Page images
PDF
EPUB

of Trotcosey, comprehending Monkbarns and others, property of the very personage who had supplied into a Lordship of Regality in favour of the first them with a subject for conversation. And having Earl of Glengibber, a favourite of James the Sixth. so said, he led the way through many a dusky and It is subscribed by the King at Westminster, the winding passage, now ascending, and anon descendseventeenth day of January, A.D. one thousanding again, until he came to the apartment destined six hundred and twelve-thirteen. It's not worth for his young guest. while to repeat the witnesses' names."

"I would rather," said Lovel, with awakened curiosity, "I would rather hear your opinion of the way in which the deed was discovered."

Why, if I wanted a patron for my legend, I could find no less a one than Saint Augustine, who tells the story of a deceased person appearing to his son, when sued for a debt which had been paid, and directing him where to find the discharge.1 But I rather opine with Lord Bacon, who says that imagination is much akin to miracle-working faith. There was always some idle story of the room being haunted by the spirit of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, my great-great-great-grandfather-it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think and speak so frequently. He was a foreigner, and wore his national dress, of which tradition had preserved an accurate description; and indeed there is a print of him, supposed to be by Reginald Elstracke, pulling the press with his own hand, as it works off the sheets of his scarce edition of the Augsburg Confession. He was a chemist, as well as a good mechanic, and either of these qualities in this country was at that time sufficient to constitute a white witch at least. This superstitious old writer had heard all this, and probably believed it, and in his sleep the image and idea of my ancestor recalled that of his cabinet, which, with the grateful attention to antiquities and the memory of our ancestors not unusually met with, had been pushed into the pigeon-house to be out of the way-Add a quantum sufficit of exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery."

"O brother! brother! But Dr Heavysterne, brother-whose sleep was so sore broken, that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green Room to get all Monkbarns, so that Mary and I were forced to yield our”.

Why, Grizel, the doctor is a good, honest, pudding-headed German, of much merit in his own way, but fond of the mystical, like many of his countrymen. You and he had a traffic the whole evening, in which you received tales of Mesmer, Shropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden treasure, and so forth, in exchange for your legends of the green bedchamber;-and considering that the Illustrissimus ate a pound and a half of Scotch collops to supper, smoked six pipes, and drank ale and brandy in proportion, I am not surprised at his having a fit of the night-mare. But everything is now ready. Permit me to light you to your apartment, Mr Lovel—I am sure you have need of rest-and I trust my ancestor is too sensible of the duties of hospitality to interfere with the repose which you have so well merited by your manly and gallant behaviour."

So saying, the Antiquary took up a bedroom candlestick of massive silver and antique form, which, he observed, was wrought out of the silver found in the mines of the Harz mountains, and had been the

See Note A,- Mr Rd's Dream.

[blocks in formation]

WHEN they reached the Green Room, as it was called, Oldbuck placed the candle on the toilettable, before a huge mirror with a black japanned frame, surrounded by dressing-boxes of the same, and looked around him with something of a disturbed expression of countenance. "I am seldom in this apartment," he said, " and never without yielding to a melancholy feeling—not, of course, on account of the childish nonsense that Grizel was telling you, but owing to circumstances of an early and unhappy attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr Lovel, that we feel the changes of time. The same objects are before us— those inanimate things which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious and scheming manhood-they are permanent and the same; but when we look upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our pursuits, our feelings-changed in our form, our limbs, and our strength, can we be ourselves called the same? or do we not rather look back with a sort of wonder upon our former selves, as beings separate and distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed from Philip inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, did not choose a judge so different, as if he had appealed from Philip in his youth to Philip in his old age. I cannot but be touched with the feeling so beautifully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated:1

My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirr'd,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

Thus fares it still in our decay;
And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what time takes away,
Than what he leaves behind.

Well, time cures every wound, and though the scar may remain and occasionally ache, yet the earliest agony of its recent infliction is felt no more."So saying, he shook Lovel cordially by the hand, wished him good-night, and took his leave.

Step after step Lovel could trace his host's retreat along the various passages, and each door which he closed behind him fell with a sound more distant and dead. The guest, thus separated from the living world, took up the candle and surveyed the apartment. The fire blazed cheerfully. Mrs Grizel's attention had left some fresh wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a comfortable, though not a lively appearance. It

1 Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been published.

was hung with tapestry, which the looms of Arras had produced in the sixteenth century, and which the learned typographer, so often mentioned, had brought with him as a sample of the arts of the Continent. The subject was a hunting-piece; and as the leafy boughs of the forest-trees, branching over the tapestry, formed the predominant colour, the apartment had thence acquired its name of the Green Chamber. Grim figures, in the old Flemish dress, with slashed doublets covered with ribbands, short cloaks, and trunk-hose, were engaged in holding grey-hounds or stag-hounds in the leash, or cheering them upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords, and old-fashioned guns, were attacking stags or boars whom they had brought to bay. The branches of the woven forest were crowded with fowls of various kinds, each depicted with its proper plumage. It seemed as if the prolific and rich invention of old Chaucer had animated the Flemish artist with its profusion, and Oldbuck had accordingly caused the following verses, from that ancient and excellent poet, to be embroidered in Gothic letters, on a sort of border which he had added to the tapestry:-

Lo! here be oakis grete, streight as a lime,
Under the which the grass, so fresh of line,
Be'th newly sprung-at eight foot or nine.
Everich tree well from his fellow grew,
With branches broad laden with leaves new,
That sprongen out against the sonne sheene,
Some golden red, and some a glad bright green.
And in another canton was the following similar
legend:-

And many an hart, and many an hind,
Was both before me and behind.

Of fawns, sownders, bucks, and does
Was full the wood, and many roes.
And many squirrells that ysate
High on the trees, and nuts ate.

The bed was of a dark and faded green, wrought to correspond with the tapestry, but by a more modern and less skilful hand. The large and heavy stuff-bottomed chairs, with black ebony backs, were embroidered after the same pattern, and a lofty mirror, over the antique chimney-piece, corresponded in its mounting with that on the old-fashioned

toilet.

"I have heard," muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and its furniture," that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to which they attached themselves; and I cannot disapprove of the taste of the disembodied printer of the Augsburg Confession." But he found it so difficult to fix his mind upon the stories which had been told him of an apartment with which they seemed so singularly to correspond, that he almost regretted the absence of those agitated feelings, half fear half curiosity, which sympathize with the old legends of awe and wonder, from which the anxious reality of his own hopeless passion at present detached him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines,—

Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed
The temper of my mind!

My heart by thee from all estranged,
Becomes like thee unkind.

He endeavoured to conjure up something like the feelings which would, at another time, have been congenial to his situation, but his heart had no room for these vagaries of imagination. The recollection of Miss Wardour, determined not to acknowledge him when compelled to endure his society, and

evincing her purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more agitating if less painful,—her hair-breadth escape-the fortunate assistance which he had been able to render her-Yet what was his requital? She left the cliff while his fate was yet doubtful-while it was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had exposed for her so freely. Surely gratitude, at least, called for some little interest in his fate-But no-she could not be selfish or unjust-it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the door against hope, and, even in compassion to him, to extinguish a passion which she could never return.

But this lover-like mode of reasoning was not likely to reconcile him to his fate, since the more amiable his imagination presented Miss Wardour, the more inconsolable he felt he should be rendered by the extinction of his hopes. He was, indeed, conscious of possessing the power of removing her prejudices on some points; but, even in extremity, he determined to keep the original determination which he had formed, of ascertaining that she desired an explanation, ere he intruded one upon her. And, turn the matter as he would, he could not regard his suit as desperate. There was something of embarrassment as well as of grave surprise in her look when Oldbuck presented him—and, perhaps, upon second thoughts, the one was assumed to cover the other. He would not relinquish a pursuit which had already cost him such pains. Plans, suiting the romantic temper of the brain that entertained them, chased each other through his head, thick and irregular as the motes of the sun-beam, and, long after he had laid himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed. Then, wearied by the uncertainty and difficulties with which each scheme appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of shaking off his love," like dew-drops from the lion's mane," and resuming those studies and that career of life which his unrequited affection had so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride, as well as reason, could suggest. "She shall not suppose," he said, “ that, presuming on an accidental service to her or to her father, I am desirous to intrude myself upon that notice, to which, personally, she considered me as having no title. I will see her no more. I will return to the land which, if it affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less haughty than Miss Wardour. Tomorrow I will bid adieu to these northern shores, and to her who is as cold and relentless as her climate." When he had for some time brooded over this sturdy resolution, exhausted nature at length gave way, and, despite of wrath, doubt, and anxiety, he sunk into slumber.

66

It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agita tion, is either sound or refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused vi sions. He was a bird- he was a fish-or he flew like the one, and swam like the other,-qualities which would have been very essential to his safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of Paradise; her father a triton, or a sea-gull; and Oldbuck alternately a porpoise and a cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;

-the air refused to bear the visionary, the water seemed to burn him--the rocks felt like down-pillows as he was dashed against them-whatever he undertook, failed in some strange and unexpected manner--and whatever attracted his attention, underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself by awaking;-feverish symptoms all, with which those who are haunted by the night-hag whom the learned call Ephialtes, are but too well acquainted. At length these crude phantasmata arranged themselves into something more regular, if indeed the imagination of Lovel, after he awoke (for it was by no means the faculty in which his mind was least rich), did not gradually, insensibly, and unintentionally, arrange in better order the scene, of which his sleep presented, it may be, a less distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agitation may have assisted him in forming the vision.

stern composure, as might best pourtray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the preceding evening. As this metamorphosis took place, the hubbub among the other personages in the arras disappeared from the imagination of the dreamer, which was now exclusively bent on the single figure before him. Lovel strove to interrogate this awful person in the form of exorcism proper for the occasion; but his tongue, as is usual in frightful dreams, refused its office, and clung, palsied, to the roof of his mouth. Aldobrand held up his finger, as if to impose silence upon the guest who had intruded on his apartment, and began deliberately to unclasp the venerable volume which occupied his left hand. When it was unfolded, he turned over the leaves hastily for a short space, and then raising his figure to its full dimensions, and holding the book aloft in his left hand, pointed to a passage in the page which he thus displayed. Although the language was unknown to our dreamLeaving this discussion to the learned, we will er, his eye and attention were both strongly caught say, that after a succession of wild images, such by the line which the figure seemed thus to press as we have above described, our hero, for such we upon his notice, the words of which appeared to must acknowledge him, so far regained a conscious- blaze with a supernatural light, and remained riness of locality as to remember where he was, and veted upon his memory. As the vision shut his the whole furniture of the Green Chamber was de- volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill picted to his slumbering eye. And here, once more, the apartment-Lovel started, and became comlet me protest, that if there should be so much old-pletely awake. The music, however, was still in fashioned faith left among this shrewd and scepti- his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly follow cal generation, as to suppose that what follows was the measure of an old Scottish tune. an impression conveyed rather by the eye than by the imagination, I do not impugn their doctrine. He was, then, or imagined himself, broad awake in the Green Chamber, gazing upon the flickering and occasional flame which the unconsumed remnants of the fagots sent forth, as, one by one, they fell down upon the red embers, into which the principal part of the boughs to which they belonged had crumbled away. Insensibly the legend of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, and his mysterious visits to the inmates of the chamber, awoke in his mind, and with it, as we often feel in dreams, an anxious and fearful expectation, which seldom fails instantly to summon up before our mind's eye the object of our fear. Brighter sparkles of light flashed from the chimney, with such intense brilliancy as to enlighten all the room. The tapestry waved wildly on the wall, till its dusky forms seemed to become animated. The hunters blew their horns-the stag seemed to fly, the boar to resist, and the hounds to assail the one and pursue the other; the cry of deer, mangled by throttling dogs-the shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to surround him—while every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase, the employment in which the artist had represented them as engaged. Lovel looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with an anxious sensation of awful fear. At length an individual figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he gazed upon them more fixedly, seemed to leave the arras and to approach the bed of the slumberer. As he drew near, his figure appeared to alter. His bugle-horn became a brazen clasped volume; his hunting-cap changed to such a furred head-gear as graces the burgomasters of Rembrandt; his Flemish garb remained, but his features, no longer agitated with the fury of the chase, were changed to such a state of awful and

He sate up in bed, and endeavoured to clear his brain of the phantoms which had disturbed it during this weary night. The beams of the morning sun streamed through the half-closed shutters, and admitted a distinct light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings,--but the mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as tenter-hooks could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his bedside, stepped towards the window, which commanded a view of the sea, the roar of whose billows announced it still disquieted by the storm of the preceding evening, although the morning was fair and serene. The window of a turret, which projected at an angle with the wall, and thus came to be very near Lovel's apartment, was half open, and from that quarter he heard again the same music which had probably broken short his dream. With its visionary character it had lost much of its charms-it was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well performed-such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine arts. A female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:

"Why sit'st thou by that ruin'd hall,

Thou aged carle so stern and grey?
Dost thou its former pride recall,

Or ponder how it pass'd away?"—
Know'st thou not me!" the Deep Voice cried,
So long enjoy'd, so oft misus'd-
Alternate, in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused?
"Before my breath, like blazing flax,

Man and his marvels pass away;
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish, and decay.

"Redeem mine hours-the space is brief

While in my glass the sand-grains shiver,
And measureless thy joy or grief,

When TIME and thou shall part for ever!" While the verses were yet singing, Lovel had returned to his bed; the train of ideas which they awakened was romantic and pleasing, such as his soul delighted in, and, willingly adjourning, till more broad day, the doubtful task of determining on his future line of conduct, he abandoned himself to the pleasing languor inspired by the music, and fell into a sound and refreshing sleep, from which he was only awakened at a late hour by old Caxon, who came creeping into the room to render the offices of a valet-de-chambre.

"I have brushed your coat, sir," said the old man, when he perceived Lovel was awake; " the callant brought it frae Fairport this morning, for that ye had on yesterday is scantly feasibly dry, though it's been a' night at the kitchen fire; and I hae cleaned your shoon. I doubt ye'll no be wanting me to tie your hair, for" (with a gentle sigh) "a' the young gentlemen wear crops now; but I hae the curling-tangs here to gie it a bit turn ower the brow, if ye like, before ye gae down to the leddies." Lovel, who was by this time once more on his legs, declined the old man's professional offices, but accompanied the refusal with such a douceur as completely sweetened Caxon's mortification.

"It's a pity he disna get his hair tied and pouthered," said the ancient frizeur, when he had got once more into the kitchen, in which, on one pretence or other, he spent three parts of his idle time -that is to say, of his whole time-" it's a great pity, for he's a comely young gentleman."

"Hout awa, ye auld gowk," said Jenny Rintherout, ❝ would ye creesh his bonny brown hair wi' your nasty ulyie, and then moust it like the auld minister's wig? Ye'll be for your breakfast, I'se warrant?-hae, there's a soup parritch for ye-it will set ye better to be slaistering at them and the lapper-milk than middling wi' Mr Lovel's head-ye wad spoil the maist natural and beautifaest head o' hair in a' Fairport, baith burgh and county."

The poor barber sighed over the disrespect into which his art had so universally fallen, but Jenny was a person too important to offend by contradiction; so sitting quietly down in the kitchen, he digested at once his humiliation, and the contents of a bicker which held a Scotch pint of substantial oatmeal porridge.

CHAPTER XI.

Sometimes he thinks that Heaven this pageant sent, And order'd all the pageants as they went; Sometimes that only 'twas wild Fancy's play,— The loose and scatter'd relics of the day. WE must now request our readers to adjourn to the breakfast-parlour of Mr Oldbuck, who, despising the modern slops of tea and coffee, was substantially regaling himself, more majorum, with cold roast-beef, and a glass of a sort of beverage called mum-a species of fat ale, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs, of which the present generation only know the name by its occurrence in revenue acts of parliament, coupled with cider, perry, and other excisable commodities. Lovel, who was seduced to taste it, with difficulty refrained from pronouncing

it detestable, but did refrain, as he saw he should otherwise give great offence to his host, who had the liquor annually prepared with peculiar care, according to the approved recipe bequeathed to him by the so-often mentioned Aldobrand Oldenbuck. The hospitality of the ladies offered Lovel a breakfast more suited to modern taste, and while he was engaged in partaking of it, he was assailed by indirect inquiries concerning the manner in which he had passed the night.

"We canna compliment Mr Lovel on his looks this morning, brother-but he winna condescend on any ground of disturbance he has had in the night time. I am certain he looks very pale, and when he came here, he was as fresh as a rose.'

[ocr errors]

"Why, sister, consider this rose of yours has been knocked about by sea and wind all yesterday evening, as if he had been a bunch of kelp or tangle, and how the devil would you have him retain his colour?"

"I certainly do still feel somewhat fatigued," said Lovel," notwithstanding the excellent accommodations with which your hospitality so amply supplied me."

"Ah, sir!" said Miss Oldbuck, looking at him with a knowing smile, or what was meant to be one, "ye'll not allow of ony inconvenience, out of civility to us."

"Really, madam," replied Lovel, " I had no disturbance; for I cannot term such the music with which some kind fairy favoured me."

"I doubted Mary wad waken you wi' her skreighing; she didna ken I had left open a chink of your window, for, forbye the ghaist, the Green Room disna vent weel in a high wind-But I am judging ye heard mair than Mary's lilts yestreen. Weel, men are hardy creatures-they can gae through wi' a' thing. I am sure, had I been to undergo ony thing of that nature,-that's to say that's beyond nature-I would hae skreigh'd out at once, and raised the house, be the consequence what liketand, I dare say, the minister wad hae done as mickle, and sae I hae tauld him, I ken naebody but my brother, Monkbarns himsell, wad gae through the like o't, if, indeed, it binna you, Mr Lovel.”

"A man of Mr Oldbuck's learning, madam," answered the questioned party, "would not be exposed to the inconvenience sustained by the Highland gentleman you mentioned last night."

66

"Ay, ay-ye understand now where the difficulty lies. Language? he has ways o' his ain wad banish a' thae sort o' worricows as far as the hindermost parts of Gideon" (meaning possibly Midian), as Mr Blattergowl says-only ane wadna be uncivil to ane's forbear, though he be a ghaist. I am sure I will try that receipt of yours, brother, that ye showed me in a book, if onybody is to sleep in that room again, though I think, in Christian charity, ye should rather fit up the matted-room— it's a wee damp and dark, to be sure, but then we hae sae seldom occasion for a spare bed."

"No, no, sister;-dampness and darkness are worse than spectres-ours are spirits of light, and I would rather have you try the spell."

"I will do that blythely, Monkbarns, an I had the ingredients, as my cookery book ca's themThere was certain and dill-I mind that-Davie Dibble will ken about them, though, maybe, he'll gie them Latin names-and peppercorn, we hae walth o' them, for"

"Hypericon, thou foolish woman!" thundered Oldbuck; "d'ye suppose you're making a haggisor do you think that a spirit, though he be formed of air, can be expelled by a receipt against wind? -This wise Grizel of mine, Mr Lovel, recollects (with what accuracy you may judge) a charm which I once mentioned to her, and which, happening to hit her superstitious noddle, she remembers better than anything tending to a useful purpose I may chance to have said for this ten years. But many an old woman besides herself".

"Auld woman, Monkbarns!" said Miss Oldbuck, roused something above her usual submissive tone; "ye really are less than civil to me."

"Not less than just, Grizel: however, I include in the same class many a sounding name, from Jamblichus down to Aubrey, who have wasted their time in devising imaginary remedies for nonexisting diseases.-But I hope, my young friend, that, charmed or uncharmed-secured by the potency of Hypericon,

With vervain and with dill,

That hinder witches of their will,

or left disarmed and defenceless to the inroads of the invisible world, you will give another night to the terrors of the haunted apartment, and another day to your faithful and feal friends."

[ocr errors]

I heartily wish I could, but"

Nay, but me no buts-I have set my heart upon it."

"I am greatly obliged, my dear sir, but". "Look ye there, now-but again!-I hate but; I know no form of expression in which he can appear, that is amiable, excepting as a butt of sack. But is to me a more detestable combination of letters than no itself. No is a surly, honest fellowspeaks his mind rough and round at once. But is a sneaking, evasive, half-bred, exceptious sort of a conjunction, which comes to pull away the cup just when it is at your lips—

it does allay

The good precedent-fle upon but yet!
But yet is as a jailor to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor."

"Why, if-if-if you thought it would be expected-but I believe I had better stay."

66

Nay, nay, my good friend, I am not so oldfashioned as to press you to what is disagreeable, neither-it is sufficient that I see there is some remora, some cause of delay, some mid impediment, which I have no title to inquire into. Or you are still somewhat tired, perhaps;-I warrant I find means to entertain your intellects without fatiguing your limbs-I am no friend to violent exertion myself—a walk in the garden once a-day is exercise enough for any thinking being-none but a fool or a fox-hunter would require more. Well, what shall we set about?-my Essay on Castrametation-but I have that in petto for our afternoon cordial;-or I will show you the controversy upon Ossian's Poems between Mac-Cribb and me. I hold with the acute Orcadian-he with the defenders of the authenticity;-the controversy began in smooth, oily, lady-like terms, but is now waxing more sour and eager as we get on- -it already partakes somewhat of old Scaliger's style. I fear the rogue will get some scent of that story of Ochiltree's-but at worst, I have a hard repartee for him on the affair of the abstracted Antigonus- I will show you his last epistle, and the scroll of my answer-egad, it is a trimmer!"

So saying, the Antiquary opened a drawer, and began rummaging among a quantity of miscellaneous papers, ancient and modern. But it was the misfortune of this learned gentleman, as it may be that of many learned and unlearned, that he frequently experienced, on such occasions, what Harlequin calls l'embarras des richesses; in other words, the abundance of his collection often prevented him from finding the article he sought for. "Curse the papers!-I believe," said Oldbuck, as he shuffled them to and fro-"I believe they make themselves wings like grasshoppers, and fly away bodily-but here, in the meanwhile, look at that little treasure." So saying, he put into his hand a case made of oak, fenced at the corner with silver roses and studs"Pr'ythee, undo this button," said he, as he observed Lovel fumbling at the clasp. He did so, -the lid opened, and discovered a thin quarto, curiously bound in black shagreen-" There, Mr Lovel-there is the work I mentioned to you last night-the rare quarto of the Augsburg Confession, the foundation at once and the bulwark of the Reformation, drawn up by the learned and venerable Melancthon, defended by the Elector of Saxony, And you shall be rewarded, my boy. First, you and the other valiant hearts who stood up for their shall see John o' the Girnel's grave, and then we'll faith, even against the front of a powerful and vicwalk gently along the sands, the state of the tide torious emperor, and imprinted by the scarcely being first ascertained (for we will have no more less venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand OldenPeter Wilkins adventures, no more Glum and Gaw-buck, my happy progenitor, during the yet more tyrie work), as far as Knockwinnock Castle, and inquire after the old knight and my fair foe-which will but be barely civil, and then"

"Well, then," answered Lovel, whose motions were really undetermined at the moment," you shall not connect the recollection of my name with so churlish a particle. I must soon think of leaving Fairport, I am afraid—and I will, since you are good enough to wish it, take this opportunity of spending another day here."

"I beg pardon, my dear sir; but, perhaps, you had better adjourn your visit till to-morrow-I am a stranger, you know."

"And are, therefore, the more bound to show civility, I should suppose. But I beg your pardon for mentioning a word that perhaps belongs only to a collector of antiquities—I am one of the old school,

When courtiers gallop'd o'er four counties
The ball's fair partner to behold,
And humbly hope she caught no cold."

rannical attempts of Philip II. to suppress at once civil and religious liberty. Yes, sir- for printing this work, that eminent man was expelled from his ungrateful country, and driven to establish his household gods even here at Monkbarns, among the ruins of papal superstition and domination.— Look upon his venerable effigies, Mr Lovel, and respect the honourable occupation in which it presents him, as labouring personally at the press for the diffusion of Christian and political knowledge. -And see here his favourite motto, expressive of his independence and self-reliance, which scorned to owe anything to patronage that was not earned by desert-expressive also of that firmness of mind

« PreviousContinue »