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The light whereof, that heven's light did pas,

Such blazing brightness through the ayer threw,

That eye might not the same endure to view;

Which, when the gyaunt spyde with staring eye,

He down let fall his arme, and soft withdrew

His weapon huge, that heaved was on bye,

For to have slain the man, that on the

ground did lye."*

So does infidelity sink dazzled and vanquished

"At flashing beams of the sunshiny shield,"

of gospel truth held over it. Gray gave his friend, Stonehewer, six reasons for the popularity of Shaftesbury's philosophy:-1st, his nobility of rank; 2dly, his vanity; 3dly, the readiness of people to believe what they cannot comprehend; 4thly, their facility in crediting any doctrine when unfettered by any obligation to receive it; 5thly, a love of taking a new road, even when that road leads nowhere; 6thly, his appearance of being a fine writer, and meaning more then he said. When Gray wrote this opinion, an interval of forty years had dimmed the brightness of Shaftesbury's charm; since Gray wrote, eighty years have nearly destroyed every gleam of lustre that remained.

Turn again nearer home. When passing along the London road toward Richmond, if we glance at Parson's Green, we may discover the spot, at the south-west corner, where the house of Richardson formerly stood. But the subject requires a volume; and it is one which every reader may write for himself. The villager may become the historian of his own hamlet. I should rejoice to awaken or increase the love of local research. A country walk ought to be a source not only of physical, but of intellectual and religious pleasure. Warburton and Clarke never walked or rode without a book in their hands. But during a small portion of the day, at least, observation should be substituted for reading. Give me, said Lord Bacon, a philo

sopher, who, like the bee, has a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting at home. Botany, geology, and other branches of science, might also be acquired in these seasons of recreation; and the fieldlectures of Buckland and Sedgwick may be imitated in the conversational instruction of our companions. Fuseli, the painter, often mentioned in after-life the delight he experienced in boyhood, when in the fresh summer air he crept through green hedges in pursuit of butterflies, or the larvæ of insects. It is with a view of promoting these pleasures and objects that I have written down a few miscellaneous recollections of Country Walks, as they rise before me in all their verdure and fragrance.

Old houses form one of the most pleasing features in a village walk. But our cities are also rich in them. Cambridge has many; so has Chester. The villages scattered round Cambridge, Little Swaffham, Whittlesford, Sawston, Milton, Long Stanton, Barton, contain specimens of what are called pargetted, or halftimbered houses. "The half-timbered houses," says an anonymous writer in the Cambridge Portfolio, to whom I am indebted for much agreeable information upon this subject, "generally had the wood-work, studs and posts, painted black, or tarred, and the intermediate spaces of brickwork or clunch whitewashed. In modern times the woodwork has been frequently obscured by a coating of plaster." "In Kent," says the same writer, "the half-timbered houses are called wood-noggin houses. Kentish gentleman informed me that they were so called because the pieces of timber used in the framing were called wood-nogs. Nog is properly a wooden brick, which is inserted into walls to hold the joining work, but here signifies a longer piece of wood. Nogging is a species of brickwork carried up in panels between quarters. The quarters are the parts of the framework. They seldom have the wood-work in patterns, but often the plates and beams ornamented, as well as the spandrils of the doors. Sometimes there is no projection of the upper story over the lower one. Three-faced windows

Faery Queene, b. i. c. 8, st. 19.

A

are common, and ornamented bargeboards. There are several nogginhouses plastered over with a ground on which flowers and patterns are worked in another colour." Some of my readers may not remember the definition of a barge-board; it is found in houses of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, and is usually decorated with rich carvings; being affixed to the gable-ends of timberhouses to hide the ends of the projecting timber roof, and to keep off the wet. At Newnham, near Feversham, there is a house of this description with a red ground and white flowers; and at Darington, we find one with a black ground and white flowers. A few half-timbered houses are noticed in Northamptonshire. In Shropshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire, these houses assume a more picturesque appearance. The seat of Lord Liverpool, at Pitchford, near Shrewsbury, is particularly mentioned. The city of Shrewsbury contains several excellent examples. In Cheshire, the half-timber houses are denominated" post and pan" houses, —pan, in that country, meaning a beam. A post and pan-house is formed of "uprights and cross pieces." There is a farm-house at Worthington, near Wigan, in the county of Lancaster, belonging to the last half of the sixteenth century, which is remarkable for the elegance of its carving. The seat of the Blackburnes, at Newton, has also been pointed out. The writer already alluded to mentions three houses, adjoining each other, in the market-place of Preston, bearing the date of 1629; Ince Hall, near Wigan, of which Mr. Roby has given us an engraving in his Traditions; Speke Hall, five miles south of Liverpool; Rufford Hall, between Ormskirk and Preston; Harrock Hall, near Rufford; Smithels, near Bolton, the residence of Mr. P. Ainsworth, &c. "They have mostly gables, with hip-knobs, and more or less ornamented barge-boards; and the gables are commonly the superstructure of rectangular projections. In many of the post and pan-houses the windows are more broad than deep, and run, with small interruptions, the whole

length of the house in each story."* And while I am speaking of old English houses, I may give the reader some pleasure by referring him to the second volume of Price's Essay on the Picturesque (p. 381), for some ingenious remarks upon the architecture of some of the most eminent Dutch and Italian painters: a few I shall endeavour to transplant. Price notices particularly the outsides of Ostade's cottages. Their outline, he says, is usually composed of forms of unequal heights, thrown into different degrees of perspective; the sides are "varied by projecting windows and doors, by sheds supported by brackets, with flower-pots on them; by the light, airy, and detached appearance of cages hung out from the wall; by porches and trellises of various constructions, often covered with vine or ivy." These picturesque circumstances are grouped with trees. Wouvermans, an artist so different from Ostade in the direction of his genius, displayed still more ingenuity in these decorations and arrangements of the picturesque in cottage architecture. Rembrandt produced an effect not inferior either to Ostade or Wouvermans, by the management of lights and shades. A country walk is never dull; something will always engage our attention, if our mental eyes are kept open. If the reader has ever travelled along the highroad from Newcastle to Carlisle, he will probably entertain no pleasant remembrances of that waste of forty miles. But an eye awake to the beauty of Nature, and ever ready to catch the faintest expression upon her countenance, will find even there objects to amuse and soothe itself. The interchange of heath and green sward, writes Gilpin, makes an agreeable variety. Often, too, on these vast tracks of uninteresting grounds, beautiful lights, as Gilpin shews, soften along the sides of hills; sheep hang upon the slopes, or a group of cattle stands in the shade, on the edge of a dark hill; or the heath-cock or the plover sails by on the still air. Upon every page of Nature's book, one line at least is written for our instruction and improvement :—

To me be Nature's volume wide displayed;

And to peruse the broad illumined page, Or haply catching inspiration thence Some easy passage, raptured, to translate,

My sole delight."

THOMSON: Summer, 197.

Even while I write, a ray has fallen upon a remote hamlet in Lancashire from the eyes of the Faëry Queene. It appears, from a paragraph in a provincial paper, that Mr. F. C. Spenser, of Halifax, in making some researches respecting the ancient residence of his family, has succeeded in identifying it with that of the poet Spenser's. The rural village of Hurstwood, near Burnley, Lancashire, is the scene which ought, for many future ages, to

"Live in description, and look green in song."

"In the romantic Alpine scenery of that neighbourhood," is the remark of the writer in the Leeds Intelligencer," it is probable that Spenser took refuge when he was driven by a disappointment at college to seek his relations in the north of England. The poet's family are said to have resided at Hurstwood during four hundred years, from the beginning of the reign of the second Edward to the close of the seventeenth century." Of course this slight but very interesting illustration of the history of Spenser will be carefully examined. It was long supposed that Spenser had contended with Bishop Andrews for a fellowship at Pembroke: this supposition has been disproved. But that Spenser, like Milton, was ruffled by some college annoyance, there seems to be no reason for doubting. To this the allusions in a letter from his friend Harvey evidently refer. Having taken his master's degree, Spenser retired from the University; and no allusion to his own college has been discovered in his poetry. "It is said," writes Todd," that he

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now went to reside with some relations in the north of England,—not, perhaps, as is vaguely asserted by most of his biographers, as a mere pensioner on their bounty, but perhaps as a tutor to some young friend." Like the five years which Milton spent under his father's roof, this rural interval appears to have been profitably employed by Spenser in study and composition. In 1578, by the advice of his friend Harvey, he removed to London.

I cannot conclude my brief sketch of a Country Walk more appropriately than in the lines of Thomas Warton, written after seeing Windsor Castle:

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rill;

Now haunts old hollow'd oaks, deserted cells;

Now seeks the low vale-lily's silver bells;

Sips the warm fragrance of the greenhouse bowers,

And tastes the myrtle and the citron flowers;

At length returning to the wonted comb, Prefers to all his little straw-built home."

But I would not that a still purer feeling should be absent from the reader's mind in any rural excursion, however short. "A good man," said John Smith, of Cambridge, a wise and eloquent scholar and philosopher, "finds every place he treads upon holy ground; to him the world is God's temple, he is ready to say with Jacob,How dreadful is this place; this is none other but the house of God." (Gen. xxviii. 17.)

CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED.

"Confusion dwelt in every place,
And fear in every heart,

When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs,
O'ercome the pilot's art."-Spectator.

"At length an universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,

Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear."-MILTON.

"ALL IS CONFUSION!" said Joseph
Hume, Esquire, as he packed up his
own travelling bag at Leeds, and set
off to Switzerland to console himself
at the falls of the Giesbach, or of the
Staubach, or perchance at those of
the Rhine, for his Yorkshire ejec-
tion; thus exchanging moral confu-
sion for the hubbub, froth, dash, and
whirl of natural waterfalls!
"Here
am I, the Cocker of the nineteenth
century, the economist of all times,
the stereotyped enemy of all figures
not in accordance with my own, the
parliamentary save-all, the condensed
essence of stinginess, the best strainer
at a gnat and swallower of a camel in
the wide universe, the bosom friend
of Dan, the dissector of all budgets,
the opposer of all expenditures, the
inventor of a patent instrument for
scraping cheese-parings,-here am I,
Joe Hume, Joey Hume, Joseph
Hume, ejected from parliament !!
Woe betide the ejectors! but more
than that, woe betide the nation, the
whole universal empire! What
asses those Dundee fellows were to
take my letter to Alexander Low
literally, and to elect George Duncan
instead of myself! Oh! the days
when I was young! How I counted,
and how I sung! Blessed days those,
when I was M.P. for Middlesex! It
is perfectly incomprehensible, that
Colonel Wood, a Tory, a Dear
Bread' man, a lover of the Church
and the clergy, should be member
for the very county I once represent-
ed; whilst I, the economist of the age
in which we live, should be member
for-nothing! All is confusion, all
is disorder, men's minds are turned
upside down-I must hasten to Swit-
zerland."

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"All the elements are in a state of fiery agitation, and ould Ireland is convulsed from Tory Isle to Cape Clear, from the Wolves to the Dog's Head, and from Ballywater to Dingle Bay, at my REJECTION by these

DUBLIN MYRMIDONS of the foul Orange faction,"" exclaimed the EMPEROR DAN, as he listened to the following state of the poll which sealed his fate, and overthrew his empire!

Grogan.
West

O'Connell
Hutton

-

3051

3060

2977

2953

"Horses to Meath!-Horses! Horses!-Horses to Meath! I must rush to them, kiss them, love them, palaver them, worship them, idolise them, adore them! O noble men, beautiful women, exquisite virgins of Meath! But these Dublin villains, these Orange slaves, these Protestant scoundrels, these base, brutal, hated, and degraded beasts! - what shall I say of them? And GROGAN above all! Oh, Grogan! Grogan! great shall be thy fall. Thou shalt be denounced from every altar, vituperated from every pulpit, spit upon by every Papist; at thy name the child that hangs upon its mother's breast shall turn deadly pale; as thou walkest along the streets of Dublin city, the little children shall cover their faces with their hands rather than look on so foul a reptile; the young maiden shall refuse to dance on the day she hath seen thee; the old woman shall flee from thee as from pestilence and death; and the old men shall hang down their heads with shame and confusion for their city, when they see thee pass! GROGAN, shall be another word for shame, sorrow, sadness, misery, torment, woe, and death! The sun shall not shine on thee! The moon and the stars shall refuse to lend thee their light! Thy lands shall produce venomous things and crawling monsters! Thy couch shall be one of thorns, prickles, thistles, of burning fever, and ceaseless torment! Thy food shall not strengthen, but destroy thee! In thy cup there shall be hemlock and vitriol! Thy bones

shall be disjointed, thy muscles shall be without vigour, thine arms shall hang down by thy sides nerveless and without power, thy tongue shall cleave to thy mouth, thy mind shall be ever confused and confounded, and premature old age shall seize thee, thou enemy of my omnipotence, thou destroyer of my dynasty! But Meath! Meath! Meath! Huzza for Meath! One hundred million cheers for Meath! Two hundred and sixty-five thousand billion universes of cheers for Meath!! But destruction to Grogan! as well as to the Carlow and Athlone voters!

The sheep of Saint Mullins are penn'd in the fold,

They are false to the faith of their fathers' gold;

For beef and for bread they their liberty sell,

And their foul-perjured votes are recorded in Hell.

Yes, a curse on the traitors, a curse on their souls!

A curse on the black blood that in each vein rolls;

A curse on each limb, a deep curse on each head,

A curse on them living, a curse on them dead!'"

"Confusion worse confounded!" screamed Dan again, when the news of the Dublin County Poll reached him at Meath. "I hate, I loathe, I detest, I abhor, I execrate, those Dublin county monsters. There is no county, no country, no state under heaven which produces such hideous and awful monsters as Dublin county! That red-coated Thompson, that major, that thing of the army, that man of the sword and the musket, how dare he propose Hans Hamilton ! And then the scoundrel eulogised him as a landlord! Miserable trick! wretched scheme! And Alexander Hamilton too! I will hand up the names of the two Hamiltons to eternal obloquy and never-dying shame! Sir Robert Shaw too, and Cobbe, that fellow Cobbe, they dared to propose Captain Edward Taylor! Another red-coated murderer! another of the Orange faction! red as a lobster and not as savoury! red as a mullet, and, like a great orange lie, sticks in your gullet. Oh, Hamilton and Taylor! my inmost soul revolts when I think of ye! Brabazon defeated! Evans defeated! Oh, my prophetic soul! didst

thou not say so when my own name, the name of Erin's best and wisest son-the name of her greatest statesman, and most disinterested patriot, was covered with disgrace in Dublin city? There was a time when Dublin was worthy of me; but that time hath fled. The foul, blood-stained, Orange faction, hath rendered Dublin the cesspool of crime, the sink of iniquity, a spot in this green isle at which nations yet unborn will point the finger of scorn and contempt! Oh, Dublin! Dublin! thou art become a quagmire of toads, a hot-bed of serpents, a pestilential pool of duck-weed and malaria!! Confusion worse confounded! But what is this news from CORK? Glorious Cork! wonderful Cork! astounding Cork! - An invitation from Cork! Impossible! Yes, it is surely impossible that I, the discarded at Dublin, should be the adopted at Cork! Great, glorious, and free!' first county of the world! the brightest and the sunniest province of my native land, whose shores are lashed by the long Atlantic waves! O noble Cork! I do indeed rejoice in thee! Yes, I fly to thy arms! I am coming, I am coming, brave, virtuous, beauteous, noble, incomparable Corkites! But consult your late members; tell them that one of them MUST resign in my favour, but that I leave them to choose which! Beaten every where! rejected every where! one cork I yet see floating on the billows, and that cork may save me. O Cork! Cork Ireland will owe her regeneration to thee! Proud, haughty, arrogant, and iron-hearted, I will once more enter the House of Commons, and hurl defiance at the Christianity of the land! But for thee, O Cork! I would only have been the honourable member for Meath!' Now I shall have Meath and Cork,' or rather Cork and Meath' engraven on my brazen buttons, and I will wage a fierce and exterminating warfare for THE POPE AND REPEAL!!' Yes, this shall be our motto henceforward; not the canting, snivelling, affected cry of THE QUEEN AND

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