men, women, children, and cattle; now shipping a sea, then answering the wind with a scream; a wave roaring here, and a woman there; horses plunging one way, and the boat another; up this wave, and down that; and ten to one against our reaching within two or three miles of the point we steered for. Many lives have been lost in crossing this ferry and one, who would run his eye over the old country papers, as far as fifty years back, would be startled to read the losses they record.

In foggy and windy weather, and during the dark winter nights, have the ferry-boats been run down by ships, drifted from their course, thrown upon sands, or grounded on banks, miles away from the spot where they ought to have landed. But steam-boats have, we believe, long been substituted for those open and dangerous crafts; where, for twopence, any one, who ventured, had as good a chance of being drowned, as if afloat on the broad bosom of the great Atlantic.

At more than one ferry have we been oared across by a Lady of the Lake:" her father had perhaps gone to market: and she, who had all her life been nursed like a waterlily, on the rim of the river, took to the element as if she had been born in it. Once we remember running aground in the middle of the Trent, sole passenger with a fairer captain than even old Charon bore across Styx. There was no help for it; the tide was fast receding; and we, in the large bulky ferry-boat, likely enough to remain there until it was again high-water. To make matters worse, we lost the boat-hook between us; and it may be somewhere on the "monstrous deep" at this hour, for we never recovered it. Her mother hollaed from the opposite shore, but that moved us not an inch. Passengers continued to assemble, but ours was the only boat; and the longer we remained

the " harder" we were aground.

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"Perhaps we might

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But then we

launch it by getting out," said the lady. have no boat-hook," was the reply; and we might drift as far as the Humber." The lady sat down, and from a huge pocket took out her knitting. Her passenger, to show himself equally at home, lit a cigar, and pulled out a book. “It is very provoking," said she, after having taken a few stitches, "but it cannot be helped; and you will be too late for the coach." A few hours is never an object to a man, whose sole business is to peep into the country; so the lady was soon made easy on that head. "And you really are not angry?" Angry, no! no man could ever look into such a face, and feel angry a moment after! There was a simple innocence in its beauty, which we have seldom seen it was a face that would have haunted a man on his death-bed, if he had caused but a tear to trickle down that peach-like damask cheek,

In about an hour, a boat from Nottingham passed, hauled by two horses; the captain hove to, and threw us a rope, which we made secure, and our little bark soon reached the shore from which we first started. Other passengers had better luck; and as the coach was lost for that day, we had only to receive the landlady's apology, order tea and dinner together, and take up our abode for the night. During the evening, the ferryman and landlord (for he was both) had returned from market, and laughed heartily at our adventure with his daughter. He recounted many a moving accident by flood and field," while over his pipe and glass.

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Few have visited Nottingham without crossing Wilford Ferry, which is divided from the town by a wide range of pleasant meadows; acres of which are purpled over in

spring with crocuses. This is really a primitive old ferry: a massy iron chain stretches across the river, and acting upon a moveable pillar, or short mast, which stands at the head of the ferry-boat, requires but the brawny arms of the boatman, to keep shifting his hold of the chain; and, with a score or two of pulls, he brings his passengers safe to the sloping and gravelly shore. The village of Wilford is very picturesque: with its thatched cottages, and little gardens, dipping down to the very edge of the river; its neat-looking church, surrounded with elm-trees, every branch alive with the building rooks, which, with never-ceasing caw, are ever crossing the river, and hovering round the old grey church tower, half buried in the greenery of the surrounding trees. Along the banks, rise a beautiful avenue of trees, high, and old, and shadowy; and stretching their antique boughs far out over the river, and making cool and sunless (saving the chequering gold that shines through the network of the leaves) as delightful a walk, as may be found along the many miles of embanked and winding paths that girdle in the hundredarmed Trent. Beyond this beautiful and shaded avenue, spread smooth verdant meadows, looking in the summer sunshine, and from a far distance, like acres of green velvet, hemmed with a wide and winding belt of silver; for so glitters the silver-skirted river, on the border of these sloping fields of green pastoral England, beautiful as those where Proserpine frighted let fall her flowers, when Pluto's wheels crushed the ungathered blossoms. Across these meadows, whose banks are washed with a thousand murmuring ripples, rises a bold round hill, dark with trees from base to brow, and with a steep embowered wood dipping from the very forehead of the summit, and arching down to the level where you stand, before swinging open

the ponderous gate. This is Clifton Grove, celebrated three centuries ago in old ballad lore, and well remembered by every reader of poor Kirk White; for this was his old and favourite walk. Down the rugged precipice, which yawns and hangs headlong over the river, they yet point out the steep path, down which the foul fiend dragged the fair maid of Clifton, on that dreadful night when a deep sleep fell upon her attendants; and, there, no grass grows. You might fancy that it had been ploughed up by thunder, could you forget that it had been torn up by many a torrent of rain, which comes down like a cataract, and empties itself into the river. But we will not seek to stir a leaf of its old superstition: many a young lover has wandered in the twilight of those solitudes, and shuddered at the vengeance which follows broken vows and plighted hearts. Spirits of the Past, pardon us, if we recall some rural scene, and see your forms again bending in maiden white, as ye break the deep green of the scenery, while stooping down to gather those sweet violets, which by their perfume babble of their "whereabout," and lay nestled in little beds all over that beautiful grave. May the whole multitude of Marys forgive us, if in that haunted grove, and in the shade of those melancholy boughs—

"in such a night,

Swearing we loved you well,

We stole your souls with many vows of faith,

And ne'er a true one."-SHAKSPERE.

Forgive us, if we slighted the old legend of love, and doubted the deeds of the foul fiend, while our soul was carried away by a fair one: and many such, we hope, will long haunt that romantic spot, and carry their victims to Saint

Mary's shrine, as thou, dear Polly, didst, nearly a score of years ago, carry off in triumph thy unbeliever. What hand now uplifts the latch of the door of thy dear old grandmother's thatched cottage? What elegant form stoops to gather the flowers in that little garden, hemmed in with its moss-covered railings? Old Time draws back the untwining of honeysuckle, Memory adds the murmuring of her bees, Fancy fills up the silence of the gravel walk, brings back the flowing of the river, the dreamy cawing of the rooks, that bell sounding over "the wide watery shore”— and his arm is again around thy waist, and they sit down within the porch which is now another's. A boy calls his giddy sweetheart wife, and a thoughtless girl her boyish lover husband. Time thickens his troubles, Care comes, and Sorrow steps nearer, Grief wears a grave look, and Pity appears as if she had not seen Pleasure for many a long day; but still Memory and Love, linked arm-in-arm, laugh and stroll together, for they have tossed their craped hat and bonnet amongst the flowers, and wait the first toll of the bell ere they join the sad procession. Where are the famous cherry eatings of Wilford now? The poetry around the neighbourhood is fast fading. The flower-sellers, who used to stand under the sunny rocks of Sneinton, have vanished. The green footpath that led along the riverbank to Colwick is closed, and the celebrated cheese seems to live but in name. Even the pathway that leads to the old ballad-haunted grove has been altered, and all "old things seem to be passing away." Beautiful was that old ferry on a Sunday in former years, when trade was good, "and all went merry as a marriage bell." A change has come over the scene.

In another ferry, at low water, the channel of the river