MUTATIONS.

THE window where I am seated faces a glade opening from a small plantation, which, though in reality consisting only of a few trees, seems, from my point of view, of unlimited depth. If I were not in the secret it might be taken for a wood stretching over a large district of country, nor would it require a very fertile imagination to suppose the wood a primeval forest, reproducing itself through successive ages. I am anxious that the reader should so conceive it; for, if it is such a forest, it will follow that the glade must have presented much the same appearance as it does now for the eight or ten thousand years which have elapsed since geology struck work, and, a treaty having been arranged between granite, trap, and greywacke, the earth was left to her own quiet way of living which she has since maintained.

The reader having thus realised the continuance of our scenery through many ages, can have little difficulty in conceiving that I myself have lived as long. That, indeed, requires no imagination, but follows as a matter of course; for, if it be considered that the scenery I have described has no existence, except in and through my sensations, being, to speak plainly, only the objectified image of the subjectified sensation of the retina of my eye, it follows that it is only an accident or attribute of me the substitute, and it is an axiom that the substance must always be at least of equal duration with the accident or attribute.

This matter being thus demonstrated, I proceed to people my scenery. Here at present I see walking up the glade, which I may as well state forms the avenue leading to my house, a gentleman dressed in the most approved costume of this blessed year of 1858-a costume not difficult to describe, being black from the tip of the toe to the crown of the hat, except a small glimmering of white at the breast. The fact is, he is dressed for dinner, and in a quarter of an hour or so will be quietly seated under my mahogany, the only guest for the day of myself and my wife.

I wish for I am by no means jealous of my friend B., though he has a wicked reputation-that my wife were at present walking arm-in-arm with him, since, for artistic effect, I wish to introduce into my forest view a male and female figure. An ideal lady, however, will do as well, or better, for my wife, God bless her! has, since her seventh child, taken an obstinate inclination to the rotund, and, being always deficient in altitude, her latitude is out of all ideal proportions, and, to tell the truth, when she dresses in crinoline the latitude gets the better of the altitude in the ratio of two to one. So, leaving my wife out of the question, we will keep to our ideal lady, and as all we gentlemen know how an ideal lady ought to be dressed, we need only say that her gown has the orthodox quantity of flounces, that from its construction it is impossible to make out whether or not she is likely to vex the ghost of Malthus, and that she wears a bonnet which certainly protects the tappietowrie into which her maid arranged her hair an hour ago, but which, for any other purpose, might have been stowed away somewhere within the capacious vacancies of her under garments.

So much for my lady and gentleman externally; as to their internals,

meaning, thereby, their minds or souls, these, of course, are exactly what ladies' and gentlemen's ought to be. The gentleman has his profession which he practises, and his profession which he does not practise, being respectively a lawyer and a Christian. He is superficially acquainted with a great many things, and intimately conversant with law conveyancing, The lady is a most artistic musician without a musical ear, a multifarious linguist, knowing five or six modern tongues besides Latin, but rather deficient in English, and especially in spelling. Her education having been finished when she left the boarding-school at Bayswater, she is tolerably ignorant of our classic literature, a few novels of Bulwer excepted. She knows nothing about English history since the eighth edition of Pinnock, which brought matters down to the passing of the Reform Bill, when, as every one knows, the sun of England's glory set for ever; but, to make up for her ignorance of contemporary history, she is learned in botany and the "use of the globes," is a connoisseur in ferns, and has a live newt in an aquarium. Take the two for all in all, they are very agreeable people, and certainly look well at my table, where they acquit themselves like thorough lady and gentleman of the new school; and small thanks to them, as the saying is, for my Susan has given them the best possible dinner, and every one knows my port and sherry are not to be despised. I am not going to describe our conversation, which was, of course, all that it ought to be, a few jokes good in themselves, and a greater number good in virtue of the good dinner; but in the main good, dull, methodical talk about the weather, the crops, the grouse, the barracks, and the last hanging, not to mention a little literary conversation by the ideal lady, who is a great admirer of Tennyson. The ladies leave, the gentlemen remain, drinking more than is salubrious, and discuss the probability of a French invasion, the conservatism of the present government, the electric cable, the confessional, Walter Savage Landor, Shakspeare, and the musical glasses, and at last join the ladies in the hot drawing-room, where we have hot tea, execution on the piano, an abortive attempt to get up a dance (a few young ladies having come in), a little turning over of portfolios of engravings, a little scandal about our best friends, a little religion, a little wine, then a shaking of hands, some bustle of farewell, and our "party" is as much "over and gone" as if it had taken place in Nineveh in the time of Nimroud. Such are the outlines of our "life" in 1858. The reader, who of course knows everything about good society (we all do so now-a-days), will easily fill up the pic

ture.

Let us now avail ourselves of the privilege we bespoke at the outset of living in different epochs, and in company with our reader take a leap back in time to the year of grace 58. Alas, the eighteen centuries, though they have left the trees standing, and the forest-like glade is the same as ever, have run off with our breeches.

I am sitting in my old place, but I feel rather cold, for paint is a bad substitute for the black coat and trousers, and I cannot smear myself over with fat, as this is July, and my olfactory nerves, though not fastidious, do not like the smell of corruption which the sun speedily brings out if I use our country's unguents; and though the black hat did press uncomfortably on my forehead, it is better than a couple of feathers, though they certainly look grander. But yonder is my friend B. sauntering up

the glade, with a sheepskin petticoat, which he has put on in honour of my invitation; his cheeks in dress paint of yellow and green and black, very elegant to behold, and a glorious, enviable tuft of feathers in his head, for which I feel inclined to murder him, if it were not for the clergyman of the Druid persuasion, with the fillet of acorns round his head, and costume à la Lablache, who accompanies him, and that sweet girl dressed in nature's loveliness, who is both his wife and mine, and, if I recollect aright, the Druid's also, and who, though now staying with B., who is chief blower on the ram's horn to her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Boadicea, has consented to grace our feast. "Walk in, lady and gentlemen; glad to see you in my hole in the ground, which, however, is large enough to contain us all. Put down your sheepskin, my dear friend. Venerable Lablache, say grace; and, dear Norma, sit next me, and let us fall to at this sheep, which, skin and all, is here roasted entire. Quietly, quietly, a strong pull, a long pull, a pull all together, and there you have got the legs torn off! Norma, my dear, don't spoil your teeth, white and sharp like the wolf's, in trying to break through the ribs; if you do prefer lights and livers, and have a prophetic foretaste of tripe, take my axe with the flint head, and chop in your way like a lady. Ah, your reverence, I see you like sheep's-head; allow me to recommend you to take the trotters with it. B., fill that skull there with mead, and let us drink Norma's health. Ah, it was a question betwixt the owner of that skull and me which should furnish a mead-cup to the other, and that axe with which our Norma has so cleverly split up the sheep, bespattering not a little her lovely cheek, settled the matter in my favour. But now for serious eating; for see, Norma has got the better of us, and one sheep for four pagans is rather scrimp commons. Pass the skull round first." And in an incredible short space of time the sheep disappears, Norma making remarkably clean work of the backbone, to which she had eat her way through. The conversation now assumes a serious cast, carried on in that rich guttural which was then the language of the court. speaks of the strange race with petticoats and short swords who had about this time begun to make a noise in the world, having already conquered five hundred sovereign princes who ruled in Britain somewhere to the south. The priest said that the success of the petticoated race altogether arose from our neglect of religion, and stated that at the last general assembly of the Church it had been solemnly determined that a sacrifice of two hundred virgins should be made in the Tor wood to propitiate the god of war, and that he hoped no one would refuse to contribute to the service of the gods. Norma was loud in her approbation of this pious design, and said that her three daughters were at the disposal of the Church, to which we, as the possible fathers, gave our assent, not without those delightful emotions which good intentions invariably occasion. What else we talked about I really cannot at this distance of time recollect. It could not, however, have been a long conversation, as it was then a wholesome rule in society to sleep immediately after dinner, which in these primitive days, when each guest was satisfied with his quarter of the sheep, and drank pure mead "out of skulls newly torn from the grave," was willingly complied with.

B.

This day, however, I must have eat and drunk more than usual, for when I awoke my guests had disappeared. In a fit of somnambulism I

had walked out of my cave, and had found my way to an oriel window, the only opening of any size, in a strong, gloomy castle, surrounded by the wood I have already mentioned, and to the door of which the forest glade led.

It was the hour of matins, and the sound of bells from a neighbouring convent came faintly on the slumberous air, herds of cattle, tended by our serfs, grazed on the other side of the moat and beneath the forest trees. My eldest daughter was walking on the terrace overhanging the moat with her black dwarf, whose keen eyes emitted a flame as bright as that which shone from the jewel on his bonnet, holding up the trailing skirt of her robe. By her side she led a milk-white lamb, while behind her strayed Bruno, our great wolf-dog, and two of our retainers in complete armour, whose special care was to watch over the safety of our Isabelle, followed her steps. Along with them walked on this occasion our hereditary seneschal, with his massive silver salver loaded with bread and meat, while his assistant followed with a capacious black-jack full of my ladye's peculiar browst, for at this hour every day it was the practice of our Isabelle to dispense the dole which the castle freely gave to the cottars who lived in the huts round the castle walls, secure in the protection of our men-at-arms. My ladye and I were contemplating this scene she apparently engaged in her tapestry, and I inspecting the edge of my famous two-handed sword, but both of us in reality occupied with anticipations of the future of that bright being who was to us in our old age our all in all. Everything looked peaceful: the hounds were sleeping in their kennel, the falcons were still in the falconry, and even the rooks had for the time left off cawing. Isabelle's white swan floated motionless in the moat, while our son Osric's war-steed was leisurely cropping the grass in the meadow not far from its young master, who, fast asleep, showed little trace of that fiery temperament which had procured him the appellation of Osric the Lion. Never was there a quieter or more delicious moment; we thought ourselves, for the time, in the garden of Hesperides, of which Father Theodore speaks, when suddenly the warden at the barbican blew a loud note on his horn, and we heard the creaking of the drawbridge as it was hastily drawn up. Another blast, however, satisfied us that it was not a warlike attack, then of no unfrequent occurrence, but that we were to expect the visit of a friend; so, according to the stately courtesy of the time, my ladye and I walked to the barbican to greet his arrival. After a short parley with the stranger's pursuivant, our warden lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis, and gracefully bowing on his saddle and sweeping the ground. with the plumes of his helmet, which he had taken off on seeing the ladye, young Bois Guilbert and his train rode slowly across the bridge. Glad were both of us to see him, for the youth, though he had taken holy orders and joined the warlike and high-born Templars, was at that time ever welcome, whether to the baron's hall or the ladye's bower.

Giving his horse to his squire, and leaving his retinue to the care of the warden, our gallant guest, still uncovered, accompanied us to the castle. As Isabelle came to meet us he bowed profoundly, and as he gazed on her loveliness a deep shade of melancholy passed over the bronzed features of the young celibate. His greeting to Sir Osric was frank and manly, and as we walked together by the wooded glade up to the castle door I

question if in all the court of our great Henry-the second of that royal name-a better illustration of the effect of chivalrous training could be found; for, though I say it who should not say it, I had seen service in my younger days, and the companion of Orlando and Britomart, if he had not the sprightly courtesy of the cavaliers of Henry's court, as seen in Osric and the Templar, had a bearing even more proud and stately; and it was not necessary to be told that Madame the Châtelaine had refused the hand of Edward of saintly memory (who ever after, though married, lived a celibate), to see that she was fit to have been a queen had she not preferred to be the wife of a simple noble.

In lofty converse on deeds of chivalry our time passed lightly, till the castle bell warned us it was time to prepare for dinner, and I took care that due honours should be shown to our guest, who was waited on by my own grooms of the ewer and the stole, while the seneschal himself put on him the banquet mantle.

Punctual to the hour of repast another visitor joined us, unannounced by the warder's horn, for all knew that the man of peace, the statesman, the courtier and churchman, the sainted Thomas à Becket, was a welcome guest at our castle.

It was

The banquet was in my ladye's boudoir, which was more cheerful than the banqueting-hall; and for this day, in consideration of our guests, we dispensed with our usual custom of feasting with our retainers. Becket and Bois Guilbert were congenial companions, for the Templar, though still a stripling, was learned in the lore of the schools, so that we rather listened to their prelections than offered opinions of our own. always a great privilege to hear the archbishop. The argument ran on the supremaey of the Church, the Templar and à Becket holding that a mere clerk, as such, had an immunity from the king's judges, and could not be tried, even for murder, except by the Church; further, that the Church was supreme over the State, jure divino; and the latter was bound to look to the former as a child to its father, and render filial obedience to its behests. I, who had been accustomed in my youth to the chivalry of the Franks, did not agree with these new opinions, but I deferred much to the judgment of that holy man who graced our table, and doubted whether my notions of the relation between Church and State were not the worn-out maxims of a bygone age. I was, therefore, glad when Osric, than whom a more valiant knight does not exist, modestly supported a contrary opinion, and avowed his determination to stand by the king's rights coûte que coûte, adding that such was also the determination of young Ivanhoe, the son of our neighbour Cerdric, although he had been educated in the cloister, and could write his name like a clerk. This speech displeased the churchmen, and in particular the Templar, the impetuosity of whose youth, for he was only eighteen, hurried him into expressions which, but for the calm ascendancy which à Becket has somehow or other over these young men, might have led to a quarrel. As it was, though matters were accommodated between the Templar and my son, whose mature age and confirmed reputation could afford to overlook the petulance of youth, I fear a death-feud may arise out of it between Bois Guilbert and Ivanhoe, to whom Osric considers it his duty to relate what passed, and against whom the hot Templar already seems to nourish considerable animosity, arising, as is shrewdly suspected