known to himself. For certain he was in entertaining; my mother in his benevolence; practice far more of what would in these days and I in his fun. He used to mimic Punch be called a radical; was constantly infringing for my amusement; and I once greatly affrontthe laws which he esteemed so perfect, and ed the real Punch, by preferring the cobbler's bringing into contempt the authorities for performance of the closing scenes. Jacob was which he professed such enthusiastic venera- a general favourite in our family; and one tion. Drunk or sober, in his own quarrels, member of it was no small favourite of Jaor in the quarrels of others, he waged a per- cob's: that person was neither more nor less petual war with justice; hath been seen to than my nursery-maid, Nancy Dawson. snap his finger at an order of sessions, the said order having for object the removal of a certain barrel-organ man, his ancient, trusty, drouthy erony;" and got into a demele with the church in the person of the old sexton, whom he nearly knocked down with the wind of his crutch (N. B. Jacob took care not to touch the old man) for driving away his clients, the boys who were playing at marbles on the tomb-stones. Besides these skirmishes, he was in a state of constant hostility with the officials called constables; and had not his reputation, good or bad, stood him in stead, his Saturday-night's exploits would have brought him acquainted with half the roundhouses, bridewells, stocks, and whipping-posts in the county. His demerits brought him off. "It's only that merry rogue, Jacob!" said the lenient: "only that sad dog, the cobbler!" cried the severe: and between these contrary epithets, which in Master Giles's case bore so exactly the same meaning, the poor cobbler escaped. In good truth it would have been a pity if Jacob's hebdomadal deviations from the straight path had brought him into any serious scrape, for, tipsy or sober, a better-natured creature never lived. Poor as he was, he had always something for those poorer than himself; would share his scanty dinner with a } starving beggar, and his last quid of tobacco with a crippled sailor. The children came to him for nuts and apples, for comical stories and droll songs; the very curs of the street knew that they had a friend in the poor cobbler. He even gave away his labour and his time. Many a shoe hath he heeled with a certainty that the wretched pauper could not pay him; and many a job, extra-official, hath he turned his hand to, with no expectation of fee or reward. The "Cobbler over the way" was the constant resource of every body in want of a help, and whatever the station or circumstances of the person needing him, his services might be depended on to the best of his power. For my own part, I can recollect Jacob Giles as long as I can recollect any thing. He made the shoes for my first doll-(pink I remember they were)-a doll called Sophy, who had the misfortune to break her neck by a fall from the nursery window; Jacob Giles made her pink slippers, and mended all the shoes of the family, with whom he was a universal favourite. My father delighted in his statesmanship, which must have been very Nancy Dawson was the daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood, a lively, clever girl, more like a French soubrette than an English maid-servant, gentille and espiègle; not a regular beauty,-hardly perhaps pretty; but with bright laughing eyes, a ready smile, a pleasant speech, and altogether as dangerous a person for an opposite neighbour as an old bachelor could desire. Jacob became seriously enamoured; wasted half his mornings in watching our windows, for my nursery looked out upon the street; and limped after us every afternoon when she took me (a small damsel of three years old, or thereabout) out walking. He even left off his tobacco, his worsted night-cap, his tipsiness, and his Saturday-night's club; got a whole coat to his back, set a patch on his shoe, and talked of taking a shop and settling in life. This, however, was nothing wonderful. Nancy's charms might have fired a colder heart than beat in the bosom of Jacob Giles. But that Nancy should "abase her eyes" on him: there was the marvel. Nancy! who had refused Peter Green the grocer, and John Keep the butcher, and Sir Henry's smart gamekeeper, and our own tall footinan! Nancy to think of a tippling cripple like the cobbler over the way, that was something to wonder at! Nancy, when challenged on the subject, neither denied nor assented to the accusation. She answered very demurely that her young lady liked Mr. Giles, that he made the child laugh, and was handy with her, and was a careful person to leave her with if she had to go on an errand for her mistress or the housekeeper. So Jacob continued our walking footman. Our walks were all in one direction. About a mile south of Cranley was a large and beautiful coppice, at one corner of which stood the cottage of the woodman, a fine young man, William Cotton by name, whose sister Mary was employed by my mother as a sempstress. The wood, the cottage, and the cottage garden, were separated by a thick hedge and wide ditch from a wild broken common covered with sheep-a common full of turfy knolls and thymy banks, where the heathflower and the harebell blew profusely, and where the sun poured forth a flood of glory on the golden-blossomed broom. To one corner of this common, a sunny nook covered with little turfy hillocks, originally, I suppose, formed by the moles, but which I used to call Nancy's absences, however, became longer and longer; and one evening Jacob and I grew mutually fidgety. He had told his drollest stories, made his most comical faces, and played Punch twice over to divert me; but I was tired and cross; it was getting late in the autumn; the weather was cold; the sun had gone down; and I began to cry amain for home and for papa. Jacob, much distressed by my plight, partly to satisfy me, and partly to allay his own irritability, deposited me in the warmest nook he could find, and scrambled over the stile in search of Nancy. Voices in the wood - her voice and William's guided him to the spot where she and the young forester sate side by side at the foot of an oak tree; and, unseen by the happy couple, the poor cobbler overheard the following dialogue. “On Saturday then, Nancy, I may give in the banns. You are sure that your mistress will let your sister take your place till she is suited ?" Cock-Robins' graves,-Nancy generally led; by a heavy shower just as I passed old Mrs. and there she would frequently, almost con- | Matthews's great farm-house, and forced to stantly, leave me under Jacob's protection run for shelter to her hospitable porch. A whilst she jumped over a stile inaccessible to pleasant shelter in good truth I found there. my little feet, sometimes to take a message to The green pastures dotted with fine old trees Mary Cotton, sometimes to get me flowers stretching all around; the clear brook winding from the wood, sometimes for blackberries, about them turning and returning on its course, sometimes for nuts,-but always on some os- as if loath to depart; the rude cart-track leadtensible and well-sounding errand. ing through the ford ; the neater pathway with its foot-bridge; the village spire rising amongst a cluster of cottages, all but the roofs and chimneys concealed by a grove of oaks; the woody back-ground, and the blue hills in the distance, all so flowery and bowery in the pleasant month of May; the nightingales singing; the bells ringing; and the porch itself, around which a honeysuckle in full bloom was wreathing its sweet flowers, giving out such an odour in the rain, as in dry weather nothing but the twilight will bring forth an atmosphere of fragrance. The whole porch was alive and musical with bees, who, happy rogues, instead of being routed by the wet, only folded their wings the closer, and dived the deeper into the honey-tubes, enjoying, as it seemed, so good an excuse for creeping still farther within their flowery lodgment. It is hard to say which enjoyed the sweet breath of the shower and the honeysuckle most, the bees or I; but the rain began to drive so fast, that at the end of five minutes I was not sorry to be discovered by a little girl belonging to the family; and, first, ushered into the spacious kitchen, with its heavy oak table, its curtained chimney-corner, its bacon-rack_loaded with enormous flitches, and its ample dresser, glittering with crockery-ware; and, finally, conducted by Mrs. Matthews herself into her own comfortable parlour, and snugly settled there with herself and her eldest grand-daughter, a woman grown; whilst the younger sister, a smiling light-footed lass of eleven or thereabouts, tripped off to find a boy to convey a message to my family, requesting them to send for me, the rain being now too decided to admit of any prospect of my walking home. "Quite sure," rejoined Nancy; "she is so kind." "And on Monday fortnight the wedding is to be. Remember, not an hour later than eight o'clock on Monday fortnight. Consider how long I have waited-almost half a year." "Well!" said Nancy, "at eight o'clock on Monday fortnight." "And the cobbler!" cried William; "that excellent under-nurse, who is waiting so contentedly on our little lady at the other side of the hedge”— "Ah, the poor cobbler!" interrupted Nancy. "We'll ask him to the wedding-dinner," added William. "Yes; the poor cobbler!" continued the saucy maiden; "my old lover, the Cobbler over the way,' we 'll certainly ask him to the wedding-dinner. It will comfort him." And to the wedding-dinner the cobbler went; and he was comforted :-he kissed the pretty bride; he shook hands with the handsome bridegroom, resumed his red cap and his tobacco, got tipsy to his heart's content, and reeled home singing 'God save the king,' right happy to find himself still a bachelor. PATTY'S NEW HAT. WANDERING about the meadows one morning last May, absorbed in the pastoral beauty of the season and the scenery, I was overtaken The sort of bustle which my reception had caused having subsided, I found great amusement in watching my hospitable hostess, and listening to a dialogue, if so it may be called, between her pretty grand-daughter and herself, which at once let me into a little love-secret, and gave me an opportunity of observing one, of whose occasional oddities I had all my life heard a great deal. Mrs. Matthews was one of the most remarkable persons in these parts; a capital farmer, a most intelligent parish officer, and in her domestic government, not a little resembling one of the finest sketches which Mr. Crabbe's graphical pen ever produced. "Next died the widow Goe, an active dame Full thirty years she ruled with matchless skill, Great power of body and mind was visible in her robust person and massive countenance; and there was both humour and intelligence in her acute smile, and in the keen grey eye that glanced from under her spectacles. All that she said bore the stamp of sense; but at this time she was in no talking mood, and on my begging that I might cause no interruption, resumed her seat and her labours in silent composure. She sat at a little table mending a fustian jacket belonging to one of her sons -a sort of masculine job which suited her much better than a more delicate piece of sempstress-ship would probably have done; indeed the tailors' needle, which she brandished with great skill, the whity-brown thread tied round her neck, and the huge dull-looking shears (one can't make up one's mind to call such a machine scissors), which in company with an enormous pincushion dangled from her apron-string, figuring as the pendant to a most formidable bunch of keys, formed altogether such a working apparatus as shall hardly be matched in these days of polished cutlery and cobwebby cotton-thread. On the other side of the little table sat her pretty grand-daughter Patty, a black-eyed young woman, with a bright complexion, a neat trim figure, and a general air of gentility considerably above her station. She was trimming a very smart straw hat with pink ribbons; trimming and untrimming, for the bows were tied and untied, taken off and put on, and taken off again, with a look of impatience and discontent, not common to a damsel of seventeen when contemplating a new piece of finery. The poor little lass was evidently out of sorts. She sighed, and quirked, and fidgeted, and seemed ready to cry; whilst her grandinother just glanced at her from under her spectacles, pursed up her mouth, and contrived with some difficulty not to laugh. At last Patty spoke. "Now, grandmother, you will let me go to Chapel-Row revel this afternoon, won't you?" "Humph!" said Mrs. Matthews. "It hardly rains at all, grandmother!" "Humph!" again said Mrs. Matthews, opening the prodigious scissors with which she was amputating, so to say, a button, and directing the rounded end significantly to my wet shawl, whilst the sharp point was reverted towards the dripping honeysuckle. "Humph!" 46 Humph!" again. Poor William! Oh, grandmother, do let me go! And I've got my new hat and all— just such a hat as William likes! Poor William! You will let me go, grandmother?" And receiving no answer but a very unequivocal "Humph!" poor Patty threw down her straw hat, fetched a deep sigh, and sate in a most disconsolate attitude, snipping her pink ribbon to pieces; Mrs. Matthews went on manfully with her "stitchery ;" and for ten minutes there was a dead pause. It was at length broken by my little friend and introducer, Susan, who was standing at the window, and exclaimed-" Who is this riding up the meadow all through the rain? Look! see!-I do think-no, it can't be—yes, it is -it is certainly my cousin William Ellis! Look, grandmother!" "Humph!" said Mrs. Matthews. "What can cousin William be coming for?" continued Susan. "Humph!" quoth Mrs. Matthews. "Oh, I know!-I know!" screamed Susan, clapping her hands and jumping for joy as she saw the changed expression of Patty's countenance,-the beaming delight, succeeded by a pretty downcast shamefacedness, as she turned away from her grandmother's arch smile and archer nod. "I know!-I know!" shouted Susan. "Humph?" said Mrs. Matthews. "For shame, Susan! Pray don't, grandmother!" said Patty, imploringly. "For shame! Why I did not say he was coming to court Patty! Did I, grandmother?" returned Susan. "And I take this good lady to witness," replied Mrs. Matthews, as Patty, gathering up her hat and her scraps of ribbon, prepared to make her escape—“I take you all to wit ness that I have said nothing of any sort. Get along with you, Patty !” added she, “you have spoiled your pink trimming; but I think you are likely to want white ribbons next, and, if you put me in mind, I'll buy them for you!" And, smiling in spite of herself, the happy girl ran out of the room. CHILDREN OF THE VILLAGE. THE MAGPIES. "COME along, girls! Helen! Caroline! I say don't stand jabbering there upon the stairs, but come down this instant, or Dash and I will be off without you." This elegant speech was shouted from the bottom of the great staircase at DinelyHall, by young George Dinely, an Etonian of eleven years old, just come home for the holidays, to his two younger sisters who stood disputing very ardently in French at the top. The cause of contention was, to say the truth, no greater an object than the colour of a workbag, which they were about to make for their mamma: slate lined with pink being the choice of Miss Caroline, whilst Miss Helen preferred drab with a blue lining. "Don't stand quarrelling there about the colour of your trumpery," added George, "but come along!" sisters, had lately abdicated her throne on the arrival of a French governess, and was now comfortably settled at a cottage of her own in the village street. George Dinely and Dash had already that morning visited George's own pony, and his father's brood mares, the garden, the stables, the pheasantry, the green-house and the farmyard; had seen a brood of curious bantams, two litters of pigs, and a family of greyhound puppies, and had few friends, old or new, left to visit except Nurse Simmons, her cottage and her magpie, a bird of such accomplishments, that his sisters had even made it the subject of a letter to Eton. The magpie might perhaps claim an equal share with his mistress in George's impatience; and Dash, always eager to get out of doors, seemed nearly as fidgety as his young master. Dash was as beautiful a dog as one should see in a suminer's day; one of the large old English spaniels, which are now so rare, with a superb head like those that you see in Spanish pictures, and such ears! they more than met over his pretty spotted nose, and when he lapped his milk dipped into the pan at least two inches. His hair was long and shiny and wavy, not curly, partly of a rich dark liver colour, partly of a silvery white, and beautifully feathered about the legs and thighs. Every body used to wonder that Dash, who apparently ate so little, should be in such good case; but the marvel was by no means so great as it seemed, for his being George's peculiar pet and property did not hinder his being the universal favourite of the whole house, from the drawing-room to the kitchen. Not a creature could resist Dash's silent sup Now George would have scorned to know a syllable of any language except Latin and Greek, but neither of the young ladies being Frenchwoman enough to construe the appellation of the leading article, the words "drab" and "slate," which came forth in native Eng-plications at meal-times, when he sat upon his lish pretty frequently, as well as the silk dangling in their hands, had enlightened him as to the matter in dispute. George was a true schoolboy, rough and kind; affecting perhaps more roughness than naturally belonged to him, from a mistaken notion that it made him look bold, and English, and manly. There cannot be a greater mistake, since the boldest man is commonly the mildest, thus realizing in every way the expression of Shakspeare, which has been the subject of a somewhat unnecessary commentary, "He's gentle and not fearful." For the rest our hero loved his sisters, which was very right; and loved to teaze them, which was very wrong; and now he and his dog Dash, both wild with spirits and with happiness, were waiting most impatiently to go down to the village on a visit to old Nurse Simmons and her magpie. Nurse Simmons was a very good and very cross old woman, who after ruling in the nursery of Dinely-Hall for two generations, scolding and spoiling, Sir Edward and his brothers, and performing thirty years afterwards the same good office for Master George and his haunches looking amiable, with his large ears brought into their most becoming position, his head a little on one side, and his beautiful eyes fixed on your face, with as near an approach to speech as ever eyes made in the world. From Sir Edward and her Ladyship down to the stable-boy and the kitchen-maid, no inhabitant of Dinely-Hall could resist Dash! So that being a dog of most apprehensive sagacity with regard to the hours appropriated to the several refections of the family, he usually contrived, between the dining parlour, the school-room, and the servants' hall, to partake of three breakfasts and as many dinners every day, to say nothing of an occasional snap at luncheon or supper-time. No wonder that Dash was in high condition. His good plight, however, had by no means impaired his activity. On the contrary, he was extremely lively as well as intelligent, and had a sort of circular motion, a way of flinging himself quite round on his hind feet, something after the fashion in which the French dancers twirl themselves round on one leg, which not only showed unusual agility in a dog of his size, but gave token of the same spirit and animation which sparkled in his bright hazel eye. Any thing of eagerness or impatience was sure to excite this motion, and George Dinely gravely assured his sisters, when they at length joined him in the hall, that Dash had flung himself round six-andtwenty times whilst waiting the conclusion of their quarrel. Getting out into the lawn and the open air, did not tend to diminish Dash's glee or his capers, and the young party walked merrily on; George telling of school pranks and school misfortunes the having lost or spoilt four hats since Easter seemed rather to belong to the first class of adventures than the second, -his sisters listening dutifully and wonderingly; and Dash following his own devices, now turning up a mouse's nest from a water furrow in the park,- now springing a covey of young partridges in a corn-field, -now plunging his whole hairy person in the brook, -and now splashing Miss Helen from head to foot by ungallantly jumping over her whilst crossing a stile, being thereunto prompted by a whistle from his young master, who had with equal want of gallantry, leapt the stile first himself, and left his sisters to get over as they could; until at last the whole party, having passed the stile, and crossed the bridge, and turned the Church-yard corner, found themselves in the shady recesses of the Vicarage-lane, and in full view of the vine-covered cottage of Nurse Simmons. As they advanced they heard a prodigious chattering and jabbering, and soon got near enough to ascertain that the sound proceeded mainly from one of the parties they were come to visit-Nurse Simmons's magpie. He was perched in the middle of the road, defending a long dirty bare bone of mutton, doubtless his property, on one end of which he stood, whilst the other extremity was occupied by a wild bird of the same species, who, between pecking at the bone, and fighting, and scolding, found full employment. The wild magpie was a beautiful creature, as wild magpies are, of a snowy white and a fine blue black, perfect in shape and plumage, and so superior in appearance to the tame bird, ragged, draggled and dirty, that they hardly seemed of the same kind. Both were chattering away most furiously; the one in his natural and unintelligible gibberish, the other partly in his native tongue, and partly in that, for his skill in which he was so eminent,-thus turning his accomplishments to an unexpected account, and larding his own lean speech with divers foreign garnishes, such as "What's o'clock ?" and How do you do!" and "Very well I thank you," and "Poor pretty Mag!" and Mag's a good bird,”—all delivered in the most vehement accent, and all doubtless understood by the unlearned adversary as terms of reproach. "What can those two magpies be quarreling about?" said Caroline, as soon as she could speak for laughing; for on the children's approach the birds had abandoned the mutton bone, which had been quietly borne away by Dash, who in spite of his usual sumptuous fare had no objection to such a windfall, and was lying in great state on a mossy bank, discussing and enjoying the stolen morsel. "What a fury they are in! I wish I knew what they were saying," pursued Caroline, as the squabble grew every moment more angry and less intelligible. "They are talking nonsense, doubtless, as people commonly do when they quarrel," quoth George, "and act wisely to clothe it in a foreign tongue; perhaps they may be disputing about colours." "What an odd noise it is!" continued Caroline, by no means disposed to acknowledge her brother's compliment; "I never heard any thing like it.” "I have," said George, drily. "I wonder whether they comprehend each other!" ejaculated Miss Helen, following her sister's example, and taking no notice of the provoking George; "they really do seem to understand." "As well as other magpies," observed the young gentleman, "why should they not?" "But what strange gibberish!" added poor Helen. "Gibberish, Miss Helen! Don't you hear that the birds are sputtering magpie French, sprinkled with a little magpie English? I was just going to ask you to explain it to me," replied the unmerciful George. "It is quite a parody upon your work-bag squabble," pursued their tormentor; "only that the birds are the wiser, for I see they are parting,-the wild one flying away, the tame gentleman hopping towards us. Quite the scene of the work-bag over again," continued George, only with less noise, and much shortened-an abridged and corrected edition! Really, young ladies, the magpies have the best of it," said the Etonian, and off he stalked into Nurse Simmons's Cottage. 66 COTTAGE NAMES. Why Lonicera wilt thou name thy child?" 'A commodity of good names." SHAKSPEARE. FROM the time of Goldsmith down to the present day, fine names have been the ridicule of comic authors and the aversion of sensible people, notwithstanding which the evil has increased almost in proportion to its reprobation. Miss Clementina Wilhelmina Stubbs was but a type of the Julias, the Isabels, and |