her jewels and costly robes, and gave the money to the poor." Years and years after her lord was gone there used to come for alms to her castle-gate an old pilgrim, whom the fair Felice relieved with hundreds of other poor. At last, this old hermit, feeling his death drawing nigh, took a ring from his hand and sent it to fair Felice, and she knew by that token it was her lord and husband, and hastened to him. And Guy soon after died in the arms of his beloved Felice, who, having survived him only fifteen days, was buried in the same grave. So ends the story of Guy, the bold baron of price, and of the fair maid Felice. A worthy legend. His bones are dust, and his sword is rust, and his soul is with the saints, I trust. Mr. Taylor supplies two noble illustrations to Sir Bevis and Sir Guy. We must pass over the rest of the Gammer Gurton library with a brief commendation. The ballads and stories are good, the pictures are good, the type is good, the covers are fine, and the price is small. The same may be said of The Home Treasury, edited by the benevolent Felix Summerly. This Home-Treasury contains a deal of pleasant reading and delightful pictures. The fairy-tales are skilfully recast, and charmingly illustrated with coloured prints (perhaps all prints for children ought to have pretty colours, by the way) by some of the good-natured artists before mentioned. The delightful drawings for Little Red Riding-hood are supplied by Mr. Webster. Mr. Townshend nobly illustrates Jack and the Bean-Stalk; while the pretty love-tale of Beast and the Beauty is delineated by Mr. Redgrave. In the book of Fairy Tales and Ballads Cope, Redgrave, and Taylor, vie with each other which shall most shew skill and recreate youth. For the Story-books of the Seasons and the Mrs. Harriet-Myrtle Series Mr. Absolon has supplied a profusion of designs, which are all, without exception, charming. The organ of love of children as developed on that gentleman's cranium must be something prodigious, and the bump of benevolence quite a mountain. Blessed is he whose hat is enlarged by them! Let a word be said, in conclusion, regarding the admirable story of the Good-natured Bear, one of the wittiest, pleasantest, and kindest of books that I have read for many a long day. Witness this extract, which contains the commencement of the bear's autobiography : "I am a native of Poland, and was born in one of the largest and most comfortable caves in the forest of Towskipowski. My father and mother were greatly respected by all the inhabitants of the forest, and were, in fact, regarded, not only by all their own species, but by every other animal, as persons of some consequence. I do not mention this litthe circumstance from any pride, but only out of filial affection for their memory. 466 My father was a man of a proud and resentful-my father, I meant to say, was a person, of a proud and resentful disposition, though of the greatest courage and honour; but my mother was one in whom all the qualities of the fairer, or at least, the softer sex, were united. I shall never forget the patience, the gentleness, the skill, and the firmness with which she first taught me to walk alone. I mean to walk on all fours, of course; the upright manner of my present walking was only learned afterwards. As this infant effort, however, is one of my very earliest recollections, I have mentioned it before all the rest, and if you please, I will give you a little account of it.' "Oh! do, Mr. Bear,' cried Gretchen; and no sooner had she uttered the words, than all the children cried out at the the same time, 'Oh! please do, sir,' The bear took several long whiffs at his pipe, and thus continued My mother took me to a retired part of the forest, where few animals ever came; and telling me that I must now stand alone, extended both paws, and slowly lowered me towards the earth. The height, as I looked down, seemed terrible, and I felt my legs kick in the air with fear of, I did not know what, till suddenly I felt four hard things, and no motion. It was the fixed earth beneath my four infant legs. 'Now,' said my mother, 'you are what is called standing alone!' But what she said I heard as in a dream. With my back in the air, as though it rested on a wooden trussel, with my nose poking out straight, snuffing the fresh breeze, and the many scents of the woods, my ears pricking and shooting with all sorts of new sounds, to wonder at, to want to have, to love, or to tumble down at,-and my eyes staring before me full of light, and con fused gold, and dancing things, I seemed to be in a condition over which I had no power to effect the least change, and in which I must remain fixed till some wonderful thing happened. But the firm voice of my mother came to my assistance, and I heard her tell me to look upon the earth beneath me, and see where I was. First I looked up among the boughs, then sideways at my shoulder, then I squinted at the tip of my nose. all by mistake and innocence-at last, I bent my nose in despair, and saw my fore paws standing, and this of course was right. The first thing that caught my attention, being the first thing I saw distinctly, was a little blue flower with a bright jewel in the middle, which I afterwards found was a drop of dew. Sometimes I thought this little blue darling was so close that it almost touched my eyes, and certainly the odour of it was up in my head; sometimes I thought it was deep down, a long way off. When I bent my face towards it to give it a kiss, it seemed just where it was, though I had not done what I had thought to do. "The next thing I saw upon the ground was a soft-looking little creature, that crawled along with a round ball upon the middle of its back, of a beautiful white colour, with brown and red curling stripes. The creature moved very, very slowly, and appeared always to follow the opinion and advice of two long horns on its head, that went feeling about on all sides. Presently it slowly approached my right fore paw, and I wandered how I should feel, or smell, or hear it, as it went over my toes; but the instant one of the horns touched the hair of my paw both horns shrunk into nothing, and presently came out again, and the creature slowly moved away in another direction. While I was wondering at this strange proceeding-for I never thought of hurting the creature, not knowing how to hurt any thing, and what should have made the horn fancy otherwise?-while, then, I was wondering at this, my attention was suddenly drawn to a tuft of moss on my right near a hollow tree-trunk. Out of this green tuft looked a pair of very bright, round, small "If I had known how to walk, I should have stepped back a few steps when I saw those bright little eyes, but I never ventured to lift a paw from the earth, since my mother had first set me down, nor did I know how to do so, or what were the proper thoughts or mo tions to begin with. So I stood looking at the eyes; and presently I saw that the bead was yellow, and all the face and throat yellow, and that it had a large mouth. What you have just seen,' said my mother, we call a snail; and what you now see is a frog.' The names, how. ever, did not help me at all to under. stand. Why the first should have turned from my paw so suddenly, and why this creature should continue to stare up at me in such a manner I could not conceive. I expected, however, that it would soon come slowly crawling forth, and then I should see whether it would also avoid me in the same manner. I now observed that its body and breast were double somehow, and that its paws were very large for its size, but had no bair upon them, which I thought was proba bly occasioned by its slow crawling hav ing rubbed it all off. I had scarcely made these observations and reflections, when a beam of bright light breaking through the trees, the creature suddenly gave a great hop right up under my nose, and I, thinking the world was at an end, instantly fell flat down on one side, and lay there waiting!" ANNETTE. [In Widcombe churchyard, near Bath, there is a grave, over which has been placed a broken pillar bearing the word "Annette," without date or further name.] THERE stands beneath the chestnut shade A solitary tomb, The wild flowers round it droop and fade, The wind doth whisper through the grass The rolling seasons o'er it pass; But who wert thou, Annette ? The ivy clasps its tender form As 'twere to shield it from the storm Of love which sorrows yet, Yet strange it is that at thy grave That might from blank oblivion save No line to tell how good or fair,- Were the one word engraven there, The golden smile of even dwells And yet it might be that the hour When wintry storms began to lower Laid'st down the burden joyfully Which broke thy heart, Annette. Perchance thy life was one long night That Hope's bright star shed not its light And that beneath this verdant mound, Where oft before have met Earth's lonely ones, thou too hast found The weary and despairing heart, Would thrill with joy to find its part Perchance, when we are lying low, All As little they as we can know Perchance our tombs may stand by thine, To tell our ancestry and line, London :-Printed by George Barclay, Castle Street, Leicester Square. THIS morning I accompanied the Judge and Miss Sandford in their sleigh on an excursion into the country. The scene, though rather painful to the eyes, was indescribably brilliant and beautiful. There had been during last night and part of yesterday a slight thaw, accompanied by a cold fine rain that froze the moment it fell into ice of the purest crystal. Every deciduous tree was covered with this glittering coating, and looked in the distance like an enormous though graceful bunch of feathers; while on a nearer approach it resembled, with its limbs now bending under the heavy weight of the transparent incrustation, a dazzling chandelier. The open fields, covered with a rough but hardened surface of snow, glistened in the sun as if thickly strewed with the largest diamonds; and every rail of the wooden fences in this general profusion of ornaments was decorated with a delicate fringe of pendent ice, that radiated like burnished silver. The heavy and sombre spruce, loaded with snow, rejoiced in a green old age. Having its massy shape relieved by strong and numerous lights, it gained in grace what it lost in strength, and stood erect among its drooping neighbours, venerable but vigorous, the hoary forefather of the wood. VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCVII. THE ATTACHÉ," ETC. The tall and slender poplar and white birch, which here and there had sprung up in the new clearings from the roots of old trees, and outgrown their strength and proportions, bent their heads gracefully to the ground under their unusual burden and formed fanciful arches, which the frost encircled with numerous wreaths of pearls. Every thing in the distance was covered with the purest white, while the colours of nearer objects were as diversified as their forms. The bark of the different trees and their limbs appeared through the transparent ice; and the rays of the sun, as they fell upon them, invested them with all the hues of the prism. It was a scene as impossible to describe as to forget. To the natives it is not an unusual sight; for it generally occurs once a-year, at least, and its effects are as well appreciated as its beauty. The farmer foresees and laments serious injury to his orchard, the woodman a pitiless pelting of ice as he plies his axe in the forest, the huntsman a barrier to his sport, and the traveller an omen of hard and severe weather; and yet such was the glory of the landscape, that every heart felt its magic and acknowledged the might and the beauty of this sudden transformation. LL |