Chaworths, were connected in former times, until the fatal duel between their two representatives. The feud, however, which prevailed for a time, promised to be cancelled by the attachment of two youthful hearts. While Byron was yet a boy, he beheld Mary Ann Chaworth, a beautiful girl, and sole heiress of Annesley. With the susceptibility to female charms which he evinced almost from childhood, he became almost immediately enamoured of her. In his Dream, the poet has given an exquisite picture of himself and the lively object of his idolatry—his "bright morning star of Annesley."

At the very time the interview took place, mentioned in the poem, Miss Chaworth was engaged to a gentleman-Mr. John Musters— whom she married in August 1805. Lord Byron saw her not, save once, during the course of several years. Towards the end of the year 1808 he was invited to dine at Annesley by Mr. Musters. He thus met the object of his early love in the very scenes of his tender devotions. On the infant daughter of the fair hostess being brought into the room, he started involuntarily, and with the utmost difficulty suppressed his emotion.

During Byron's rambles in the East, he received accounts of the object of his tender dream, which represented her still in her paternal hall, among her native bowers of Annesley, surrounded by a blooming and beautiful family, yet a prey to secret and withering melancholy.

The cause of her grief was a matter of comment throughout the neighbourhood of Newstead and Annesley. It was disconnected from all idea of Lord Byron, but attributed to the harsh and capricious conduct of one to whose kindness and affection she had a sacred claim. The domestic sorrows which had long preyed in secret on her heart at length affected her intellect.

"The lady of his love ;-oh! she was changed,

As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceiv'd

Of others' sight familiar were to hers."

The last scene of this painful but most interesting story occurred at Wiverton Hall in February 1832. During the sack of Colwick Hall by a party of rioters from Nottingham, Mrs. Musters had been exposed to much alarm and some danger; she and her daughter had been obliged to take shelter from the violence of the mob in a shrub

bery. From the cold she caught on that occasion, combined with the terror arising from the mad acts of the rioters, she sustained a shock which her already shattered constitution could not resist. time after her removal to Wiverton Hall, she expired.

In a short

HARDWICK HALL, one of the seats of the Duke of Devonshire, is about five miles north of Mansfield, not far from the Chesterfield road. It is an oblong building, with three square towers at each end, both projecting from and rising much higher than the body of the building. The parapet surrounding these towers is a singular piece of openwork of sweeping lines of stone, displaying the initials of the builder, E. S. -Elizabeth Shrewsbury-surmounted with a coronet of an earl. On all sides of the house the letters and crown strike the eye, and the whole parapet appears so unlike what is usually wrought in stone, that the spectator cannot help thinking that its singular builder, old Bess of Hardwick, must have cut out the pattern in paper with her scissors. It is difficult to say whether this remarkable woman had a greater genius for architecture or matrimony. She was the daughter of John Hardwick of Hardwick, and sole heiress of his estate. She married four times, always contriving to get the power over her husband's estate, by direct demise, or by intermarrying the children of their former marriages with those of former husbands; so that she brought into the family immense estates, and laid the foundation of four dukedoms. Her genius for architecture is sufficiently conspicuous in Hardwick Hall. It is said, that it having been foretold by some astrologers that the moment she ceased to build would be the moment of her death, she was perpetually engaged in building. At length, as she was raising a set of almshouses at Derby, a severe frost set in. All measures were resorted to necessary to enable the men to continue their work: their mortar was dissolved with hot water, and when that failed, with hot ale; but the frost triumphed, the work ceased, and Bess of Hardwick expired!

The two important towns of NOTTINGHAM and MANSFIELD are situate within the district known for centuries as Sherwood Forest.

THORESBY was towards the close of the seventeenth century the seat of Evelyn Duke of Kingston; and here his daughter, the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montague, was born about 1690. Although Lady Mary exhibited early signs of more than ordinary abilities, it is doubtful whether her father gave her many facilities for acquiring a good education. Of this period of her life an anecdote is told, which is interesting and curious, as setting before us the manners of the aristocracy of that period. "Lord Kingston, having no wife to do the honours of

his table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon Lady Mary, as soon as she had bodily strength for the office, which in those days required no small share; for the mistress of a country mansion was not only to invite—that is, urge and tease—her company to eat more than human throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every dish, when chosen, with her own hands. The greater the lady the more indispensable the duty. Each joint was carried up in its turn to be operated upon by her, and her alone; since the peers and knights on either hand were so far from being bound to offer their assistance, that the very master of the house, posted opposite to her, might not act as her croupier, his department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for the crowd of guests, the most inconsiderable among them—the curate, or subaltern, or squire's younger brother-if suffered through her neglect to help himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed it in bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a wrong vote at the next election. There were then professed carving-masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically, from one of whom Lady Mary took lessons three times a-week, that she might be perfect on her father's public days, when, in order to perform her functions without interruption, she was forced to eat her own dinner alone an hour or two beforehand."1

1 The Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, edited by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. i. Introductory Anecdotes.

hero, Uter Pendragon, tried to turn the course of the river Eden, so that it might flow in a circle around his castle; but the fierce, bold baron was no engineer, and seems to have been terribly ignorant of hydrostatics, and of course he failed. This forest was famous in former times for its great numbers of wild boars, which the name Wild Boar Fell attests to this day. It is a curious fact, that close by both Stainmore and Mallerstang there are two little narrow strips of ground, the possession of which is disputed between little Westmoreland and large Yorkshire. Neither of them seems to be at all worth any dispute.

All

In Cumberland we have still the names of Nicol, Copeland, Skiddaw, Inglewood. There is also on the eastern border a large waste with the singular name of Spade-Adam, which has evidently at one time been a forest; and a little south from it is a small district joining on to Northumberland, called the King's Forest of Geltsdale. these forests are now mere desolate scenes. The trees have disappeared, the game has gone, and their history is in a great measure lost. In the Forest of Skiddaw rises the mountain which bears that name, famous as a land-mark all over the north country. In Inglewood Forest the English kings used to find very good sport in hunting; and Nicol Forest, being close to the Cheviot Hills, was the scene of many a border fight.

In Northumberland the border adjoining the Cheviot Hills was covered with forest; and in the centre and south were Rothbury, Lowes, and Hexham Forests. Connected with these there are few historical incidents. The chief is the well-known adventure which Queen Margaret of Anjou had with a robber in the Forest of Hexham.

It may readily be supposed that, considering the extent of those woods on both sides of the border and their plentiful supply of game, the borderers became hunters, and that the two nations very often came into contact with each other, tending to incessant and interminable border feuds. The hunter was a warrior, and he never rode out "to hunt the deer" without a sufficient escort of armed men. The barons kept up a large retinue, fit on any occasion for offence or defence. In the forests themselves roved numbers of minor "Robin Hoods," who were the terror of the district, and levied "black-mail." This race was not extinct even so late as 1720; for black-mail was actually paid in that year. This disposition to hunting was often taken advantage of as an excuse for assembling a body of armed men; and making a sudden incursion into the neighbouring country. But their movements were closely watched; each party knew the other's tactics, and the usual result was a determined fight, in which neither