"I love to hear Sophia recount the pleasures of the fresh air," said her father, "for the task always brings again the glow to her cheeks, and fills her with gratitude for so cheap a blessing, reminding me of what Wordsworth says,— "Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold "I do love to see the love of Nature my children's first love." "Not our very first love either: that must have been yours and my mother's. I almost feel ashamed to say our enjoyment of the beauties of nature was interrupted by the keen demand of appetite;' and on re-entering the cabin we were not a little pleased to see how well Mrs. Gordon's handy fingers had spread the table for us; and in addition to the contents of our travelling-basket, the hostess had supplied a profusion of fresh eggs, which she roasted in the embers, and pressed upon us with true Irish hospitality." But was not the place too dirty for you to enjoy anything!" "Indeed, it was not. I own it was not quite a drawing-room; but the furniture was good and clean, and the dresser displayed nice delf and other comforts, though there was a mud floor, and the ceiling merely consisted of the furze which supported the thatch, whilst a large brood of fowls had undisputed possession of one corner of the room, where they kept flying up and down from a beam which was over a good store of fuel and potatoes. I was laughed at for my nicety in chasing the fowls out of the cabin before I sat down to dinner; but I redeemed my character by patting two large dogs which stationed themselves beside us, and begged for a share in our good things." "Certainly this could not be called a wretched Irish cabin." "Oh no! it belonged to one of the class of respectable farmers. Two or three children, who came in from school, were tolerably well clothed; and the good master soon made his appearance with his horse, cart, and eldest daughter, a very pretty girl, whose black eyes gave us many furtive glances, and who amused me greatly by the mixture of archness, cunning, and simplicity, with which she contrived to draw me away from the party, under the pretext of showing me a view I had not seen, and then blushing, and smiling, and curtseying, asked me how I liked Ireland. And sure,' she added, 'your ladyship don't dislike the Irish-sure you would not object to taking an Irish servant; and I would so like to go with you to England-it would be such improvement to larn the good, tidy, English ways. Oh, I would like much to go "Well, Sophia, why did you not bring her? I wonder you could have the heart to refuse !" exclaimed Charles. "Just imagine old Watson having a wild Irish girl to teach. The very exercise of scolding her would cure the rheumatism." "I felt quite sorry to crush poor Bridget's hope, wild as it was," said Sophia; and turned homewards with regret." The sea breeze wafted it all away as we walked down the heights of Ballinascorney, where each side of the road was a treasury of spring flowers-primroses, Cowslips, wood-anemones, oxalis, and hairy violets; and where, close by a trickling rill, I discovered the chrysos plenium, its most minute golden flowers absolutely glittering in their tiny nooks at the foot of each green leaf. I never saw anything so cheerful as its aspect; and, with the help of a knife from the basket store, I ladened the carriage with a mass of its verdure, and with numerous roots of cowslips and primroses for Mrs. Gordon's garden. The very plant from which that drawing was made, was one which I brought home; so I hope, Frederic, my long story has apologised for the favour with which I regard my gem from the Emerald Isle." "It has really been rather a long story," said Mrs. Loraine. "Poor Little Laura has been looking sleepy for the last quarter of an hour, but in reply to her mamma's signal for retiring, begs to hear the evening's charade before she goes." "Yes, please," said Laura; "do let me stay, and try to guess it; and, first, let Sophia tell us what the Golden Saxifrage is good for?" "I am afraid it is good for nothing but to look pretty," answered Sophia; "at least, in the present day, in spite of its name, it is not used by the herbalists; but it is one of the many proofs which flowers afford of the overflowing bounty of Him who has spread beauty over the lowly places of the earth, and gives cheerfulness and peace to many a humble and lowly heart." : Now then, my dear mother," said Cyril," if you As the bright things which glitter there; Miscellaneous. "I have here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own, but the string that ties them."-Montaigne. LONGEVITY OF THE TORTOISE. IN the library of Lambeth Palace is the shell of a tortoise, brought there in 1623. It lived till 1730, and was then accidentally killed. Another, in the palace at Fulham, procured by Bishop Laud in 1628, died in 1759. Tortoises are proverbial for their longevity; one at Peterborough lived 220 years.-Sir Richard Phillips. CUNNING OF THE FOX. man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, as far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or there. abouts, a great black ugly rain cloud were broken up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again until next time, with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. But instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure.-Modern Painters. THE CAPTAIN MASTERED. Another of our skipper's stories was the finding a vessel yawing about in a most fearful way, steering wild. He at first determined to give her a wide berth, but afterwards thought he would inquire the longitude. He therefore hailed her, "What ship is that?""The Samuel Walker." "Where are you from?" "From Why, Bosting, down east." "Who commands her?" undertuk her, but I swear she is too much for me." Echoes from the Backwoods. WHEN living in Ross-shire, I went one morning in July, before daybreak, to endeavour to shoot a stag, who had been complained of very much by an ad. joining farmer, as having done great damage to his crops. Just after it was daylight, I saw a large fox come very quietly along the edge of the plantation in which I was concealed; he looked with great care over the turf wall into the field, and seemed to long very much to get hold of some hares that were feeding in it, but apparently knew that he had no chance of catchI have often been astonished at the softness in which ing one by dint of running; after considering a short other minds seem to have passed their day: the ripened time, he seemed to have formed his plans, and having pasture and clustering vineyards of imagination: the examined the different gaps in the wall by which the mental arcadia in which they describe themselves as hares might be supposed to go in and out, he fixed upon having loitered from year to year. Yet, can I have faith the one that seemed the most frequented, and laid him- in this perpetual Claude Lorraine pencil-this undying self down close to it in an attitude like a cat watching a verdure of the soil-this gold and purple suffusion of the mouse-hole. Cunning as he was, he was too intent on sky-those pomps of the palace and the pencil with their his own hunting to be aware that I was within twenty pageants and nymphs, giving life to their landscape; yards of him with a loaded rifle, and able to watch every while mine was a continual encounter with difficulty, movement he made; I was much amazed to see the a continual summons to self-control?-A march, not fellow so completely outwitted, and kept my rifle ready unlike that of the climber up the side of Etna; every to shoot him if he found me out and attempted to step through ruins, the vestiges of former conflagrations; escape. In the mean time I watched all his plans: he the ground I trode, rocks that had once been flame; first, with great silence and care, scraped a small hollow every advance a new trial of my feelings or my fortitude; in the ground, throwing up the sand as a kind of screen every stage of the ascent leading me, like the traveller, between his hiding place and the hares' mense. Every into a higher region, of sand or ashes; until, at the now and then, however, he stopped to listen, and some-highest, I stood in a circle of eternal frost, with all the times to take a most cautions peep into the field; when he had done this, he laid himself down in a convenint posture for springing on his prey, and remained perfectly motionless, with the exception of an occasional reconnoitre of the feeding hares. When the sun began to rise, they came one by one from the field to the cover of the plantation; three had already come in without passing by his ambush ; one of them came within twenty yards of him, but he made no movement beyond crouching still more flatly to the ground. Presently two came directly towards him; though he did not venture to look up, I saw by an involuntary motion of his cars that those quick organs had already warned him of their approach: the two hares came through the gap together, and the fox, springing with the quickness of lightning, caught one and killed her immediately; he then lifted up his booty and was carrying it off like a retriever, when my rifle ball stopped his course by passing through his backbone, and I went up and dispatched him. After seeing this I never wondered again as to how a fox could make a prey of animals much quicker than himself, and apparently quite as cunning.-Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands, by Charles St. John, Esq. The Mother's Hope, (with THE BEAUTY OF THE SKY. Ir is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of rich and human landscape below fading away in distance, and looked down only on a gulph of fire.-Marston. THE Chinese proverb says, "A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide."-Hochelaga. THE noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the notifying of errors. He that tells me of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful; wise, in spying that which I see not; faithful, in a plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.-Feltham's Resolves. It is startling to reflect that all the time and energy of a multitude of persons of genius, talent and know ledge, is expended in endeavours to demonstrate cach others' errors."-Liebeg.” N.B. The Second Volume of this Periodical is now ready; covers for binding, with table of contents, may be ordered of any Bookseller. CONTENTS. Page Page 161 Old Records of New Roads, Illustration)....... the Indigent Blind, St. A Christmas Party in the 170 174 MISCELLANEOUS............... 176 PRINTED by RICHARD CLAY, of Park Terrace, Highbury, in the Parish of Poor Ellen ran out to the meeting, And soon returned-with 'wildered eye "Oh help!" she cried, "a mournful wailing 'Tis George he cries-his strength is failingOh father! haste! to save your son!" The old man looked up and shook lightly "Oh! ere his heart break! come!" cried Ellen, "And speak not of an idle tale! His cries upon my ear were swelling! "Oh help!" she cried at every dwelling, "Oh God!" she cried, her arms extending, "No heart of rock would aid allowThou-who art Love-let that, descending, Give me the strength to save him now!" Then quickly felt she that a fountain Of courage in her breast arose, And swiftly rushed she 'neath the mountain, Whence still the wild lamenting goes. The old man in the house felt dreary As all the world upon him lay, And through the fields he hastened, weary, The village his lamentings raising, White as a spectre with his sorrow THE CINQUE PORTS. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SANDWICH. "As generations come and go, Their arts, their customs, ebb and flow; BEFORE Commencing our notices of this once celebrated but now almost unknown town, it may be advisable briefly to allude to the physical changes which time has produced on the coast on which Sandwich once lay, and in the island (Thanet) on which it so closely abuts. The river dividing Thanet from the continent of Kent fell into the sea at Sandwich, and was called the Stour, and this (or rather another stream which flowed into it), winding to the north-west so as to form the island, reached the sea again near Reculver, where it was called formerly the Yenlade, but afterwards, as the waters began to fail, it was known by the appropriate appellation of Wantsume, a name which it still retains. At both these mouths the sea rushed freely, and flowed entirely round the island, forming, as we have said, a broad estuary, which offered a safe and inviting passage for ships of the largest burthen, and was indeed the accustomed route from France to London. The water at the narrowest part was upwards of a mile and a half in width, and in some places four miles. WORDSWORTH. The wasting of these waters, and the decay of the channel, would in all likelihood have been progressing for many years before the circumstance was noted, but the alteration had become quite visible in Bede's time. The Stour was neither so wide nor so rapid as it had been; the Yenlade was beginning to be known as the Wantsume; and the proprietors were inadvertently adding to the mischief, by securing those lands from which the sea had retired, from the possibility of being again overflowed. At the time this estuary was as we have de- 1 scribed it at first, the lands along the course of the river which now are luxuriant pasture were of course beneath the waters, which also flowed over the low grounds almost as far as Canterbury; and on the coast from Ramsgate to Deal extended one broad bay, the tides of which washed the foot of the hill on which Richborough Castle stands, now two miles inland. Ebbsflete, where a narrow creek ran inland, was a common and convenient landing place, and the site of the present town of Sandwich was under the waves. It was probably as a successor to or substitute for Richborough, when the sea retiring from it destroyed its utility as a port, that Sandwich was built, on ground also redeemed from the ocean. It was built along the southern margin of the river Stour, and on the sea sands, as it name Sond-wie or Sondwych fully testifies; and this title also evidences its Saxon origin. The name first occurs in history about the year A.D. 664. The town was also called Lundenwich, as lying in the way, or rather being the usual passage, to London. From the time of its origin, the property of this town was vested in the reigning monarch, until the year A.D. 979, when King Ethelred gave it to Christchurch in Canterbury to the use of the monks, free from all secular service and fiscal tribute except the repelling invasions, and the repairing of bridges and castles. King Knute confirmed, or rather (for all the property of the island was his by conquest) renewed this gift, after having partly rebuilt and considerably improved the town. William the Conquerer, and Henry the Second, confirmed to the monks of Christchurch all their liberties and customs in Sandwich. But in the reign of Edward the First, these reverend proprietors gave up to the king a chief proportion of their rights in exchange for land in another part of Kent: and, the reservations made in this agreement being found practically inconvenient, a further compromise was made in the reign of Edward the Third, whereby the monks ceded all their rights, privileges, and possessions in the town and port of Sandwich. It was in Edward the Confessor's reign, who resided here for a considerable time, that Sandwich was made a Cinque Port, and it has always ranked next to Hastings in precedency. It was first incorporated by Edward the Third, and the meeting by which the Mayor is annually elected is convened by the blast of a brass horn of great antiquity, which is sounded before the house of every one qualified to vote. All municipal elections, decrees, &c. are made by the corporate body assembled by the blast of this ancient horn. Some of these ancient laws are amusing. In 1493 it was decreed that a person refusing to take particular office, to which he was appointed by the meeting, should not be permitted to bake or brew, or that, if he did bake or brew, the Commons might seize the bread and beer, and apply it to their own use. We can hardly in these days understand how very awkward a predicament this must have been, when beer shops and public bakehouses were not. Another decree of about the same period was that no person be elected a jurat, who has not dwelt and kept house in the town a year and a day, he and his wife together. A general law of this kind might become a national benefit; or would it not rather perhaps in these days become the nucleus of another league to agitate for repeal? Sandwich seems gradually to have increased in wealth and consequence from the time when, from the decay of the Portus Rutupinus (Richborough), it became a substitute for, and successor to, that celebrated haven, though, like other towns on this coast, it suffered at times fearfully from the ravages of the Danes. But the inhabitants made a spirited, and not unfrequently a successful, opposition to these pirates. To enter into any detailed account of these times, would merely be to multiply descriptions of cruelty, always disgusting and never profitable. Pass we therefore over them. Rather would we assist the over-proud and over-zealous yet well-intentioned Bishop and Martyr, St. Thomas à Becket in his flight, when after a close concealment of many days at Eastry, he passed hastily through Sandwich, and, leaving the town by the Fishers' Gate, embarked in a small fishing boat which had been secretly hired for him, and landed at Gravelines the same evening. Or gladly would we join the throng who are so eagerly crowding towards the quay just six years afterwards, to welcome the Prelate on his return to his home, and to escort him with honour through the Canterbury Gate. But a few years pass, and a still more illustrious exile, a crowned and lion-hearted king, steps on the quay at Sandwich, amid the deafening acclamations of his subjects, assembled from every quarter four miles around, to obtain a glance of the brave monarch, who, on his return from the Holy Wars, was betrayed by the guile of the cowardly Duke of Austria, and, in defiance of every feeling of chivalry and honour, was by him cast into a dungeon. For months he languished there, and, as every body knows, the place of his confinement was discovered by a faithful minstrel. He was at length released, finished his journey safely, and is now treading his own soil, breathing his native air. Loud, deafening, are the heartfelt shouts that greet him, splendid the carriage prepared for him, magnificent the cortêge which awaits him. But he withdraws from all; declines all honours, all state, all parade, and in humble guise and on foot, he proceeds from Sandwich to Canterbury, there to offer before the High Altar rich gifts and oblations, and the more acceptable sacrifice of a heart softened by gratitude for the perils he had escaped. This paramount duty performed, Richard "is himself again." Many such scenes of thrilling interest the annals of Sandwich bear witness to, and many passages of a highly chivalric nature occurred here, for, as we have said, this town ranked second among the Cinque Ports. At first it furnished only five ships to the general quota, but so rapid was its advance in wealth and importance, that, various alterations being made from time to time in the allotments according to the varying circumstances of the Ports, instead of five, Sandwich was shortly taxed to the amount of ten ships and a half. It is said to have been the first place in England where ships were built. Sandwich was very often the rendezvous for fleets which were especially commanded by the king in person; and this was particularly the case in the reign of the chivalrous Edward III. Indeed, during all the French wars of these times, it was the accustomed rendezvous of the fleets and armies, and the most usual place of embarkation and debarkation. It is said by some authors, that, after the battle of Poictiers, when the Black Prince threw his former laurels into insignificance by the bright ones he gathered there, he landed at Sandwich, with his royal prisoners, John, King of France, and Philip, the monarch's youngest son, a promising youth of fourteen, who had fought bravely at his father's side, and yielded his sword at the same time. While in the zenith of glory and prosperity, (1) Some authors say Plymouth. |