roads of her favourite coppice, and amidst its steep declivities, sunny slopes, and sudden swells and falls, with the dark verdure of fir-plantations hanging over the picturesque unequal paling, partly covered with moss and ivy-the firs interspersed with shining orange-leaved beech, and the glossy stems of the "lady of the woods," the delicate weeping birch; while beneath grows a rich underwood, where the old thorn's redspotted leaves and redder berries, and the bramble's scarlet festoons, and tall fern of every hue, seem to vie with the brilliant mosaic of the ground, now covered with dead leaves, and strewn with fir-cones, now, where a little glade intervenes, gay with various mosses and splendid fungi. On she guides us, on a calm mild November day, along a beautiful lane, decorated with a thousand colours: the brown road, and the rich verdure that borders it, strewed with the pale yellow leaves of the elm, just beginning to fall; hedge-rows glowing with long wreaths of the bramble in every variety of purplish red; and overhead the unchanged green of the fir, contrasting with the spotted sycamore, the tawny beech, and the dry sere leaves of the oak, which rustle as the light wind passes through them; a few common yellow flowers, still blowing in spite of the season, and ruddy berries glowing through all. On she posts us up the hill where the road widens, with the group of cattle by the way-side, and the little boy-messenger, trundling his hoop at full speed, making all the better haste in his work, because he cheats himself into thinking it play; and so we reach the patch of common on the hill-top with the clear pool, where three cottar's children-elves of three, and four, and five years old-without any distinction of sex in their sunburnt faces and tattered drapery, are dipping up water in their little homely cups, shining with cleanliness, and a small brown pitcher with the lid broken, which, when it is filled, their united strength will never be able to lift : and, as we gaze, we ex animo subscribe assent to our guide's assertion that these infants are quite a group for a painter, with their rosy cheeks, and chubby hands, and round merry faces; and the low cottage in the back-ground, peeping out of its vine leaves and china roses, with the good wife at the door, tidy, and comely, and smiling, preparing the potatoes for the pot, and watching the tiny labourers at the pool. Or she makes us cross the river, and lean, as by instinct, over the rails of the bridge, and gaze on the fine grounds of the Great House, with their magnificent clusters of limes, and firs, and poplars; the green meadows opposite, studded with oaks and elms; the clear winding Loddon itself; the mill with its picturesque old buildings bounding the scene. Not a ramble do we take with her, but her pretty Italian greyhound, Mayflower, is there also for May is as welcome a presence as the season of that name-and, confesses her mistress, to accomplish a walk in the country without her, would be like an adventure of Don Quixote without his faithful 'squire Sancho. And then, what real village life-and-blood personages we are introduced to! That retired publican, for instance, who piques himself on independence and idleness, talks politics, reads newspapers, hates the minister, and cries out for reform-who, in chronic ennui, hangs over his gate, and tries to entice passengers to stop and chat; who volunteers little jobs all round, smokes cherry-trees to cure the blight, and traces and blows up all the wasp-nests in the parish. And big, burly Tom Cordery -that gentlest of savages, and wildest of civilised men-rat-catcher, hare

finder, and broom-maker-whose home menagerie of ferrets, and terriers, and mongrels, do really look, as his crony, the head-keeper, can't help hinting, "fitter to find Christian hares and pheasants, than rats, and such vermin." And there is Jack Hatch-as mystic a personage in some respects as Geoffrey Crayon's Stout Gentleman-whom not to know argues oneself unknown in "Our Village."--Not know Jack Hatch? the best cricketer in the parish, in the county, in the country: Jack Hatch, who has got seven notches at one hit: Jack Hatch, who has trolled, and caught out a whole eleven:* Jack Hatch, who is moreover the best bowler and the best musician in the hundred-can dance a hornpipe and a minuet, sing a whole song-book, bark like a dog, mew like a cat, crow like a cock, and go through Punch from beginning to end! Not know Jack Hatch! Such ignorance is of course preposterous, and it would be equally an affectation to pretend ignorance of Aunt Martha, that most delightful of old maids; and Hannah Besit, that energetic little dairywoman; and Lizzy, the spoiled child of the village; and the old familyservant, Mrs. Mosse, in appearance so eminently "respectable" (not at all in the sense of Steerforth's Littimer); and that comely vulgarian and boisterous sportsman, Tom Hopkins; and Lucy, that wholesale coquette; and Doctor Tubb, all-accomplished barber-surgeon, with accommodations in his pocket-book for distressed man and beast; and gentle Olive Hathaway, lame and pensive, the village mantua-maker "by appointment," the sound of whose crutch subdues every rough temper, and whose fame is far-spread for begging off condemned kittens, and nursing sick ducklings, and giving her last penny to prevent a wayward urchin from taking a bird's nest. On the whole, little wonder was it that an obscure Berkshire hamlet, as Mr. Chorley says, by the magic of talent and kindly feeling, was converted into a place of resort and interest for not a few of the finest spirits of the age.

"Belford Regis" transfers and enlarges the sphere of observation from a village to a market town. There are some touching sketches— as that of "The Old Emigré," and humorous ones by the dozen, such as Mrs. Tomkins, the cheesemonger; and Mrs. Hollis, the fruiterer; and

* Miss Mitford has been charged with speaking at random on her favourite theme, the cricket-field. Who but Miss Mitford, asks an authority both in literature and in field sports, ever heard of a cricket-ball being thrown five hundred yards? And the conclusion is, that ladies never can make themselves mistresses of the rules, technicalities, and character of male games. Which conclusion need not exclude those ladies, however, from taking their revenge in the thought that equally fallible are their barbarian critics, when a game is going on from the Lady's Own Book," or some labyrinthine recreation in crotchet and Berlin wool. i

"Miss Mitford," says one of her transatlantic visitors (though 'tis twelve summers since), "is dressed a little quaintly, and as unlike as possible to the faces we have seen of her in the magazines, which have all a broad humour, bordering on coarseness. She has a pale grey, soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow: a wintry sign that has come prematurely upon her, as like signs come upon us, while the year is yet fresh and undecayed. Her voice has a sweet, low tone, and her manner a naturalness, frankness, and affectionateness that we have so long been familiar with in their other modes of manifestation, that it would have been, indeed, a disappointment not to have found them."--MISS SEDGWICK'S “Letters from Abroad."

that "useless old beau," King Harwood. The description of the good town itself is perhaps better still; we become as familiar with its ins and outs as though we had paid rent and taxes there, and had run up long bills with Mrs. Tomkins for double Gloucester, or privately effected a barter with her of unsold (alas, unsaleable) copies of our last "octavo, cloth boards," for base instalments of butter and eggs.

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Miss Mitford's scattered contributions to annuals and magazines, who shall reckon up? With her, literary occupation is evidently a labour of love. Literature has ever been to her at once a passion and a solacefrom the days when she found such sweetness in the stolen waters of Corneille and Racine, to the present time, when she corresponds so zealously with unnumbered dons in the republic of letters. How cordial and catholic her taste is, in estimating the merits of "all the talents," may be seen in her latest work, "Recollections of a Literary Life" (1851). The book is a disappointing book, if taken up, as naturally it is, in the expectation of enjoying a connected biographical narrative. It is a thing of shreds and patches-an omniumgatherum of waifs and strays a mélange of tid-bits, ana and analecta from scribes and scribblers, old and new, native and foreign, known and unknown. The "courteous reader" is told in the preface-why was he not told in the titlepage?—that he must just take the three volumes for what they arean attempt to make others relish a few favourite writers as heartily as Miss Mitford has relished them herself. However, having once recovered from the sense of being "at sea," through the "false colours" hung out at the mainmast of this contraband trader, we settle down to enjoy such stores as it carries, including, perchance, occasional scraps of dry remainder ship-biscuit. And after all, books of this kind are valuable, as introducing to more general society the names and works of neglected or unrecognised authors; as in this case, those of witty, accomplished, refined Mackworth Praed, and the rising American poet-doctor, Oliver Holmes; and Daniel Webster's forensic oratory, little known in the Old Country; and the slenderly-observed merits of John Kenyon and George Darley, Catherine Fanshaw and Thomas Davis, besides such oldfashioned performances as "Cowley's Essays" (which the world should not, and which Miss Mitford will not, willingly let die), and "Richardson's Correspondence," and "Holcroft's Memoirs:" the last, by the way, is worthily lauded by Tom Moore in his "Diary," as a model of a literary man's personal recollections, and has recently acquired something of its due popularity by being reprinted in Messrs. Longman's well-selected Traveller's Library."

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It is to be hoped that Miss Mitford will yet, with many another work, give us a more methodical and detailed history of herself-the present memoir being a misnomer. Seems it so?

Seems, madam? nay, it is; we know not seems.

WINCHELSEA'S DELIVERANCE; OR, THE STOUT ABBOT OF BATTAYLE.

BALLADS OF THE SOUTH.-NO. I.

The Argument.

"The Frenchmen came to the town of Winchelsey, where understanding the Abbot of Battell was come to defend it, they sent him word to redeeme the towne: unto whom the abbot answered, he needed not to redeeme the thing that was not lost, but willed them to desist from molesting the towne upon paine of that which might follow. The French, exasperated at this answer, requested him that if hee would not have peace, hee would send forth to fight man to man, or more in number if hee would, to trye the matter in view of armes; but neyther would the abbot admitte the one request or the other, saying hee was a religious man, and therefore [ought] not to admitte such petitions, and that hee came not hither to fight, but to defend and preserve the peace of the country. These things being heard, the Frenchmen, supposing the abbot and his people wanted courage, they assaulted the towne with such instruments of warre as cast forth stones far off, not ceasing from noone till evening; but, by the laudable prowess of the abbot and such as were with him, the French prevailed nothing, but left it as they found it." -Stowe's Chronicle, pp. 278-9.

This happened in the year of grace 1377, the first of Richard II. Hamo de Offington was abbot of Battel from 1364 to 1383. Battel Abbey was dedicated to St. Martin, and St. Thomas and St. Giles were the patrons of Winchelsea, in which town the Alards were a distinguished family. Brother Dunk is not wholly an imaginary personage, for the Chronicles inform us, that a short time previously to the attack of Winchelsea, the French, in one of their marauding excursions, captured a monk of Battayle clad in complete armour. None but the hypercritical will doubt that this was the identical brother who figures to so much advantage in the ensuing verses.

Fytte pe fyrste.

Ir was Midsummer time, at the season of prime,
When many a knock and a shout

Did fiercely assail the great gate of Battayle,

And call forth the warder so stout.

"Saynt Martin! for sure!" as he opened the door,
Says he, "'tis the young Squire Alárd,

From fair Winchelsee, as it seemeth to me.
Good syr, you have ridden full hard."

"I have not ridden slow, as my jennet doth know,"
To him said the right gallant youth;
"Now to the lord abbot I pray thee to go,
And tell him this word from my mouth :
"The Frenchmen are coming to burn Winchelsee,
Are coming with tall galleys ten,

And unless we have aid, I am sorely afraid
"Twill go hard with the Winchelsee men."

Now hearing the rout my lord abbot came out,
And without any needless delay,

Bade summon his men, two hundred and ten,

A goodly and doughty array.

"Brother Clement," he said, "go fetch my good blade,

That hangeth up in the great hall;

There's my jacket of mail hard by on a nail,

And my greaves and my helmet withal.

"And, Sacristan Gower, quick hie to the tower,
And ring out Saint Martin's great bell!
The men of Battayle for sure will not fail
To know what it meaneth right well."

He bade a tall groom bring horses forth soon-
He said, and the thing it was done;

For no order in vain gave he to his men,
Stout Hamo, surnamed Offingtón.

Without the great gate his coming did wait
Of tenants a sturdy long row,

In doublets of leather, in each cap a feather,
In each hand a trusty yew bow.

There were yeomen and hinds from the forest so wide,
And men from the mill and the forge;

And Alard did ride by the abbot his side,

With the pennon of bold Saint George.

Knights and squires one or tway had taken their way, To lead on the valorous crowd,

While old Clement Dunk, a tall, sword-loving monk, Chanted paters and aves aloud.

The abbot on horse showed the footmen their course
Through many a green glade and lea,

And in a short space, by'r Lady's good grace,
They were come unto brave Winchelsee.

Fytte ye Seconde.

Now the Frenchmen were coming full fast to the town,

Were coming full fast to the wall,

When a herald did blow a terly-lo-lo,

And loud on the abbot 'gan call.

"Monsieur Abbé," said he, on his low-bended knee, "A word with my lord, s'il vous plait ;

'Tis our capitaine's will you should ransom cette ville, With red gold, and then he will away!"

Then the abbot out said: "By Saint Denis his head,
Bid thy maister to hold in his boast;

Methinks, by the masse, he must deem me an asse,
To ransom what never was lost!"

This angered the foe, both noble and low,
And chiefly the grand capitaine,

Who swore a great oath by Saint Sepulchre's tooth,
And sent forth his herald again.

"Le grand Chevalier, milord, sends me here,
To challenge you forth to the fight ;

He biddeth me say you will suffer, this day,
The loss of full many a wight."

But Hamo of Offington meekly replied:
"Carnal weapons, as holy writ saith.
'Vail little, and I, as a son of the Church,
Fight only the good fight of faith."

Brother Dunk, who stood by, rather turned up his eye,
As he thought of the helmet and sword

He had fetched from the hall, at the good abbot's call That morning-but said not a word.

The herald went back, and the Frenchmen, not slack

To curse the lord abbot's reply,

Called him cowardly knave, and declared he should have Good space to repent by-and-by.