sparkling and fanciful as herself, singing pretty French romances, and Scotish 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 human-almost divine! Oh to hear these two instruments accompanying my dear companion (I forgot to say that she is a singer worthy to be so accompanied) in Haydn's exquisite canzonet, "She never told her love,"-to hear her voice, with all its power, its sweetness, its gush of sound, so sustained and assisted by modulations that rivalled 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, oxslip 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

Of the air

One mingled melody,—a voice, a pair Of instruments most voice-like! 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.

A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR

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 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

T

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 unconsciously blow ing his horn; we in the house screaming and scolding; the passers-by shouting and hallooing; and May, who little brooked such an invasion of her territories, barking in her tremendous lion-note, and putting down the other noises like a clap of thunder. But passengers, coachman, horses, and spectators, all 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 patchwork! 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 which he furbished up our new-old pony-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-of-door 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 were a furious Tory, or a woman of three-score and ten)-the only misfortune of that sort which has befallen us, is under foot. The road has been adjusted on the plan of Mr. Mac-Adam; and a tremendous operation it is. I do