question, always so interesting, being unsatisfactorily answered, I am at leisure to return to our survey. The first cottage is that erst inhabited by Mr. and Mrs. H. the retired publican and his good wife. They are gone; I always thought we were too quiet for them; and his eyes being quite recovered, he felt the weariness of idleness more than ever. So they returned to W., where he has taken a comfortable lodging next door to their old and well-frequented Inn, the Pie and Parrot, where he has the pleasure every evening of reading the newspaper, and abusing the ministers amongst his old customers, himself a customer; as well as of lending his willing aid in waiting and entertaining on fair-days and market-days, at pink-feasts and melon-feasts, to the great solace of mine host, and the no small perplexity of the guests, who, puzzled between the old landlord and the new, hardly know to whom to pay their reckoning, or which to call to account for a bad tap:-a mistake, which our sometime neighbour, happier than he has been since he left the Bar, particularly enjoys. His successor here is an industrious person, by calling a seedsman, as may be collected by the heaps of pea and bean seed, clover and vetches, piled tier above tier against the window. is really a great girl. They are a fine family The shop!-all prosperous, tranquil, and thriving; another little one coming; an idle apprentice run away,-more of him anon; and a civil journeyman hired in his room. An excellent exchange! Jesse is a very agreeable person. He is the politician of the village since we have lost Mr. H., and as he goes every day into B in his paper cap to carry our country bread, he is sure to bring home the latest intelligence of all sorts, especially of canvassing and electioneering. Jesse has the most complete collection of squibs in the country, and piques himself on his skill in detecting the writers. He will bestow as many guesses, and bring forward as many proofs on occasion of a hand-bill signed "FairPlay," or a song subscribed "True-blue," as ever were given to that abiding riddle, the authorship of Junius-and very likely come as near the mark. Ah, the dear home! A runaway there too! I may as well tell the story now, although very sorry to have to record so sad an act of delinquency of my clients the boys, as an elopement from our own premises. The little white cottage down the lane which stands so prettily, backed by a tall elm wood, has also lost its fair inmate, Sally Wheeler; who finding that. Joel continued constant to our pretty Harriet, and was quite out of hope, was suddenly forsaken by the fit of dutifulness which brought her to keep her deaf grandmother company, and returned to service. Dame Wheeler has however a companion, in a widow of her own standing, appointed by the parish to live with, and take care of her. A nice tidy old woman is Dame Henry Hamilton-that ever a parish boy, Shearman-pity that she looks so frumpish; offspring of a tailor and a cook-maid, should her face seems fixed in one perpetual scold. have an appellation so fitted to the hero of a It was not so when she lived with her sister romance! Henry Hamilton had lived with on the Lea: then she was a light-hearted mer- us for three years and upwards as man of all ry chatterer, whose tongue ran all day long-work, part waterer of my geraniums, sole and that's the reason of her cross look now! Mrs. Wheeler is as deaf as a post, and poor Mrs. Shearman is pining of a suppression of speech. Fancy what it is for a woman, especially a talking woman, to live without a listener! forced either to hold her peace, or when that becomes impossible, to talk to one to whose sense words are as air! La Trappe is nothing to this tantalization;-besides the Trappists were men. No wonder that poor Dame Shearman looks cross. The Blacksmith's! no change in that quarter; except a most astonishing growth amongst the children. George looks quite a man, and Betsy, who was just like a blue-eyed doll, with her flaxen curls and her apple-blossom complexion, the prettiest fairy that ever was seen, now walks up to school every morning with her work-bag and her spelling-book, and feeder of May, the general favourite and factotum of the family. Being an orphan with no home but the workhouse, no friend but the overseer, at whose recommendation he was engaged, he seemed to belong to us in an especial manner, to have a more than_common claim on protection and kindness. Henry was just the boy to discover and improve this feeling;-quick, clever, capable, subtle, and supple; exceedingly agreeable in manner, and pleasant in appearance. He had a light, pliant form, with graceful delicate limbs like a native Indian; a dark but elegant countenance sparkling with expression; and a remarkable variety and versatility of talent. Nothing came amiss to him.-In one week he hath been carpenter, blacksmith, painter, tinker, glazier, tailor, cobbler, and wheelwright. These were but a few of his multifarious ac With all these endowments, Henry was scarcely so good a servant as a duller boy. Besides that he undertook so many things that full half of them were of necessity left unfinished, he was generally to seek when wanted, and after sending a hue and cry round the neighbourhood, would be discovered at the blacksmith's or the collar-maker's intently occupied on some devices of his own. Then he had been praised for invention, till he thought it necessary to display that brilliant quality on all occasions, by which means we, who are exceedingly simple, old-fashioned, matter-of-fact people, were constantly posed by new-fangled novelties, which nobody but the artist could use, or quibs and quiddities of no use whatever. Thus we had fastenings for boxes that would not open, and latches for gates that refused to shut, bellows of a new construction that no mortal could blow, and traps that caught fingers instead of rats; May was nearly choked by an improved slip, and my white Camellia killed outright by an infallible wash for insects. complishments; he would beat Harriet at nee- took a great fancy to Henry, which Henry, dle-work, and me in gardening. All the parish caught by the dashing assurance of his manwas in the habit of applying to him on emer-ner, most unluckily returned. They became gency, and I never knew him decline a job in friends after the fashion of Orestes and Pymy life. He hath mended a straw bonnet and lades, or Damon and Pythias, fought for each. a smoke-jack, cleaned a clock, constructed a other, lied for each other, and, finally, ran donkey-cart, and dressed a doll. away with each other. The reason for Bill's evasion was manifest, his conduct having been such that his master had been compelled to threaten him with Bridewell and the treadmill; but why Henry, who, although his invention had latterly taken a decided bent towards that branch of ingenuity called mischief, might still have walked quietly out of the street door with a good character in his pocket, should choose to elope from the garret window, is best known to himself. Off they set upward-that is to say Londonward, the common destination of your country youths who sally forth to try their fortune. Forth they set, and in about a week they were followed by a third runaway, a quiet, simple, modestlooking lad, a sort of hanger-on to the other two, and an apprentice to our worthy neighbour the carpenter. Poor Ned! we were sorry for him; he was of some promise as a cricketer-(by the way, Bill never went near the ground, which I always thought a bad sign;) -Ned would really have made a good cricketer, not a brilliant hitter, but an excellent stopper of the ball; one of your safe steady players, whom there is no putting out. body ever dreamt of his running away. We all knew that he was a little idle, and that he was a sort of follower of Bill's-but Ned to decamp! He must have gone out of pure imitation, just as geese waddle into a pond in single file, or as one sheep or pig will follow another through a gap in the hedge; sheer imitation! A notable example of the harm that one town-bred youth will work in a country village! Go he did, and back he is come, poor fellow! thin as a herring, and ragged as a colt, a mere moral to tag a tale withal. He has not had a day's work since he left his good master, nor, to judge from his looks, a sufficient meal. His account of the other two worthies is just what I expected. Henry, after many ups and downs, (during one of which he was within half an inch of being a soldier, that is to say, he did enlist, and wanted only that much of the standard,) is now in a good place, and likely to do well. His fidus Achates, Bill, has disappeared from London as he did from the country. No one knows what is become of him. For my own part, I never looked for any good from a lad, who, to say nothing of his graver iniquities, kept away from the cricket ground, thrashed my flowers, and tried to thrash May. Notwithstanding these mishaps, we all liked Henry; his master liked his sportsmanship, his skill and boldness in riding, and the zeal with which he would maintain the honour of his own dogs, right or wrong; his mistress liked his civility and good humour; Harriet felt the value of his alert assistance; and I had a real respect for his resource. In the village he was less a favourite; he looked down upon the other boys; and the men, although amused by his cleverness, looked down upon him. At last he unfortunately met with a friend of his own age in a clever apprentice, who arrived at our neighbour the baker's from the good town of B- This youngster, "for shortness called" Bill, was a thorough town boy: you might see at a glance that he had been bred in the streets. He was a bold sturdy lad, with a look compounded of great impudence and a little slyness, and manners, although characterised by the former of these amiable qualities. His voice was a shout, his walk a swagger, and his knock at the door a bounce that threatened to bring the house about our ears. The very first time that I saw him he was standing before our court with a switch in his hand, with which he was alternately menacing May, who, nothing daunted, returned his attack by an incessant bark, and demolishing a superb crown imperial. Never was a more complete mauvais sujet. This audacious urchin most unfortunately No The flourishing and well-accustomed Rose Inn has lost its comely mistress, a harmless, blameless, kindly-tempered woman, with a pleasant smile and a gentle voice, who withered suddenly in the very strength and pride of womanhood, and died lamented by high and low. She is succeeded in the management of that respectable hostelry by two light-footed and light-hearted lasses of twelve and thirteen, who skip about after their good bustling father with an officious civility that the guests find irresistible, and conduct the house-keeping with a frugality and forethought beyond their years. The white house, with the limes in front, has also lost, though not by death, our good vicar and his charming family. They have taken possession of their own pretty dwelling; and their removal has given me an opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with all the crooks and turnings, the gates, ponds, and pollards of the vicarage lane;—a walk which on that event I suddenly discovered to be one of the prettiest in the neighbourhood. affluence of wood dappled with villages and gentlemen's seats, the wide-spreading town of B- lying in the distance with its spires and towers, the Thames and the Kennett winding along their lines of light like glittering serpents, and the O— hills rising beyond; one glance at that glorious prospect, and here we are at the top of the hill, on the open common, where the air is so fresh and pure, and the sun shines so gaily on the golden furze. Did I say there were no alterations in our village? Could I so utterly forget the great doings on the top of the hill, where, by dint of whitening and sash-windowing, and freshdooring, the old ample farm-house has become a very genteel-looking residence? Or the cottage on the common opposite, or rather the two cottages, which have by a similar transmogrification been laid into one, and now form, with their new cart-shed, their double garden, and their neat paling, so pretty and comfortable a home for the respectable mistress of the little village school and her industrious husband? How could I forget that cottage, whose inhabitants I see so often and like so well! Ah! here is Lizzy, half leaning half riding on the gate of her own court, looking very demure, and yet quite ripe for a frolic. Lizzy bas in some measure outgrown her beauty; which desirable possession does very often run away from a young lady at six years old, and come back again at twelve. I think that Mr. Moore is the greatest market-gardener such will be the case here. She is still a very in the parish; and leads his donkey chaise nice little girl, quick, clever, active, and use- through the street every summer afternoon, ful; goes to school; cooks upon occasion her vending fruit and vegetables, and followed by father's dinner; and is beyond all comparison a train of urchins of either sex. Some who the handiest little waiting-woman in the parish. walk up boldly to the cart, halfpenny custoShe is waiting now to speak to her playmate mers, who ask questions and change their and companion the wheelwright's daughter, minds, balance between the merits of cherries who, with all her mother's attentive politeness, and gooseberries, and gravely calculate under is running down the street with an umbrella what form of fruit they may get most eating and her clogs, to fence their lodger, Mrs. Hay, for their money. These are the rich. Others, from the ill effects of a summer shower. I the shy, who stand aloof, are penniless elves, think that we have had about a dozen drops silent petitioners, who wait about with longing of rain, and where they came from no mortal looks, till some child-loving purchaser, or Mr. can guess, for there is not a cloud in the sky; Moore himself, unable to withstand those but there goes little Mary with a grave civili- pleading eyes, flings them a dole, and gives ty, a curtsying earnestness that would be quite them the double delight of the frui and the amusing in so young a child, if the feelings scramble. that dictated the attention were not so good and so real, and the object so respectable. The dear cricket ground! Even at this hour there are boys loitering about that beMrs. Hay is a widow, a slight, delicate el- loved scene of evening pastime, not quite playderly person, in a well-preserved black silk ing, but idling and lounging, and looking as gown, a neat quiet bonnet never in fashion, if they longed to play. My friend, the little nor ever wholly out, snow-white stockings, Hussar, with his blue jacket and his immovaand a handsome grey shawl-her invariable ble gravity, is the quietest of the party, and walking costume. She makes no visits; cul- Ben Kirby, youngest brother of Joe, (I think tivates no acquaintance; and seldom leaves I have spoken of Ben before,) by far the noisher neat quiet room except to glide into church iest. Joe no longer belongs to the boys' side, on a Sunday, and to take a short walk on some fine spring morning. No one knows precisely what Mrs. Hay's station has been, but every body feels that she is an object of interest and * It is amusing to see how very early poor children become acquainted with the rate of exchange between the smaller denominations of coin and the commodities-such as cakes, nuts, and ginger-bread- which they purchase. No better judge of the currency question than a country brat of three years old. Lizzy, before she could speak plain, was so knowing in cakes and halfpence, that it was a common amusement with the people at the shop where she dealt to try to cheat her, and watch her excessive anger when she detected the imposition. She was sure to find them out, and was never pacified till she had all that was due to her. having been promoted to play with the men; | the sea, must lay their account, (especially if and Ben has succeeded to his post as chief there be also excellent roads, and a capital and leader of the youngsters. Joe is a sort pack of fox-hounds) on some of the evils which of person to make himself happy anywhere, are generally found to counterbalance so many but I suspect that he has not at present gained conveniences; such as a most unusual dearmuch pleasure by the exchange. It is always ness and scarcity of milk, cream, butter, eggs, a very equivocal advantage when a person is and poultry-luxuries held proper to rural life, removed from the first place in one class, to-a general corruption of domestics,—and, the lowest in the rank just above; and in the above all, a perpetual change and fluctuation present instance poor Joe seems to me to have of neighbours. The people of the higher class gained little by his preferment except the ho- in this neighbourhood, are as mutable as the nour of being Fag general to the whole party. six-months denizens of Richmond, or HampHis feelings must be something like those of stead-mere birds of passage, who, “come a provincial actor transplanted to the London like shadows, so depart." If a resident of boards, who finds himself on the scene of his ten years ago, were, by any chance, to come ambition indeed, but playing Richmond instead here now, he would be in great luck if he of Richard, Macduff instead of Macbeth. Joe, found three faces of gentility that he could rehowever, will work his way up, and in the cognise. I do not mean to insinuate that mean time Ben fills his abdicated throne with faces in our parts wax old or ugly sooner eminent ability. than elsewhere; but, simply, that they do not stay amongst us long enough to become oldthat one after another, they vanish. All our mansions are let, or to be let. The old manorial Hall, where squire succeeded to squire from generation to generation, is cut down into a villa, or a hunting-lodge, and transferred season after season, from tenant to tenant, with as little remorse as if it were a lodginghouse at Brighton. The lords of the soil are almost as universally absentees as if our fair country were part and parcel of the Sister Kingdom. The spirit of migration possesses the land. Nobody of any note even talks of staying amongst us, that I have heard-except a speculating candidate for the next borough; and he is said to have given pretty intelligible hints that he shall certainly be off, unless he be elected. In short, we H-shire people are a generation of runaways. Jem Eusden, his quondom rival, is lost to the cricket ground altogether. He is gone forth to see the world. An uncle of his mother's, a broker by profession, resident in Shoe Lane, came into this neighbourhood to attend a great auction, and was so caught by Jem's scholarship that he carried him off to London and placed him with a hosier in Cheapside, where he is to this hour engaged in tying up gloves and stockings, and carrying out parcels. His grand-uncle describes him as much improved by the removal; and his own letters to Ben (for since they have been parted they are become great friends) confirm the assertion. He writes by every opportunity, full as often, I should think, as once a quarter: and his letters give by far the best accounts of the Lord Mayor's day, as well as of the dwarfs, giants, and other monsters on show in London, of any that arrive in these parts. He is critical on the Christmas Pantomimes, descriptive on the Panoramas, and his narrative of the death of the elephant (whose remains his good kinsman the broker took him to visit) was so pathetic that it made the whole village cry. All the common is in admiration of Jem's genius, always excepting his friend Ben Kirby, who laughs at every thing, even his correspondent's letters, and hath been heard to insinuate that the most eloquent morceaux are "bits out of newspapers." Ben is a shrewd wag and knowing; but in this instance I think he is mistaken. I hold Jem's flights for original, and suspect that the young gentleman will turn out literary. THE TENANTS OF BEECHGROVE. THOSE Who live in a thickly inhabited, and very pretty country, close to a large town, within a morning's ride of London, and an easy distance from Bath or Cheltenham and As "out of evil cometh good," one pleasant consequence of this incessant mutation has been the absence of that sort of prying and observation of which country neighbours used to be accused. No street even in London was freer from small gossiping. With us, they who were moving or thinking of moving, had something else to do: and we, the few dull laggards, who remained fixed in our places, as stationary as directing-posts, and pretty nearly as useless, were too much accustomed to the whirl, to take any great note of the passers-by. Yet, even amidst the general flitting, one abode gradually forced itself into notice, for the unrivalled rapidity of succession, with which tenant followed tenant,-the most admired and the most changeable of all. It was an exceedingly pretty inconvenient cottage, a picture of a place, with its French windows and verandahs, its trellis and porch covered with clematis and jessamine, its baby-house conservatory, and its miniature lawn. It was situated in the midst of woody, winding lanes, lost as it were in the labyrinths of our rich and intricate country; with an open grove of noble beeches on one side of it, and a clear stream crossed by a winding bridge, on the other. In short, Beechgrove, with all its pretty rusticities, its violets and primroses, and nightingales and turtle-doves, was the very place in which to spend the honeymoon. It seemed a spot made expressly for brides and bridegrooms, doomed by the inexorable laws of fashion, to four weeks of connubial felicity, to get creditably weary of solitude and of each other. She never entered it afterwards. Poor thing! guilt was there, but shame and repentance were there also. She was born for better things: and shrank from the eye as if looks were swords. tentions with unalterable sweetness, seemed best pleased to glide away alone, given up to her own thoughts,-sad thoughts, alas! I fear they were!-to her cheerless prospects and mournful recollections. She would walk with her bonnet in her hand, and her beautiful curls put back from her white temples, as if air were necessary to still their throbbing, and she would so sigh! Poor thing! poor thing! once she came to church, closely veiled, downcast, and trembling. She had forgotten the key of her own pew, and was invited by the Accordingly, couple after couple repaired to vicar's lady into hers. And she went in, and Beechgrove. The very postilions, whether knelt in the lowest place, and sate out great from south or north, east or west, knew in- part of the service. But the sermon was afstinctively, where to deposit a new-married fecting; it spake of female frailty; of the pair. There was not so pretty a dovecote woman taken in adultery; of sin and of forwithin twenty miles. Here they came in giveness. She could not bear it, and left the quick succession, and we had great amuse-church. ment in watching them. A bridal party is generally very pleasant to look at,-all white satin, and white lace, and white favours, and finery and gaiety! one likes every thing about it: the horses so sleek and prancing: the Without any intention of watching this carriages so ostentatiously new and grand; lovely downcast penitent-for most lovely she the servants so full of conscious importance, was!—it so happened that I met her frequentparading and bustling, as proud of their mas-ly; and although we never spoke, she grew ter's splendour, as if they belonged to a Sheriff on Lord Mayor's day, or to a winning candidate at an election time! Well! they came, and they went, the fashionable, the titled, the wealthy, and the plain, glad, as it seemed, to come, and certainly glad to go. One couple only remained a little beyond the allotted time. (N. B. that bride was remarkably pretty.) They lingered on; she was charmed with Beechgrove, and they talked of wintering there, and re-engaged the house. But I don't know how it was; she was a sweet pretty woman to be sure, but did not look over-wise; and it happened to her as to Cowley's Beauty in his " Chronicle," her reign was short "One month, three days, and half an hour Judith held the sovereign power." Her husband whisked her off to Paris at the end of five weeks. so familiarized to my passing her in the lanes, as not to start and tremble at my appearance, like a fluttered dove,—as was usual with her, on the sight of strangers. She would even stop to fondle my greyhound, Mayflower, who, with the extraordinary instinct of her kind, had been attracted by her sweet countenance, and never failed to accost her. May and she were quite acquainted; and she had even learnt her name. We used to meet almost every day; especially in one spot, which soon became as much her favourite, as it had long been mine. About half a mile to the right of Beechgrove, a shady lane leads to a beautiful patch of woodland scenery,-the lingering remains of an ancient chase. Turfy sheep-walks intersect thick brakes of fern and holly, mingled with rich old thorns, and the light feathery birch, and surmounted by noble oaks and beeches, the growth of centuries. In one of the recesses of the wood, just opposite the deep clear pond, which lets the light so finely into this forest picture, stands a real cottage, rough, rude, irregular, mis-shapen; with its hedged-in garden, and its well-stocked orchard; all evidently cribbed in from the waste, and sufficiently spacious to give an air of unusual comfort to the rural dwelling. The cart-shed, too, and the fagot-pile, and the old horse grazing before the door, indicate a considerable portion of rustic prosperity. They were succeeded by a man in the prime of life, and a woman in its very morning; an elegant but most melancholy pair, who brought with them no bridal favours, no gay carriages, no proud servants, no titles, no name. He was of a person splendidly beautiful-tall, stately, commanding; of a regality of port, and a haughtiness of aspect almost defying, as if expecting inquiry and determined to look it down. It was only when gazing at his fair companion, that his bright eye softened, and his demeanour changed into the most gentle In fact they are a thriving family. Charles expression of tenderness and submission. He North, the head of the house, is a jobbing garappeared devoted to her; and would read to dener, whose services are in such request, that her on the lawn, ride with her, or drive her in they are accorded somewhat in the manner of a little open chaise for hours together. She, favours, and must be bespoken as long beforeon the other hand, although receiving his at-hand as the attendance of a first singer at a L |