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GREGORY.

This comes of your great schools

And college-breeding. Plague upon his guardians,
That would have made him wiser than his fathers!
JAMES.

If his poor father, Gregory, had but lived,
Things would not have been so. He, poor good man,
Had little of book-learning, but there lived not

A kinder, nobler-hearted gentleman,
One better to his tenants. When he died
There was not a dry eye for miles around.
Gregory, I thought that I could never know
A sadder day than that: but what was that,
Compared with this day's sorrow?

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Some hour from hence; Such a fine, generous, open-hearted Youth! When he came home from school at holidays, How I rejoiced to see him! he was sure

By noon, and near about the elms, I take it.
This is not as it should be, Gregory,
Old men to follow young ones to the grave!
This morning when I heard the bell strike out,
I thought that I had never heard it toll
So dismally before.

GREGORY.

Well, well! my friend, "T is what we all must come to, soon or late. But when a young man dies, in the prime of life, One born so well, who might have blest us all Many long years!

JAMES.

And then the family
Extinguish'd in him, and the good old name
Only to be remember'd on a tomb-stone!
A name that has gone down from sire to son
So many generations!—Many a time
Poor Master Edward, who is now a corpse,
When but a child, would come to me and lead me
To the great family-tree, and beg of me
To tell him stories of his ancestors,
Of Eustace, he that went to the Holy Land
With Richard Lion-heart, and that Sir Henry
Who fought at Cressy in King Edward's wars;
And then his little eyes would kindle so

To hear of their brave deeds! I used to think
The bravest of them all would not out-do
My darling boy.

To come and ask of me what birds there were
About my fields; and when I found a covey,
There's not a testy Squire preserves his game
More charily, than I have kept them safe
For Master Edward. And he look'd so well
Upon a fine sharp morning after them,

His brown hair frosted, and his cheek so flush'd
With such a wholesome ruddiness,-ah, James,
But he was sadly changed when he came down
To keep his birth-day.

JAMES.

Changed! why, Gregory, T was like a palsy to me, when he stepp'd Out of the carriage. He was grown so thin, His cheek so delicate sallow, and his eyes Had such a dim and rakish hollowness; And when he came to shake me by the hand, And spoke as kindly to me as he used, I hardly knew the voice.

GREGORY.

It struck a damp On all our merriment. T was a noble Ox That smoked before us, and the old October Went merrily in everflowing cans; But it was a skin-deep merriment. My heart Seem'd as it took no share. And when we drank His health, the thought came over me what cause

We had for wishing that, and spoilt the draught.
Poor Gentleman! to think ten months ago
He came of age, and now!

JAMES.

I fear'd it then!

He look'd to me as one that was not long For this world's business.

GREGORY.

When the Doctor sent him
Abroad to try the air, it made me certain
That all was over. There's but little hope,
Methinks, that foreign parts can help a man
When his own mother-country will not do.
The last time he came down, these bells rung so

I thought they would have rock'd the old steeple down;
And now that dismal toll! I would have staid
Beyond its reach, but this was a last duty:
I am an old tenant of the family,

Born on the estate, and now that I've outlived it,
Why 't is but right to see it to the grave.
Have you heard aught of the new Squire?

JAMES.

But little,

And that not well. But be he what he may
Matters not much to me. The love I bore
To the old family will not easily fix
Upon a stranger. What's on the opposite hill?
Is it not the funeral?

GREGORY.

'T is, I think, some horsemen. Aye! they are the black cloaks; and now I see The white plumes on the hearse.

JAMES.

'T is hid behind them now.

GREGORY,

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She's notable enough; and as for temper
The best good-humour'd girl! You see yon house,
There by the aspen-tree, whose grey leaves shine
In the wind? she lived a servant at the farm,
And often, as I came to weeding here,
I've heard her singing as she milk'd her cows
So cheerfully:-I did not like to hear her,
Because it made me think upon the days
When I had got as little on my mind,

And was as cheerful too. But she would marry,

And folks must reap as they have sown. God help her

TRAVELLER.

Why, Mistress, if they both are well inclined, Why should not both be happy?

WOMAN.

They 've no money.

TRAVELLER.

But both can work; and sure as cheerfully Between the trees; She 'd labour for herself as at the farm.

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Come twelve-months hence, I warrant them they'd go These haply may be happier.
To church again more willingly than now,

If all might be undone.

TRAVELLER.

An ill-match'd pair, So I conceive you. Youth perhaps and age?

WOMAN.

No,-both are young enough.

WOMAN.

Why for that

I've had my share; some sickness and some sorrow:
Well will it be for them to know no worse.
Yet had I rather hear a daughter's knell

Than her wedding-peal, Sir, if I thought her fate
Promised no better things.

TRAVELLER.

Perhaps the man then,

TRAVELLER.

Sure, sure, good womas,

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Aye! idleness! the rich folks never fail
To find some reason why the poor deserve
Their miseries!-Is it idleness, I pray you,
That brings the fever or the ague fit?
That makes the sick one's sickly appetite
Turn at the dry bread and potatoe meal?
Is it idleness that makes small wages fail
For growing wants?-Six years agone,
Rung on my wedding-day, and I was told
What I might look for,-but I did not heed
Good counsel. I had lived in service, Sir;
Knew never what it was to want a meal;

these bells

Laid down without one thought to keep me sleepless
Or trouble me in sleep; had for a Sunday
My linen gown, and when the pedlar came
Could buy me a new riband.—And my husband,—
A towardly young man and well to do,-
He had his silver buckles and his watch;
There was not in the village one who look'd
Sprucer on holidays. We married, Sir,
And we had children, but as wants increased
Wages did not. The silver buckles went,
So went the watch; and when the holiday coat
Was worn to work, no new one in its place.1
For me-you see my rags! but I deserve them,

A farmer once told the author of Malvern Hills, that he almost constantly remarked a gradation of changes in those men he had been in the habit of employing. Young men, he said, were generally neat in their appearance, active and cheerful, till they became married and had a family, when he had observed that their silver buttons, buckles, and watches gradually disappeared, and their Sunday's clothes became common without any other to supply their place, but, said he, some good comes from this, for they will then work for whatever they can get. -Note to COTTLE's Malvern Hills.

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Undone;-for sins, not one of which is mentioned
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other Gods than those of the Creed:
Bow'd to no idols,-but his money-bags:
Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house:
Kept the Sabbath idle: built a monument
To honour his dead father: did no murder:
Was too old-fashion'd for adultery:
Never pick'd pockets: never bore false witness:
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass!

STRANGER.

You knew him then, it seems?

TOWNSMAN.

As all men know The virtues of hundred-thousanders; your They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.

STRANGER.

Nay, nay, uncharitable Sir! for often
Doth bounty like a streamlet flow unseen,
Freshening and giving life along its course.

TOWNSMAN.

We track the streamlet by the brighter green
And livelier growth it gives ;-but as for this-
This was a pool that stagnated and stunk ;
The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it
But slime and foul corruption.

STRANGER.

Yet even these

Are reservoirs whence public charity Still keeps her channels full.

TOWNSMAN.

Now, Sir, you touch

Upon the point. This man of half a million
Had all these public virtues which you praise:
But the poor man rung never at his door;
And the old beggar, at the public gate,
Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye
To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.

His alms were money put to interest

In the other world,-donations to keep open
A running charity-account with heaven :-
Retaining fees against the last assizes,

When, for the trusted talents, strict account
Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer
Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

STRANGER.

I must needs Believe you, Sir: these are your witnesses, These mourners here, who from their carriages Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind Were to be pray'd for now, to lend their eyes Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute Bears not a face blanker of all emotion Than the old servant of the family!

How can this man have lived, that thus his death Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief!

TOWNSMAN.

Who should lament for him, Sir, in whose heart
Love had no place, nor natural charity?
The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus! Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught;
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The
air and sunshine of the fields,
open
To give his blood its natural spring and play,
He in a close and dusky counting-house,
Smoke-dried and sear'd and shrivell'd up his heart.
So, from the way in which he was train'd up,
His feet departed not; he toil'd and moil'd,
Poor muck-worm! through his three-score years and

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BALLADS AND METRICAL TALES.

MARY THE MAID OF THE INN.

The subject of the following Ballad was related to me, when a school-boy, as a fact which had happened in the north of Eugland. Either Furnes or Kirkstall Abbey (I forget which) was named as the scene. It seems, however, to have been founded upon a story related in Dr Plot's History of Staffordshire.

Amongst the unusual accidents, says this amusing author, that have attended the female sex in the course of their lives, I think I may also reckon the narrow escapes they have made from death. Whereof I met with one mentioned with admiration by every body at Leek, that happened not far off at the Black Meer of Morridge, which, though famous for nothing for which it is commonly reputed so (as that it is bottomless, no cattle will drink of it, or birds fly over or settle upon it, all which I found false), yet is so, for the signal deliverance of a poor woman, enticed thither in a dismal stormy night, by a bloody ruffian, who had first gotten her with child, and intended in this remote inhospitable place to have dispatched her by drowning. The same night (Providence so ordering it) there were several persons of inferior rank drinking in an ale-bouse at Leek, whereof one having been out, and observing the darkness and other ill circumstances of the weather, coming in again, said to the rest of his companions, that he were a stout man indeed that would venture to go to the black Meer of Morridge in such a night as that: to which one of them replying, that for a crown or some such sum he would undertake it, the rest joining their purses, said he should have his demand. The bargain being struck, away he went on his journey with a stick in his hand, which he was to leave there as a testimony of his pe formance. At length coming near the Meer, he heard the lamentable cries of this distressed woman, begging for mercy, which at first put him to a stand; but being a man of great resolution and some policy, he went boldly on, however, counterfeiting the presence of divers other persons, calling Jack, Dick, and Tom, and crying Here are the rogues we look'd for, etc.; which being heard by the murderer, he left the woman and fled; whom the other man found by the Meer side almost stript of her clothes, and brought her with him to Leek as an ample testimony of his having been at the Meer, and of God's providence 100.-P. 291.

The metre is Mr Lewis's invention; and metre is one of the few things concerning which popularity may be admitted as a proof of merit. The Ballad has become popular owing to the metre and the

story: as for every thing else, dum relego scripsisse pudet. It has

however been made the subject of a fine picture by Mr Barker.

WHO is fonder poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
Seem a heart overcharged to express?

She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs;
She never complains, but her silence implies
The composure of settled distress.

No pity she looks for, no alms does she seek;
Nor for raiment nor food doth she care:
Through her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak
On that wither'd breast, and her weather-worn cheek
Hath the hue of a mortal despair.

Yet cheerful and happy, nor distant the day,
Poor Mary the Maniac hath been;

The Traveller remembers who journey'd this way
No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay,
As Mary, the Maid of the Inn.

Her cheerful address fill'd the guests with delight
As she welcomed them in with a smile;
Her heart was a stranger to childish affright,
And Mary would walk by the Abbey at night
When the wind whistled down the dark aisle.

She loved, and young Richard had settled the day,
And she hoped to be happy for life:
But Richard was idle and worthless, and they
Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say
That she was too good for his wife.

was in autumn, and stormy and dark was the night, And fast were the windows and door;

Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burnt bright,
And smoking in silence, with tranquil delight
They listen'd to hear the wind roar.

<<'T is pleasant,» cried one, «seated by the fire-side, To hear the wind whistle without.»

<< What a night for the Abbey!» his comrade replied, « Methinks a man's courage would now be well tried Who should wander the ruins about.

<< I myself, like a school-boy, should tremble to hear
The hoarse ivy shake over my head;
And could fancy I saw, half persuaded by fear,
Some ugly old Abbot's grim spirit appear,

For this wind might awaken the dead! »

«I'll wager a dinner,» the other one cried, <<That Mary would venture there now.»>

<< Then wager and lose!» with a sneer he replied, << I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw a white cow.»>

« Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?» His companion exclaim'd with a smile;

«I shall win,-for I know she will venture there now, And earn a new bonnet by bringing a bough From the elder that grows in the aisle.»>

With fearless good-humour did Mary comply,
And her way to the Abbey she bent;
The night was dark, and the wind was high,
And as hollowly howling it swept through the sky,
She shiver'd with cold as she went.

O'er the path so well known still proceeded the Maid
Where the Abbey rose dim on the sight.
Through the gateway she enter'd, she felt not afraid,
Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade
Seem'd to deepen the gloom of the night.

All around her was silent, save when the rude blast
Howl'd dismally round the old pile;
Over weed-cover'd fragments she fearlessly past,
And arrived at the innermost ruin at last
Where the elder-tree grew in the aisle.

Well pleased did she reach it, and quickly drew near,
And hastily gather'd the bough;

When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear-
She paused, and she listen'd all eager to hear,
And her heart panted fearfully now.

The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head,
She listen'd-nought else could she hear;
The wind fell, her heart sunk in her bosom with dread,
For she heard in the ruins distinctly the tread

Of footsteps approaching her near.

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