle. Are there any beings in existence so unfortunate as never to have enjoyed the extacy of such a moment? If there are, they may die when they please, for they do not know what it is to live. We were both twenty years older than when we last sat in this very parlour; but though time had somewhat changed the expression of our features, and altered the appearance of our persons, it had still left us hearts and souls as capable as ever of cherishing that enthusiasm and warmth of feeling which, with us, had ever constituted the chief charm of our existence. Let the plodding slave of Plutus, and the cold laborious book worm, toil on for ever through their appointed mole-hills, and let them, if they please, sneer at what to them appears the absurd eccentricity of those who have ventured to trace out for themselves a little by-path widely different from the broad and beaten road of life. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy." Happiness is not external it is not to be sought for far and wide, like a diamond mine, or a vein of gold-it is within ourselves. It consists neither in wealth, nor knowledge, nor power, but in that blessed constitution of our mental and physical capacities which induces us to clothe in verdure and sunshine every thing around us, which can convert a desart into an Arcadia, and change a melancholy world into a glorious elysium. Confident in the elasticity of an unchanging temper, and the luxuriance of a sunny imagination, there are none of the calamities of mortality which individuals, thus framed, need fear. They move on in their own orbits, and, like Saturn with his ring, they are independent of all light except their own. But I am wandering from my subject; all I meant to say is, that (thanks be to the gods!) Dickson and I had always a little romance in our constitutions, and that consequently we were always-and more especially

on an occasion like that to which I now refer-happier than we would have been without it.

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"And now," said I, after we had talked over a few of our more recent adventures at Paris, " you must tell me something of former times-of auld-lang-syne,' as the Scotch call it. Stands Edgefield where it did ?" "How can you suppose it possible?" answered Dickson; " does not Time roll his ceaseless course, and change every thing, even the appearance of the natural and moral world, as effectually as the bloom of a lady's cheek, or the brilliancy of her eye? If the hoary tyrant spares neither cities nor kingdoms, making his trade of devastation a melancholy monopoly, will he overlook, think you, an humble and defenceless village?" "Well," said I, smiling, "let us talk somewhat less metaphorically. Let us pass from theory to reality. Are the Pearsons still in the old house adjoining the parsonage? do you recollect the predatory incursions we used to make into their orchard, to rob the ancient trees of their very parsimonious supply of apples, not quite like those of the Hesperides? The old man used to catch us sometimes, but the good dame interfered in our behalf, and as soon as her • Κρείων Αγαμεμνων, ύποδρα ίδων was about to announce our fate, she playfully tapped him on the cheek with her spectacles, and giving him one of the sweetest smiles that ever a Venus of sixty bestowed upon a Mars of seventy, eloquently deprecated his wrath. The appeal was irresistible; and with many a good advice, all of which we commonly contrived to forget by the following afternoon, we were restored to liberty. Is the venerable couple still in the land of the living?" "No; they are both dead. Their old house has been pulled down, and a field of corn is at this moment waving where ' once their garden smiled.""

"Peace be to their ashes! What can you tell me of the Arnots? Edward was the cleverest boy at school; his sister Magdalene the prettiest girl in the village; and their father the only Justice of Peace in the county that no one ever thought of laughing at. What has become of Edward? After yourself, Dickson, he

was my favourite playfellow. Perhaps his sister had some connection with our friendship, for I daresay you may recollect that I could distinguish, at a tolerably early period, the difference between a black eye and a blue. Magdalene's was of the most bewitching blue. She was a year or two older than I, but I liked her the better. Every body who knew her liked her, every body, I mean, who was not of her own sex, for, to their shame be it spoken, there was not a woman between the years of fifteen and fifty who did not look upon her with jealousy and envy. I had the vanity to suppose that our esteem might be mutual, and I remember that, when alone, I not unfrequently indulged in a few day-dreams of felicity, of which she was ever sure to be the heroine; but they were only dreams; her gentle image was soon destined to pass from before mine eyes, and, under another heaven, new cares and hopes were to be awakened in my bosom. Yet I never forgot her, though I daresay she has long since forgotten me; I can call her up to my mind even now, with her thickly clustering ringlets of dark hair, and soft expressive eye, and her sweet smile, that seemed to rest upon you like moonlight; and then the tones of her beautiful voice, there was so much feeling, so much soul in them! You will smile at me, Dickson, but you will forgive my enthusiasm, when you recollect that I talk of my first love." Dickson, however, seemed to have as little inclination to smile as I myself had. He appeared as much interested in the subject as I was. Perhaps he also had loved her. We were both silent for some minutes. My reverie was what would commonly be called a melancholy one, for it carried me back to the "fairy haunts of longlost hours;" but who does not know that the pensive and mellow sorrow (if I may be allowed the expression) produced by such applications, is worth a whole eternity of careless and clamorous joy?

My friend spoke first, but it was with reluctance, as if unwilling to chase away the vision which our fancies had created. "Alas," said he, with a sigh,

"Elle etait de ce monde, ou les plus belles choses

Ont le pire destin;

Et rose, elle a vecu ce qui vivent les roses L'espace d'un matin."

"Is she there indeed?" cried I, catching the import of his words almost before they were uttered. "I had almost fancied a being such as she could never die." "You should rather have wondered," said Dickson, "that she ever lived." "Is there any of our former friends in the village at all?" I at length inquired, after another pause. A few," was the reply, "a very few; but they are all changed; it is difficult to distinguish these from strangers; girls have become wives and mothers; boys have grown into fathers; and the generation of seniors to whom we looked up with so much deference, as the wisest and most august of human beings, have either been gathered to their fathers, or, having dwindled down into their second childishness, and mere oblivion,' exist only in the slippered pantaloon,

'Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing."

"

"Has this change of persons," asked I," effected any change in the habits of the society and general characteristics of the place?" "Much," answered my friend; "the Sir John and Lady Lambert, who, in our younger days, resided at the Castle in the neighbourhood, and to whose decision in all points, civil, political, and moral, the whole village bowed, were, as you must remember, a couple of the most eminent Christians,' that is to say, of the most outrageous Methodists then in the kingdom. Under their administration Edgefield was a sort of New Zion in miniature-a most godly sanctuary, where all the saints delighted to tarry till their beards grew! It was here that the itinerant orators employed by Bible and Missionary Societies loved to sojourn. Here did these 'sweet and holy men' contrive most easily to open the pockets of the elect,' and to teach the new-born babes of grace' how they might make their calling effectual,' and their salvation sure.' Here were religious tracts diffused with a lavish hand; and he

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who had not read The Death-bed Scenes of Susan Fry,' or The sudden and wonderful Conversion of Timothy Purvis, Tailor in Nottingham, was one who had as yet made but small progress towards the New Jerusalem,' and who might still be considered as wandering in heathen darkness. But at length Sir John and his lady had their lives and their labours of love brought to a close. They died, of course, most comfortably,' and were buried with all due pomp. The heir to the titles and estate was a nephew of Sir John; he drove his lady down to the castle in a barouche and four; he ordered all the old furniture to be consigned to a lumber-room, and brought down his own at great expense from London; he collected all the tracts and innumerable books of Theology, with which the house was stuffed, into the stable-yard, and, setting fire to them en masse,' he honoured Edgefield Methodism with as magnificent a funeral-pile as it could have wished. Then at last did the potent, grave, and reverend inhabitants, begin to think they might venture to steal out of their cloak of hypocrisy, and resume somewhat of the manners and feelings of human beings. A strolling company of players, that had been literally pelted out of the place about three years before, now ventured to return; and the children, almost unconscious of their backsliding,' began to entertain some very sceptical notions as to the probability of their being taken up to the moon, if they ventured to gather a few primroses on a Sunday afternoon. The new lady was as active as her lord. She is a professed blue-stocking, and of course, to suppose that she could be religious, would have been the next thing to high treason. She has a smattering of Greek; she reads Latin with tolerable fluency; in French and Italian she is au fait. With all this load of learning, it was not to be supposed that she should have any wish to resemble the flowers that ' are born to blush unseen.' Accordingly, the whole efforts of her genius were expended in endeavouring to diffuse a love of literature over the village, or rather among such of its inhabitants as she condescended to make her associates. Being inspir

VOL. XV.

ed, in particular, with a prodigious passion for poetry, and possessing, or imagining she possessed, some little portion of the divinus afflatus herself, she instituted, in place of the now neglected and forgotten Bible Societies, a Society of a very different description, to which she was pleased to give the name of The Literary and Poetical Association.' This Society, consisting as much of ladies as of gentlemen, meets in the castle once every fortnight, and, now that I think of it, this is the very evening. To cut a long story short, therefore, if you like the proposal, I shall be happy to take you with me as a stranger, I being a member, and every member having that privilege."

I never neglect any opportunity that offers for seeing human nature in any thing like a new light, even though the gratification of my curiosity should subject me to some little personal inconvenience. On the present occasion, I availed myself most willingly of my friend's invitation, and as the rain had now ceased, and the moon was shining brightly, we had a pleasant walk of about a mile and a half to the castle. On the way thither, I was informed that I would have to pay a trifling price for the privilege I was about to enjoy, for that every stranger who was introduced into the presence-chamber of this most enlightened body was expected to favour them, either with some piece of literary information, or some little scrap, in prose or verse, of his own. "But this is a condition," added my friend, "with which you will find no difficulty in complying, for you were at one time a very illustrious poetaster, and must retain on your memory many of your most successful productions. You need be under little apprehension of any thing like criticism, for, among the other poetical effusions which we may have the good fortune to hear, I will venture to say, you will hardly find one that would be thought worthy of a place even in La Belle Assemblée.' Comforted with this assurance, I promised to do all in my power to recal to mind some of those juvenile essays which I had now for so long a time forgotten.

The members of the "Association" were on the point of commencing the

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business of the night, when we were ushered into their place of meeting, which was a spacious and elegantlyfurnished room, no doubt, set apart for the purpose. Lady Caroline Lambert, a showy, rather than a beautiful woman, sat at the upper end of a large table, covered with books, papers, and writing materials; her friends, both male and female, had taken their seats on either side; and at the lower end, opposite her ladyship, was a young clergyman, probably not yet provided with a church, but who, in the well-grounded hope of securing her ladyship's patronage, was happy to hold, in the mean time, the highly-honourable situation of Secretary to the literary institution which she had succeeded in establishing at Edgefield. After the ceremony of my introduction to the fair President had been duly performed, the minutes of the previous meeting were read, and, as near as I can recollect, they were of the following import:

"Lambert Castle, Edgefield, 20th Sept. 1823. "At the fifteenth meeting of the Literary and Poetical Association' of this place, Lady Caroline Lambert in the chair, her ladyship was graciously pleased to favour the Society with the first chapter of her new novel, which she hopes to have ready for publication by the end of the year. Her ladyship also read to the Society a few deeply pathetic and beautiful stanzas upon the death of a favourite lamb, which Sir William, being unfortunately somewhat shortsighted, had shot, mistaking it for one of his own deer. Miss Jemima Digges then produced her long-promised Sonnet, being an address to the Evening Star. Mr Theodore Peacock repeated his two parodies of Moore's celebrated songs, The Last Rose of Summer,' and The Meeting of the Waters.' Miss Ellen Sommers read an interesting_translation of several scenes from Jouy's new tragedy, entitled 'Sylla.' The Hon. Mr Cecil Rae communicated his recent discovery in the art of penmanship, by which all authors will be enabled to write with both hands at once. At half past eleven the Society adjourned."

Upon these minutes no remarks

were made, and Lady Caroline therefore intimated her intention to proceed with the second chapter of her novel. It was the dullest thing I had ever heard; an attempt, namely, to describe the company assembled at a new inn in the immediate neighbourhood of a lately-discovered mineral well. There was a blustering Highland Chieftain, a coarse English fox-hunter, a cunning vulgar attorney, a very common-place doctor, half a dozen young men of "decided genius," and a few other male ciphers. Then, among the women, her heroine, as it seemed, was a half-crazed, unnatural sort of character, ycleped, in the true spirit of a modern romance, Clara Mowbray; the minor stars were, a worn-out coquette,-a discontented wife, ready to run away with the first man who offered,—a low-bred Scotchwoman, introduced, for the first time, into any thing like good society,-and some half score of silly, giggling girls, stantes sine nomine umbrae. Her auditors seemed delighted; but I, though no novelreader, recollected something of Smollet and Fieldling-names which one almost never hears of now, and could not bring myself to believe, that even the slightest approximation had been made to them in the present production. Yet there was evidently an attempt to sketch character strongly and decidedly, as they had done-"Heu! quanto intervallo."

Lady Caroline's task being ended, much to her own and the company's satisfaction, Miss Digges, the successful debutante of the previous evening, was called upon for any "sweet effusion" which she had been so kind as bring with her. Of course, all eyes were instantly turned upon the amiable poetess. She was a sallow, sentimental-looking girl, with red hair, and a mouth which, when she ventured to smile, stretched itself out to a most portentous longitude. Upon the present occasion, casting a pair of pale blue eyes up to the ceiling, with a look intended to represent the most seraphic sweetness, she entreated to be passed over for this night; but Lady Caroline would take no refusal, and Miss Digges, not daring to rebel any longer, only observed, by way of preface-" You know I make Wordsworth my mo

del," and then recited, with much pathos, the following Sonnet-a copy of which, as well as of the other pieces that follow, my friend Dickson afterwards procured for me: Sonnet,

By a Lady of Sensibility.

"I saw a beggar knock at Mary's door, As old a man as ever I had seen; I daresay he was eighty-five, or more, And pale, and weak, and very, very lean;

And, as he walk'd, his poor old limbs

seem'd sore,

And through his tatter'd clothes the wild winds blew ;

His pantaloons were made of many a score Of different patches-every shape and hue;

The fragment of a coat was on his back, And on his head the remnant of a hat; His hair was grey, though it had once been black,

His back was round, though it had once been flat:

Mary soon saw him, and the generous soul Gave him a penny to procure a roll."

Long and loud was the applause with which this production was received, and it unfortunately produced the same effect on the sweet poetess which applause, in general, is too apt to do. It silenced, at once, any faint whisperings of modesty, and brought into full play all the conceit of a little mind, puffed up, almost to bursting, with the consciousness of its own powers. Spontaneously, therefore, and with a smile of condescension, she announced to us her intention of favouring us with something more. "I was at Ramsgate," said she, "in the autumn of last year, and the shocking barbarities which I saw daily committed on the shore, called from me, in a fit of indignant inspiration, the following

Sonnet.

Poor little innocent! I grieve to see

Thy mother plunge thee in the deep, deep ocean,

Whose waves, although they hardly reach her knee,

Sweep o'er thy shoulders in severe commotion.

Indeed it is a fearful thing to me,

To view thee sprawl, and scratch, and

tear, and kick;

And hear thee, in thy depth of misery, Vent all thy soul in one unbroken shriek.

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And, putting on thy clothes, would set thee free;

But, as it is, I must in silence gaze, Omniscient Heaven! how strange are all thy ways!"

"With your ladyship's permission, I shall now read my Sonnet," cried a voice from the lower end of the table, which proceeded from a little man, with bright grey eyes, a brown scratch wig, and a cork-leg. "We shall be delighted to hear it, Mr Winterdykès,' answered her ladyship. All eyes sparkled, for Mr Winterdykes was looked on as the Peter Pindar of the Society, and though nobody liked to be made the subject of his satire, yet every one was pleased when he seemed disposed to vent it on another. Assuming the solemn air of mock-heroic dignity, he rose from the table, walked into the middle of the room, planted his cork-leg firmly behind, moved his wig somewhat awry, rolled his little twinkling eye" in a fine phrenzy," and casting up his hands to heaven, remarked, before commencing, in a sort of parenthesis, but so gravely, that it was impossible to say whether he was in joke or in earnest, "You know I make Milton my model; and happening, last week, as I returned home a little tipsy from a convivial party, to have my attention arrested by the Moon, these lines flowed from my mouth in a fit of irrepressible inspiration:

Sonnet to the Moon.

Cream-coloured Moon! you now are in the sky

Smiling, aye laughing, till you hold your sides;

You don your "seven-leagued boots," and then you fly

Through the blue ether with a giant's

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