James.

That? Sir Edward Head's: But he's abroad: the place is to be sold. John. Oh, his. He was not broken. James. No, sir, he, Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face

From all men, and commercing with himself,

He lost the sense that handles daily life— That keeps us all in order more or lessAnd sick of home went overseas for change.

John. And whither?

James. Nay, who knows? he's here and there.

But let him go; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jocky Dawes. John. What's that?

James. You saw the man-on Monday,

was it ?—

There by the humpback'd willow; half stands up

And bristles; half has fall'n and made a

bridge;

And there he caught the younker tickling

trout

Caught in flagrante-what's the Latin

word ?

Delicto: but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook

The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,

And rummaged like a rat: no servant

stay'd

The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,

And all his household stuff; and with his

boy

Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him,

'What!

Of city life! I was a sketcher then :

See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,

Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built

When men knew how to build, upon a rock

With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock : And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,

Here lived the Hills-a Tudor-chimnied bulk

Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.

O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull

The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the

names,

Long learned names of agaric, moss and fern,

Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,

Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim,

Who read me rhymes elaborately good, His own-I call'd him Crichton, for he seem'd

All-perfect, finish'd to the finger nail.

And once I ask'd him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer'd

me;

And well his words became him: was he

not

A full-cell'd honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

'My love for Nature is as old as I ; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that,

And three rich sennights more, my love

for her.

My love for Nature and my love for her, Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew, Twin-sisters differently beautiful.

To some full music rose and sank the

sun,

And some full music seem'd to move an change

With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between ; For daily hope fulfill'd, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made

sweet

To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.'

Or this or something like to this he

spoke.

Then said the fat-faced curate Edward

Bull,

'I take it, God made the woman for

the man,

And for the good and increase of the

world.

A pretty face is well, and this is well,
To have a dame indoors, that trims us

up,

And keeps us tight; but these unreal

ways

Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid

stuff.

I say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world.'

'Parson,' said I, 'you pitch the pipe
too low:

But I have sudden touches, and can run
My faith beyond my practice into his :
Tho' if, in dancing after Letty Hill,
I do not hear the bells upon my cap

I scarce have other music: yet say on.