other notice of my companion than to talk rather louder than before, and with as I thought, something of an air of defiance. Master Simon, however, as I have before said, sheered off from the porch, and passed on, pressing my arm within his, and whispering as we got by, in a tone of awe and horror, "That's a radical! he reads Cobbett!"

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I endeavored to get a more particular account of him from my companion, but he seemed unwilling even to talk about him, answering only in general terms, that he was a cursed busy fellow, that had a confounded trick of talking, and was apt to bother one about the national debt, and such nonsense; " from which I suspected that Master Simon had been rendered wary of him by some accidental encounter on the field of argument; for these radicals are continually roving about in quest of wordy warfare, and never so happy as when they can tilt a gentleman logician out of his saddle.

On subsequent inquiry my suspicions have been confirmed. I find the radical has but recently found his way into the village, where he threatens to commit fearful devastations with his doctrines. He has already made two or three complete converts, or new lights; has shaken the faith of several others; and has grievously puzzled the brains of many of the oldest villagers, who had never thought about politics, nor scarce anything else, during their whole lives.

He is lean and meagre from the constant restlessness of mind and body; worrying about with

newspapers and pamphlets in his pockets, which he is ready to pull out on all occasions. He has shocked several of the stanchest villagers, by talking lightly of the Squire and his family; and hinting that it would be better the park should be cut up into small farms and kitchengardens, or feed good mutton instead of worthless deer.

He is a great thorn in the sight of the Squire, who is sadly afraid that he will introduce politics into the village, and turn it into an unhappy, thinking community. He is a still greater griev ance to Master Simon, who has hitherto been able to sway the political opinions of the place, without much cost of learning or logic; but has been much puzzled of late to weed out the doubts and heresies already sown by this champion of reform. Indeed, the latter has taken complete command at the tap-room of the tavern, not so much because he has convinced, as because he has outtalked all the old-established oracles. The apothecary, with all his philosophy, was as naught before him. He has convinced and converted the landlord at least a dozen times; who, however, is liable to be convinced and converted the other way by the next person with whom he talks. is true the radical has a violent antagonist in the landlady, who is vehemently loyal, and thoroughly devoted to the king, Master Simon, and the Squire. She now and then comes out upon the reformer with all the fierceness of a cat-o'-mountain, and does not spare her own soft-headed husband for listening to what she terms such "low

It

lived politics." What makes the good woman the more violent, is the perfect coolness with which the radical listens to her attacks, drawing his face up into a provoking, supercilious smile; and when she has talked herself out of breath, quietly asking her for a taste of her homebrewed.

The only person in any way a match for this redoubtable politician is Ready-Money Jack Tibbets; who maintains his stand in the tap-room, in defiance of the radical and all his works. Jack is one of the most loyal men in the country, without being able to reason about the matter. He has that admirable quality for a tough arguer, also, that he never knows when he is beat. He has half a dozen old maxims, which he advances on all occasions, and though his antagonist may overturn them ever so often, yet he always brings them anew to the field. He is like the robber in Ariosto, who, though his head might be cut off half a hundred times, yet whipped it on his shoulders again in a twinkling, and returned as sound a man as ever to the charge.

Whatever does not square with Jack's simple and obvious creed, he sets down for "French politics"; for, notwithstanding the peace, he cannot be persuaded that the French are not still laying plots to ruin the nation, and to get hold of the Bank of England. The radical attempted to overwhelm him one day by a long passage from a newspaper; but Jack neither reads nor believes in newspapers. In reply, he gave him one of the stanzas which he has by heart from his favorite,

and indeed only author, old Tusser, and which he calls his Golden Rules :

"Leave princes' affairs undescanted on,

And tend to such doings as stand thee upon; Fear God, and offend not the king nor his laws, And keep thyself out of the magistrate's claws." When Tibbets had pronounced this with great emphasis, he pulled out a well-filled leathern purse, took out a handful of gold and silver, paid his score at the bar with great punctuality, returned his money, piece by piece, into his purse, his purse into his pocket, which he buttoned up; and then, giving his cudgel a stout thump upon the floor, and bidding the radical "good morning, sir!" with the tone of a man who conceives he has completely done for his antagonist, he walked with lionlike gravity out of the house. Two or three of Jack's admirers who were present, and had been afraid to take the field themselves, looked upon this as a perfect triumph, and winked at each other when the radical's back was turned. “Ay, ay!" said mine host, as soon as the radical was out of hearing, "let old Jack alone; I'll warrant he'll give him his own!"

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THE ROOKERY.

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles; screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.

COWPER

N a grove of tall oaks and beeches, that crowns a terrace-walk, just on the skirts

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of the garden, is an ancient rookery; which is one of the most important provinces in the Squire's rural domains. The old gentleman sets great store by his rooks, and will not suffer one of them to be killed; in consequence of which they have increased amazingly the tree-tops are loaded with their nests; they have encroached upon the great avenue, and even established in times long past a colony among the elms and pines of the church-yard, which, like other distant colonies, has already thrown off allegiance to the mother-country.

The rooks are looked upon by the Squire as a very ancient and honorable line of gentry, highly aristocratical in their notions, fond of place, and attached to church and state; as their building so loftily, keeping about churches and cathedrals, and in the venerable groves of old castles and manor-houses, sufficiently manifests. The good