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A Wicked Prior. Servingman, Prior. What news with you, Sir?

Serv. Ev'n heavy news, my Lord; for the light fire,

Falling in manner of a fire-drake

Upon a barn of yours, hath burnt six barns,

And not a strike of corn reserv'd from dust.
No hand could save it; yet ten thousand hands
Labour'd their best, though none for love of you:
For

every tongue with bitter cursing bann'd Your Lordship, as the viper of the land. Prior. What meant the villains?

Serv. Thus and thus they cried:

Upon this churl, this hoarder up

of corn,

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Serpilla. Thyrsis believes thee dead, and justly may
Within his youthful breast then entertain
New flames of love, and yet therein be free
From the least show of doing injury

To that rich beauty which he thinks extinct,
And happily hath mourn'd for long ago:
But when he shall perceive thee here alive,
His old lost love will then with thee revive.
Phillis. That love, Serpilla, which can be removed
With the light breath of an imagined death,
Is but a faint weak love; nor care I much
Whether it live within, or still lie dead.
Ev'n I myself believ'd him long ago
Dead, and enclosed within an earthen urn;
And yet, abhorring any other love,

I only loved that pale-faced beauty still;
And those dry bones, dissolved into dust:
And underneath their ashes kept alive
The lively flames of my still-burning fire.

Celia, being put to sleep by an ineffectual poison, waking believes herself to be among the dead. The old Shepherd Narete finds

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Are the sweet fields of Scyros. Know'st thou not
The meadow where the fountain springs? this wood?
Euro's great mountain, and Ormino's hill;
The hill where thou wert born?

Thyrsis, upbraided by Phillis for loving another, while he supposed her dead, replies

Thirsis. O do not turn thy face another way. Perhaps thou thinkest, by denying thus That lovely visage to these eyes of mine, To punish my misdeeds; but think not so. Look on me still, and mark me what I say, (For, if thou know'st it not, I'll tell thee then), A more severe revenger of thy wrongs Thou canst not have than those fair eyes of thine, Which by those shining beams that wound my heart Punish me more than all the world can do. What greater pain canst thou inflict on me, Than still to keep as fire before my face That lovely beauty, which I have betray'd; That beauty, I have lost?

NIGHT breaks off her speech.*

NIGHT. But stay! for there methinks 1 see the Sun,

Eternal Painter, now begin to rise,

And limn the heavens in vermilion dye;
And having dipt his pencil, aptly framed,
Already in the colour of the morn,
With various temper he doth mix in one
Darkness and Light: and drawing curiously
Strait golden lines quite thro' the dusky sky,
A rough draught of the day he seems to yield,
With red and tawny in an azure field.-
Already, by the clattering of their bits,

Their gingling harness, and their neighing sounds,

I hear Eous and fierce Pirous

Come panting on my back; and therefore I
Must fly away. And yet I do not fly,
But follow on my regulated course,
And those eternal Orders I received
From the First Mover of the Universe.

In the Prologue.

C. L.

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Sir,-Having been in the country during the publication of the first parts of the Table Book, I have but now just bought them; and on perusing them, I find in part 1, col. 112 et infrâ, Mr. C. Lamb's first specimen of the Garrick Plays, called "King John and Matilda;" wherein the said Matilda, the daughter of the old baron Fitzwater is supposed to be poisoned by King John's order, in a nunnery. She is especially entitled therein as "immaculate" "Virtue's white virgin," and "maid and martyr." Now, sir, I presume it to be well known, that in the best legends extant of the times of Richard I. and John, this identical Matilda, or Maud Fitzwater, is chronicled as the chère amie and companion of the outlawed Robert Fitzooth, earl of Huntingdon, whom, as "Robin Hood," she followed as "Maid Marian ;" and with whom, on his restoration to his honours by king Richard, (to his earldom and estates,) she intermarried, and became countess of Huntingdon, and was in every respect a wife, though we have no records whether she ever became a mother; and that when by king John the earl was again outlawed, and driven to the wilds of Sherwood forest, his countess also again shared his misfortunes, and a second time took the name of "Maid Marian," (then rather a misnomer,) as he did that of "Robin Hood."

During the first outlawry of Robin Hood, and while Marian, or more properly Matilda, was yet a maid, John (then prince John, Richard being in Palestine) made overtures to the old baron Fitzwalter for his daughter as a mistress, and being refused, and finding she was in the society of Robin Hood and his merry men, attacked them, and a bloody fray ensued; during

This is an error of the poet's. His real name was Fitz-Walter, i. e. the son of Walter,

which, John and Matilda (in the male costume of forest green) met, and fought: John required her to yield, and she as resolutely desired him, in a reproachful taunt, to win her first; and so stoutly did she belabour him, as the rest of the foresters did his party also, that he was constrained to yield, and to withdraw from a contest in which nothing was to be got but blows.

We hear nothing more of any attempts of John's to molest her or her party till after the death of Richard, and his own accession to the throne, when he spitefully ousted the earl and countess from their honours and possessions, and confiscated all to his own use; and thus this unfortunate pair, as I have above stated, were again constrained to quit the castle for the forest.

But it is certain, that long before John became king, Matilda, alias Maud, alias Marian, had ceased to be a maid; and we have no account of any attempts whatsoever made by king John upon or against the quondam Matilda Fitzwalter, afterwards alternately Maid Marian and countess of Huntingdon. Indeed all the legends of Robin Hood's life present "Maid Marian" as having lived with him unmolested by any such attempts during the whole of his second outlawry, and as having survived Robin's tragical end; though of her subsequent fate they are all silent, expressing themselves indeed ignorant of what was her destiny. Certainly she may then have retired into a nunnery, but at all events not as Matilda Fitzwalter; for she had been legally married and formally acknowledged by Richard I. as countess of Huntingdon; and as she spent the last part of her fellowship with her husband in Sherwood forest under

her romantic forest appellation, it is scarcely probable that she would resume her title on entering into a nunnery. I would presume, therefore, that however and wherever she ended her days, it must have been under the cognomen of "Maid Marian.” And as her husband lived for some years in the forest after the accession of John, I should think it scarcely likely that after such a great lapse of time, and after the change which had taken place in Matilda both as regards her worldly station and age, and I should presume person, (from such a continued exposure to the air and weather,) John should renew any attempt upon her. I should therefore feel exceedingly gratified if either yourself or Mr. C. Lamb could adduce any historical facts to reconcile all these discrepancies, and to show how the facts, as supposed in the play of "King John and Matilda," could,

in the natural course of events, and in the very teeth of the declarations made in the history of Robin Hood and his consort, have taken place.

Mark this also; the historians of Robin Hood and Maid Marian (and their history was written, if not by contemporaries, yet in the next generation; nor is it likely that such a renowned personage should be unnoticed in chronicles for any space of time) all declare that they could not ascertain the fate of Marian after the death of Robin. His death and burial are well known, and the inscription to his memory is still extant; but she was lost sight of from the time of his decease. How comes it then that Robert Davenport, in the 17th century, should be so well informed, as to know that Matilda ended her days in a nunnery by poison administered by order of king John, when there is no tradition extant of the time or manner of her decease? We have no other authority than this of Davenport's tragedy on the subject; and I should therefore be inclined to think that he was misinformed, and that the event recorded by him never happened. As to its being another Matilda Fitzwalter, it is highly preposterous to imagine. Is it likely that at the same time there should be two barons of that name and title, each having a daughter named Matilda or Maud? Davenport calls his baron the old baron Fitzwater; and the father of Maid Marian is described as the old baron: both must therefore have lived in the reign of Richard I., and also in that of John till their death. Indeed we have proof that the baron was alive in John's reign, because Richard I. having restored him at the same time that he pardoned Fitzooth, John dispossessed them both on his accession.

with her charms, proposed to her father for her as his mistress, (precisely the events connected with Maid Marian ;) and being refused, he attacked Castle Baynard, and ultimately destroyed it. However, for the reasons I have before stated, I am decidedly of opinion, that if such a baron was proprietor of Castle Baynard, it must have been the father of Maid Marian, as I cannot suppose that there were two. I cannot precisely remember, nor have I any thing at hand to refer to, but I believe it was at a tourney somewhere that prince John first Saw Maud.

For the Table Book.

THE PHANTOM LIGHT.

What phantom light from yonder lonely tower,
Glimmers yet paler than the pale moon beam ;-
Breaking the darkness of the midnight hour,—
What bodes its dismal, melancholy gleam?

'Tis not the brightness of that glorious light,
That bursts in splendour from the hoary north;
'Tis not the pharos of the dangerous night,
Mid storms and winds benignly shining forth.

Still are the waves that wash this desert shore,

No breath is there to fill the fisher's sail;
Yet round yon isle is heard the distant roar
Of billows writhing in a tempest's gale.

Doomed are the mariners that rashly seek

To land in safety on that dreadful shore;

For once engulfed in the forbidden creek,

Their fate is sealed-they're never heard of more.

For spirits there exert unholy sway

I think it therefore highly improbable,
that there should have been so remarkable
a coincidence as two barons Fitzwalter, and
two Matildas at the same time, and both
the latter subject to the unwelcome ad-
dresses of John: consequently I cannot
give credence, without proofs, to the inci-To-night he visits not his favourite bower,
dent in Davenport's play.

When favoured by the night's portentous gloom-
Seduce the sailor from his trackless way,
And lure the wretch to an untimely doom.

I am, Sir,

respectfully yours,
"THE VEILED SPIRIT."

May 17, 1827.

P. S. Since writing the above, my friend F. C. N. suggests to me, that there was a baron Fitzwalter in John's reign, proprietor of Castle Baynard, whose daughter Matilda John saw at a tourney, and being smitten

A demon tenant's yonder lonely tower,
A dreadful compound of hell, earth, and air;

So pale the light that faintly glimmers there.

In storms he seeks that solitary haunt,
And, with their lord, a grim unearthly crew;
Who, while they join in wild discordant chant,
The mystic revels of their race pursue.

But when the fiends have gained their horrid lair,'
The light then bursts forth with a blood-red glare;
And phantom forms will fit along the wave,
Whose corses long had tenanted the grave.

C.

A GROVE

THE FORMATION OF ONE WITH A VIEW TO THE PICTURESQUE.

The prevailing character of a grove is beauty; fine trees are lovely objects; a grove is an assemblage of them; in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance; and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the surface; but in the outline they are seldom much regarded. The eye attracted into the depth of the grove passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention: they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen, if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances to be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects within are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please: strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion; and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty; but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is less natural than any; for though we cannot find straight lines in a forest, we are habituated to them in the hedge-rows of fields; but neither in wild nor in cultivated nature do we ever see trees equidistant from each other: that regularity belongs to art alone. The distances therefore should be strikingly different; the trees should gather into groups, or stand in various ir regular lines, and describe several figures: the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; in others the trees should be so close

together, as hardly to leave a passage between them; and in others as far apart as the connection will allow. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The consequence of variety in the disposition, is variety in the light and shade of the grove; which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray between the large masses of their foliage; and others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only checker the ground. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects; there is a closeness under those whose branches descend low and spread wide, a space and liberty where the arch above is high, and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. These still are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation; but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, slight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true they are not regretted when wanting, but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

For the Table Book. GROVES AND HIGH PLACES. The heathens considered it unlawful to build temples, because they thought no temple spacious enough for the sun. Hence the saying, Mundus universus est templum solis, "The whole world is a temple of the sun." Thus their god Terminus, and others, were worshipped in temples openroofed. Hills and mountains became the fittest places for their idolatry; and these consecrated hills are the "high places" so often forbidden in the sacred writings. As the number of their gods increased, so the number of their consecrated hills multiplied; and from them their gods and goddesses took names, as Mercurius Cyllenius, Venus Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus. To beautify these holy hills, the places of their idola

trous worship, they beset them with trees; and thence arose the consecration of groves and woods, from whence also their idols were often named. At length certain choice and select trees began to be consecrated. The French magi, termed Dryadæ, worshipped the oak; the Etrurians worshipped an elm-tree; and amongst the Celta, a tall oak was the very idol of Jupiter.

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and became so common, that they had peculiar priests, whom they termed the prophets of the grove and idols of the grove.

Christians, in the consecration of their churches, make special choice of peculiar saints, by whose name they are called. The heathens consecrated their groves to peculiar idols; whence in profane authors we read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Arduenna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their names from the groves in which they were worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes called a grove-" Josiah brought out the grove from the house of the Lord." It is probable, that in this idol was portraited the form and similitude of a grove, and that from thence it was called a grove, as those similitudes of Diana's temple, made by Demetrius, were termed temples of Diana.

These customs appear exemplified by inscriptions on coins, medals, in churchyards, and the various buildings commemorated by marble, flowers, and durable and perishing substances. J. R. P.

*** The groves round London within a few years have been nearly destroyed by the speculating builders.

J. R. P.'s note may be an excuse for observing, that the "grove" best known, perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is that at Camberwell-a spacious roadway and fine walks, above half a mile in length, between rows of stately trees, from the beginning of the village and ascending the hill to its summit, from whence there is, or rather was, the finest burst of scenery the eye can look upon within the same distance from London. The view is partially obstructed by new buildings, and the character of the "grove" itself has been gradually injured by the breaking up of the adjacent grounds and meadows into brickfields, and the flanking of its sides with town-like houses. This grove has been the theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first gave celebrity to it by his writings, and pleasant residence on its eastern extremity;

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and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice in an elegant poem, with delightful engravings on wood. After the death of the benevolent physician, and before the decease of the illustrator of "Indian Antiquities," much of the earth, consecrated by their love and praise, "passed through the fire" in sacrifice to the Moloch of improvement. In a year or two "Grove Hill" may be properly named "Grove Street."

Hampstead, however, is the "place of groves ;"-how long it may remain so is a secret in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove, townward, is the noble private avenue from the Hampstead-road to Belsize-house, in the valley between Primrose hill and the hill whereon the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson's remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the pleasant highway to the little village of West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hampstead church, and between that edifice and the heath, there are several old groves. Winding southwardly from the heath, there is a charming little grove in Well Walk, with a bench at the end; whereon I last saw poor Keats, the poet of the "Pot of Basil," sitting and sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief,gleaning parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted in-musing, as in his Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of sammer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm south,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 1

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale,and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at thear beyond to-morrow.

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