standing which "assistance," the error of the housekeeper's name is continued; and amongst the woodcut illustrations, there is one entitled (both in the list and on the cut) "Stoke Church, east end, with tablet to Gray," when, in fact, it represents the tomb-stone at the end of the church, under which Gray and his mother are interred. The tablet to Gray is quite another thing, that was lately inserted in the wall of the church; but by some extraordinary blunder it records his death as having taken place on the 1st of August, while on the sarcophagus it is stated to have occurred on the 30th of July. Neither the one nor the other is correct. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1771, and the Annual Register for the same year, as well as Mathias' Life, 2 vols. 4to., 1814, all concur in giving it as having taken place on the 31st. The Etonian edition has it the 30th. After a considerable time spent in the church-yard, the hour of public worship drew near, the aged sexton appeared, opened the doors, and began to toll the bell-that same ancient bell which, century after century, had "rung in" generation after generation, and tolled at their funerals. It is difficult to realize the feelings excited on entering a sacred edifice of very ancient date, particularly if it is in the country, secluded amongst aged trees, looking as old as itself; and in walking over the stone floor, which, although so seldom trodden, is worn away into something like channels; in sitting in the same antique, and curiously carved, black oaken pews, which had been sat on by races of men who had occupied the same seats hundreds of years long past; but the effect is greatly increased on viewing the effigies of the mighty dead, lying on their marble beds, in long and low niches in the walls, some with the palms of their hands pressed together and pointing upward, as if in the act of supplication; and others grasping their swords, and having their legs crossed, indicating that they had fought for the cross in the Holy Land. Such a church, and such objects around, fill the mind with true devotion. The sublime words of Milton work out the picture to perfection. There let the pealing organ blow And bring all heaven before mine eyes. It was gratifying and affecting to witness the piety, humility, and devotion of the congregation as they entered and took their seats in silence, long before the venerable clergyman entered the church; there was something exceedingly touching in the profound silence that reigned throughout the congregation, and induced one to think highly of that rule amongst those excellent people, who with great propriety are termed Friends. Public worship was attended both in the morning and afternoon, and I returned to London, feeling myself a much better man than when I left it, with a full determination to revisit a place where so much pleasure had been received. It was nearly three months before the resolve was carried into effect; but a second excursion was made in August, and Mr. Osborne was kind enough to show the house at West-End, together with the celebrated Burnham beeches, amongst which were several "which wreathed their old fantastic roots so high," evidently the originals alluded to in the Elegy. They are scarcely a mile from West-End, and are approached through another of those sweet green lanes with which the neighborhood abounds. They are part of the original forest. The spot was one of Gray's favorite haunts; and it would be difficult to find one better fitted for a lover of nature, and a contemplative mind. Late in the autumn an invitation was received from Mr. Osborne to spend a day or two with him; but it was not until the beginning of November that advantage could be taken of it. Arriving at his house late in the afternoon, his servant informed me he had been suddenly called away to the Isle of Portland, in Dorsetshire, where Mr. Penn was erecting a castle. She also apologized for Mrs. Osborne's inability to receive company, in consequence of "a particular circumstance," which circumstance she blushingly acknowledged was the birth of a fine boy the night before. There was no resource, therefore, but to walk down either to Stoke Green, or to Salt-Hill, where there are two wellknown taverns. Before proceeding, however, the church-yard, almost of necessity, must be visited; and although in a direct line, it was not far from Mr. Osborne's house, a considerable circuit had to be made to get into the inclosure. The evening was particularly still-you could have heard a leaf fall; the twilight was just setting in, and a haze, or fog, coming on, but the spot was soon reached; and whilst kneeling, engaged, like Old Mortality, in plucking some weeds and long grass, which had sprung up about the tomb since the last visit, a slight sound-a very gentle rustle-struck the ear. I supposed it to be the ivy on the church-wall, but the next instant it was followed by a movement-something very near was certainly approaching. On looking up, it is impossible to describe with what mixed feelings of astonishment, apprehension, and awe, I beheld coming from a corner of the church-yard, (where there was no ingress through the brick wall,) and directly toward the spot where I knelt, the figure of a tall, majestic lady, dressed in a black velvet pelisse, black velvet hat, surmounted by a plume of black ostrich feathers. She was stepping slowly toward me, over the graves. It would be useless to deny that fear fixed me to the spot on beholding the expression of her very serious face, and her eyes firmly fixed on mine. Appalled by her sudden appearance, it seemed as if she had just risen from the grave, dressed in a funeral pall; for I was facing toward that corner of the enclosure from which she was coming, and feeling certain no human being was there one minute before, I was breathless with apprehension, and glad to rest one arm on the tomb-stone until she came close up to me. With a graceful inclination of the head, she ad- | apprehension-but the end was not yet! She began dressed me. "Mr. B, I believe?" 'Yes, madam, that is my name." to lead the way over the graves, exactly toward the spot from whence she had so suddenly and mysteriously appeared; after proceeding a few steps, 1 "And you came down to visit Mr. Osborne, who ventured to sayhas been called away to Portland." I breathed more freely as I admitted it. "It happens," she continued, "to be inconvenient for Mrs. Osborne to receive you, and as you came by invitation from her husband, if you will accept a night's lodging from me, I am enabled to offer it. I am Mr. Penn's housekeeper, and none of the family are at home." Most joyfully was the invitation accepted; my mind was relieved from a very unpleasant load of "Pray, madam, may I be allowed to inquire where you are leading to? I can see no egress in that direction, unless it be into an open grave or under a tomb-stone." "Oh, you will find that out presently," replied the lady, transfixing me with a glance of her bright blue eyes, and I thought I could detect a rather equivocal expression about the corners of her beautiful mouth. This was not very encouraging, and not much liked, but she was a woman, and a lovely one, too much so by half to be a Banshee.-I was on my guard, however, and ready, but the fog became so thick it was impossible to see three steps before us; in fact, it rolled over the church-yard wall in clouds. The lady linked her arm in mine, to prevent herself from stumbling, holding up her dress with the other hand, as the long dank grass was wetting it. At last we arrived in the very corner of the church-yard, she still keeping a firm hold of my arm. Before the sentence was well finished her laughter was irrepressible. "I knew it, I saw it, I intended it," said she, laughing so heartily that the tears sprung out of her beautiful eyes, and she was obliged to use her handkerchief to wipe them away. "And do you feel no compunction for scaring a poor fellow half out of his wits?" "None whatever," replied she gayly. "What "In Heaven's name, madam, what do you mean could you expect when prowling amongst the graves by leading me into this corner?" Oh, you are afraid, I see; but wait a moment." On saying which, I observed her to take something bright from her girdle, which apprehension converted into a stiletto or dirk, and such is the force of selfpreservation, that I was on the point of tripping her up and throwing her on her back. But thrusting the supposed dirk against the wall-presto-open sesame -the wall gave way, and she drew me through a doorway. This was done so quickly it absolutely seemed magic. For an instant I thought of dropping her arm-indeed I should have done so, and retreated back through the door, but she held my arm tight, and I almost quaked, for I thought she had dragged me into a secret vault, the manœuvre was performed so adroitly. The drifting cold fog, however, soon made it plain we were in no vault, but the open park. In short, it was a door in the wall, flush with the bricks, and painted so exactly like them, it was impossible for a stranger to discover it. It was Mr. Penn's private entrance, and saved the family a walk of some distance. A narrow green walk, not previously remarked, led from the door to the west end of the church. The housekeeper of a nobleman or gentleman of wealth, in England, generally enjoys an enviable situation. Intrusted with much that is valuable, she is generally a person of the highest consideration and respect, and seldom fails to acquire the elevated manness and refined address of her superiors. The lady in question was exactly one of this description, well educated, and well read; a magnificent library was at her command, and having much time, and what is better, fine taste, she had profited by it. Never was an evening passed in greater comfort, or with a more agreeable companion. After partaking of that most exhilarating of all beverages, the pure hyson, we began to chat with almost the same freedom as though we had been long acquainted. During a pause in the conversation, after looking in my face a moment, she said "Will you answer me one question?" "Most certainly, any thing, you choose to ask." "Well, then, tell me, were you not most horribly afraid when you saw me coming toward you in the church-yard?" "I do frankly confess, madam, I was horribly afraid, and further, I firmly believe I should have taken to my heels, had you not been a very beautiful woman!" in a church-yard so lone and solitary, like a goule, on a damp November night? I saw you from Mr. Osborne's going toward it, and determined to startle you-and I think I succeeded pretty effectually." "You did, and had very nearly met with your reward, for when in the corner of that church-yard you pulled the key from your girdle, fully believing you to be the Evil One, I was on the point of strangling you." Much laughter at my expense ensued, for the lady lacked neither wit not humor, and the evening flew faster than desired. On retiring, a man servant conducted me to an apartment on the upper floor of the mansion, and sleep soon came and soon went, for an innumerable number of rats and mice were careering all over the bed! and I felt them sniffing about my nose and mouth; I sprang bolt upright, striking right and left like a madman. This sent them pattering all about the room, and dreading that I might find myself minus a nose or an ear before morning, I groped all around the room for a bell, but could find none; proceeding into the corridor and standing on tip-toe, bell-wires were soon found, and soon set a ringing; watching at the top of the very long staircase, a light was at last seen ascending, borne in the hand of a very fat man, who proved to be the butler; he had nothing on but his his shirt, and a huge pair of red plush, which enveloped his nether bulk. Puffing with the exertion of ascending so many stairs, he at last saw me, still more lightly clothed than himself, and inquired what I wanted? "Have you got a cat about the house?" "No, sir, we have no cats, they destroy the young pheasants." "A dog, then?" "No dog, sir, on account of the deer." "Then tell the housekeeper there are ten thousand rats and twenty thousand mice in the room I occupy!” As he descended the stair he was heard mumbling, "cats!"-" dogs!"- -"rats!"—"mice!" and chuckling ready to burst his fat sides. After long waiting, the reflection of light on his red plush smalls (greats would better describe them) flashed up like a streak of lightning, and puffing harder than before, told me if I would follow him down stairs, he had orders to show me to another room. Gathering up the articles of my dress over my arm, we descended, and I was shown into a room of almost regal splendor. The lofty bedstead had a canopy, terminating in a gilded coronet, and the ample hangings were of rich Venetian crimson velvet, trimmed and festooned "about, around and underneath." The "I see your surprise, sir," said she, with evident chagrin, "but it is all owing to you." "To me, madam! I presume you allude to the altered appearance of your face, but I cannot conceive what I can have had to do with the change." In brief, her beautiful nose was all over as red as scarlet, particularly the point of it, which exactly resembled a large red cherry, or ripe Siberian crabapple. Now just think of it-a very fair woman with a blood-red nose! Faugh! it is enough to sicken the most devoted admirer of the sex. Suppose any gentleman going to be married, and full of love and admiration, should, on going to the house of his be In consequence of having stood so long undressed on the marble floor at the top of the stairs, shivering with cold, the magnificent bed, on getting into it, was found comfortable beyond expression. It felt as if it would never cease yielding under the pressure; it sunk down, down, down-there appeared no stop to its declension; and then its delicious warmth-what a luxury to a shivering man! Hugging myself under the idea of a glorious night's rest, and composing myself in the easiest possible position, it was more de-loved bride on the appointed morning, to take her to sirable to lay awake in such full enjoyment, than to sleep sleep had lost all its charms. I was in the bed of beds-the celestial! **She church, humming to himself that sweet song, Wove a Wreath of Roses," finds her beautiful nose become a big rosy nosegay-would he not be apt to suppose she had over night been making pretty free sacrifices, not to the little god of love, but to jolly Bacchus? I did not do my belle such an injustice After thus laying about twenty minutes, enjoying perfect bliss, a sensation of some uneasiness began slowly to manifest itself, which induced a change of position; but the change did not relieve the uncom--and yet what could I think? fortable feeling. It would be difficult to describe it, but it increased every moment, until at last it seemed as if the points of a hundred thousand fine needles were puncturing every pore. This was borne with great resignation and equanimity for some time, expecting it would go off; but the stinging sensation increased, and finally became intolerable; the celestial bed became one of infernal torture. I tossed, and dashed, and threw about my limbs in all directions, and almost bellowed like a mad bull. "How do you make out that I had any thing to do with such an important alteration, madam.” What to do to relieve the torment I knew not. To ask for another bed was out of the question, and to attempt to sleep on thorns-thorns! they would have been thought a luxury to this of lying enduring the pains of the doomed. After long endurance of the pain, and in racking my brains considering what was best to be done, the intolerable sensations began by degrees to subside and grow less and less; but the heat, although nearly insupportable, was more easily endured That horrible night was a long one-and long will it be before it is forgotten. Coming down in the morning, expecting to find the lady all smiles and graces, I was surprised and hurt to find she received me rather coldly, and with averted head; but when she could no longer avoid turning round, never, in the whole course of my life, was I more astonished at the change she had undergone. It was a total, a radical change--she was hardly to be recognized—and it was scarcely possible to believe she was the lovely woman of the last night. Not that her splendid figure was altered-in fact, an elegant morning-dress rather tended to improve and set-off her full and almost voluptuous contour, and her soft, sweet voice was equally musical; but her face-the charms of her lovely face were vanished and gone! Every one will admit that the nose is a most important, nay, a very prominent feature in female beauty. It is indispensible that a belle should have a beautiful nose; in fact, it is a question whether a woman without an eye would not be preferable to one with-but I anticipate. "O, as easy as it is true. Did not your wo-begone terrors in the church-yard throw me into immoderate fits of laughter, as you well know? And did not your adventures, after you retired, when reported to me, throw me all but into convulsions-the more I thought, the more I laughed, until it brought on a nervous headache so intense, it felt as if my head would have split? To relieve so distressing a pain, I took a bottle of eau de cologne to bed with me, and pulling out the stopper, propped it up by the pillow, right under my nose. I quite forgot it, and fell asleep with the bottle in that position." "Ah!" said I, "I suspected the bottle had something to do with it." "Quite true, quite true-but not the bottle you wickedly insinuate. How long I slept I know not, it must have been a long time; when I awoke, I was surprised to find my shoulder cold and wet-and then I recollected the bottle of cologne; but what was my horror, on getting up, to behold my face in this frightful condition, you may easily imagine." Poor, dear lady, if she laughed heartily at the scare she gave me in the church-yard, I now had my revenge, full and ample-for I could not refrain from laughing outright every time I looked in her face; and laughter, when it is hearty and hilarious, is catching, almost as much as yawning; and I fancy few will dispute how potent, how Mesmeric, or magnetic the effect of an outstretched arm and wide gaping oscitation is. I declare, I caught myself gaping the other night on seeing my wife's white cat stretch herself on the rug, and yawn. "I really should feel obliged if you would be polite enough to keep your eye off my face," said the lady. Now it need hardly be remarked, that when any thing is the matter with a person's face, be it a walleye, a squint, a cancer, very bad teeth, or any such disfigurement or malady, it is impossible to look at any other spot-it is sure to fix your gaze, you can look at no other part; you cannot keep your eye off it, unless you are more generous, or better bred memory, wearing mourning during his life, and ever than most men. after used black wax in sealing his letters, as the writer can prove by many, many received from him during a series of years until his lamented death. "I really should feel obliged if you would be polite enough to keep your eye off my nose; it puts me out of countenance," said the fair one. She said this half earnest, half jest; and I obliged her, by directing my looks to her taper fingers and white hands-and the conversation proceeded with the breakfast. "May I inquire how you rested, after your escape from the ten thousand rats, and twenty thousand mice, which attacked you before you changed your room?" "Do you ask the question seriously?" "Certainly I do." "Why, then, to use a homely but a very expressive phrase, it was out of the frying-pan into the fire." "Mercy on us! how can that be; you had what is considered the best bed in the house." "O, I dare say-no doubt, the softest I ever lay in; but instead of ten thousand rats, and twenty thousand mice, I had not been in it fifteen minutes ere a hundred and twenty thousand hornets, wasps, scorpions, and centipeds, two or three thousand hedge-hogs, and as many porcupines, seemed to be full drive at me; and had I not soon been relieved by perspiration, I should assuredly have gone mad, and been in bedlam. Nervous headache! Why, madam, it would have been considered paradise, compared with the purgatory you inflicted on me." Her eyes sparkled with glee--and she began to laugh joyously; but soon checking herself, and assuming a sort of mock sympathy, said, "I am very sorry-very sorry, indeed, that you should have found your bed so like the love of some men, rather hot to hold." On inquiring whether the grand coroneted bed, which had been as a hot gridiron to me, was intended for any particular person, she informed me it was for a Russian nobleman, Baron Nicholay, a much respected friend of Mr. Penn's, who sometimes visited Stoke, and who, being used to a bed of down in the cold climate of his own country, Mr. Penn, with his characteristic kindness and attention, had it prepared for the baron's especial comfort. She added that the reason why Mr. Penn had all his life remained a bachelor, was in consequence of an early attachment which he had formed for the baron's sister; that they were to have been married, but in driving the lady in a drouschky, or sledge, on the ice of the Neva, at St. Petersburg, by some fatality the ice gave way, and notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions of her lover, and the servant who stood behind the sled, the lady, by the force of the current, was swept away under the ice, and never afterward seen. That this shocking accident had such effect on Mr. Penn's mind, as well it might, he never could think of any other woman, but remained true and constant to his his first love, mourning her tragic end all his life." This was exactly the case with that most amiable and gifted man, the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, who being engaged and about to be married to a daughter of the celebrated Mrs. Siddons, the young lady was suddenly snatched from him by a rapid consumption; and Sir Thomas remained faithful to her beloved On asking my intelligent companion if she knew any particulars respecting Gray, she replied she did know a great deal regarding him; that Mr. Penn idolized his memory, and had made collections respecting him and the personages mentioned in the Long Story. At my pressing solicitation she was good enough to say she would write out all the particulars-a promise which she faithfully kept; and they may hereafter appear in some shape. The morning proving foggy and damp, the time (instead of going to church) was passed in the library -a magnificent room, nearly two hundred feet long, extending the whole length of the building, and filled with books from floor to ceiling. In one of the principal rooms, mounted upon a pedestal, there is a large piece of the identical tree under the shade of which Mr. Penn's celebrated ancestor, William, signed his treaty with the Indians, constituting him Lord Proprietary of what was afterward, and what will ever be, Pennsylvania. The piece of wood is part of a large limb, about five feet long. The tree was blown down in 1812, and the portion in question was transmitted by Dr. Rush to Mr. Penn, who had it varnished in its original state, and a brass plate affixed to it, with an inscription. The sun broke through the fog about twelve o'clock, and had as cheering an effect on the landscape, as it almost invariably has on the mind. In the afternoon, after a most delightful day spent with the fair housekeeper, it became time to think of returning to London, and as the distance would be much lessened by proceeding through Mr. Penn's grounds, and going down to Salt-Hill instead of Slough, the lady offered to accompany me to the extent of the shrubberies, and point out the way. These enchanting shrubberies are adorned with busts of the Roman and English poets, placed on antique terms, along the well-kept, smooth gravel-walks, which wind about in many a serpentine direction through the grounds. There are appropriate quotations from the works of the different bards, placed on the front of each terminus. The bust of Gray, is placed under an ancient wide-spreading oak, with this inscription: Where 'er the oak's thick branches stretch With me the muse shall sit and think, There is an elegant small building, inscribed "The Temple of Fancy," in which a bust of the immortal Shakspeare is the only ornament. It is on a small knoll, commanding an extensive prospect through the trees, which are opened like a fan. Windsor Castle terminates this lovely view. Within the temple there is a long inscription from the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, sc. 5, beginning thus, |