cock, as he confidently flaps his wings on his own dunghill, gives the warning note for the hour of dinner.

As you advance, you will also perceive several faces thrust out of the doors, and rather than miss a sight of you, a grotesque visage peeping by a short-cut through the paneless windows, or a tattered female flying to snatch up her urchin that has been tumbling itself heels up in the dust of the road, lest the gintleman's horse might ride over it: and if you happen to look behind, you may observe a shaggyheaded youth in tattered frieze, with one hand thrust indolently in his breast, standing at the door in conversation with the inmates, a broad grin of sarcastic ridicule on his face, in the act of breaking a joke or two upon yourself or your horse; or perhaps your jaw may be saluted with a lump of clay, just hard enough not to fall a-under as it flies, cast by some ragged gorsoon from behind a hedge, who squats himself in a ridge of corn to avoid detection.

Seated upon a hob at the door, you may observe a toilworn man without coat or waistcoat, his red muscular sunburnt shoulder peering through the remnant of a shirt, mending his shoes with a piece of twisted flax, called a lingel, or perhaps sewing two footless stockings, or martyeens, to his coat, as a substitute for sleeves.

In the gardens, which are usually fringed with nettles, you will see a solitary labourer. working with that carelessness and apathy that characterise an Irishman when he labours for himself, leaning upon his spade to look after you, and glad of any excuse to be idle.

The houses, however, are not all such as I have described-far from it. You see here and there, between the more humble cabins, a stout comfortable-looking farmhouse with ornamental thatching and well-glazed windows; adjoining to which is a hay-yard with five or six large stacks of corn, well trimmed and roped, and a fine yellow weather-beaten old hay-rick, half-cut-not taking into account twelve or thirteen circular strata of stones that mark out the foundations on which others had been raised. Neither is the rich smell of oaten or wheaten bread, which the goodwife is baking on the griddle, unpleasant to your nostrils; nor would the bubbling of a large pot, in which you might see, should you chance to enter, a prodigious square of fat, yellow, and almost transparent bacon tumbling about, be an unplea sant object: truly, as it hangs over a large fire, with well-swept hearthstone, it is in good keeping with the white settle and chairs, and the dresser with noggins, wooden trenchers, and pewter dishes, perfectly clean, and as well polished as a French courtier.

As you leave the village. you have, to the left, a view of the hill which I have already described, and, to the right, a level expanse of fertile country, bounded by a good view of respectable mountains peering decently into the sky; and in a line that forms an acute angle from the point of the road where you ride, is a delightful valley, in the bottom of which shines a pretty lake; and a little beyond, on the slope of a green hill, rises a splendid house, surrounded by a park, well wooded and stocked with deer. You have now topped the little hill above the village, and a straight line of level road, a mile long, go 's forward to a country town which lies immediately behind that white church with its spire cutting into the sky before you. You descend on the other side, and having advanced a few perches, look to the left, where you see a long thatched chapel, only distinguished from a dwelling house by its want of chimneys, and a small stone cross that stands on the top of the eastern gable; behind it is a grave-yard, and beside it a snug public-house, well whitewashed; then, to the right, you observe a door apparently in the side of a clay bank, which rises considerably above the pavement of the road. What you ask yourself, can this be a hnman habitation? But ere you have time to answer the question, a confused buzz of voices from within reaches your ear, and the appearance of a little gorsoon, with a red close-cropped head and Milesian face, having in his hand a short white stick, or the thigh-bone of a horse, which you at once recognise as 'the pass' of a village school, gives you the full information. He has an inkhorn, covered with leather, dangling at the button-hole (for he has long since played away the buttons) of his frieze jacket-his mouth is circumscribed with a streak of ink-his pen is stuck knowingly behind his ear-his shins are dotted over with fire-blisters, black, red, and bine -on each heel a kibe-his leather crackers '-videlicit, breeches-shrunk up upon him, and only reaching as far down as the caps of his knees. Having spied you, he places his hand over his brows, to throw back the dazzling light of the sun, and

■from under it, till he breaks out into a laugh, exclaiming, half to him

you:

Fintleman !-no, nor one of your breed never was, you procthorin' thief

now immediately opposite the door of the seminary, when half-a-dozen ted next it notice you.

here's a gintleman on a horse!--masther, sir, here 's a gintleman on a boots and spurs on him, that's looking in at us.'

exclaims the master; back from the door-boys, rehearse-every one arse, I say, you Boeotians, till the gintleman goes past!'

to go out, if you plase, sir.'

a don't, Phelim.'

Heed, sir.'

is it afther conthradictin' me you'd be ? Don't you see the " porter's " u can't go.'

,

is Mat Meehan has it, sir; and he 's out this half-hour, sir; I can't stay

ant to be idling your time looking at the gintleman, Phelim.'

eed. sir.'

I know you of ould-go to your sate. I tell you, Phelim, you were born ouragement of the hemp manufacture, and you'll die promoting it.' meantime the master puts his head out of the door, his body stooped to a '--a phrase, and the exact curve which it forms, I leave for the present to agacity-and surveys you until you pass. That is an Irish hedge school, sonage who follows you with his eye a hedge schoolmaster.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

Russell Mitford, the painter of English rural life in its hapmost genial aspects, was born in 1786 at Alresford, in HampReminiscences of her early boarding-school days are scattered her works, and she appears to have been always an enthusiler. Her father, Dr. Mitford, was at one time possessed of erable fortune-on one occasion he won a lottery-prize of -but he squandered it in folly and extravagance, and was upported by the pen of his daughter. When very young, ished a volume of miscellaneous poems, and a metrical tale yle of Scott, entitled Christine, the Maid of the South Seas,' on the discovery of the mutineers of the Bounty. In 1823 luced her effective and striking tragedy of Julian,' dedicated Iacready, the actor, 'for the zeal with which he befriended uction of a stranger, for the judicious alterations which he d, and for the energy, the pathos, and the skill with which than embodied its principal character.' Next year Miss Mitolished the first volume of Our Village. Sketches of Rural er and Scenery,' to which four other volumes were subseadded, the fifth and last in 1832. 'Every one,' says a lively now knows" Our Village," and every one knows that the d corners, the haunts and the copses so delightfully described ges, will be found in the immediate neighborhood of Readmore especially around Three-Mile Cross, a cluster of cot

Chorley-The Authors of England. HENRY FOTHERGILL CHORLEY, a niscellaneous writer and musical critic, died February 15, 1872.

tages on the Basingstoke Road, in one of which our authoress resided for many years. But so little were the peculiar and original excel. lence of her descriptions understood, in the first instance, that, after having gone the round of rejection through the more important periodicals, they at last saw the light in no worthier publication than the 'Lady's Magazine.' But the series of rural pictures grew, and the venture of collecting them into a separate volume was tried. The public began to relish the style, so fresh, yet so finished--to enjoy the delicate humour and the simple pathos of the tales; and the result was, that the popularity of these sketches outgrew that of the works of a loftier order proceeding from the same pen; that young writers, English and American, began to imitate so artless and charming a manner of narration; and that an obscure Berkshire hamlet, by the magic of talent and kindly feeling, was converted into a place of resort and interest for not a few of the finest spirits of the age.

Extending her observation from the country village to the market town, Miss Mitford published another interesting volume of descriptions, entitled 'Belford Regis' (1835). She also gleaned from the New World three volumes of Stories of American Life, by American Writers,' of which she remarks: The scenes described and the personages introduced are as various as the authors, extending in geographical space from Canada to Mexico, and including almost every degree of civilisation, from the wild Indian, and the almost equally wild hunter of the forest and prairies, to the cultivated inhabitant of the city and plain.' Besides her tragedies-which are little inferior to those of Miss Baillie as intellectual productions, while one of them, Rienzi,' has been highly successful on the stage-Miss Mitford contributed numerous tales to the annuals and magazines, shewing that her industry was equal to her talents. It is to her English tales, however, that she must chiefly trust her fame with posterity; and there is so much truth and observation, as well as beauty, in these rural delineations, that we cannot conceive their ever being considered obsolete or uninteresting. In them she has treasured not only the results of long and familiar observation, but the feelings and conceptions of a truly poetical mind. She is a prose Cowper, without his gloom or bitterness. In 1838, Miss Mitford's name was added to the pension-list-a well-earned tribute to one whose genius had been devoted to the honour and embellishment of her country. Though suffering almost constantly for many years from debility or acute pain, she continued her literary pursuits. In 1852, she published Recollections of a Literary Life,' three volumes--a work consisting chiefly of extracts-and in 1854, Ather ston, and other Tales,' three volumes. The same year she published a collected edition of her Dramatic Works.' She died at her resi dence near Reading in January 1855, aged sixty-nine.

Tom Cordery, the Poacher.

nan oak grew on the wild North-of-Hampshire country; a country of hill, and forest, partly reclaimed, inclosed, and planted by some of the prietors, but for the most part uncultivated and uncivilised, a proper red animals of every species. Of these the most notable was iny friend ry, who presented in his own person no unfit emblem of the district in ved--the gentlest of savages, the wildest of civilised men. He was by catcher, hare-finder, and broom-maker; a triad of trades which he had for the one graud profession of poaching, which he followed in his ys with unrivalled talent and success, and would, undoubtedly, have purdeath, had not the bursting of an overloaded gun unluckily shot off his As it was, he still contrived to mingle a little of his old unlawful occupais honest callings; was a reference of high authority amongst the young in adviser of undoubted honour and secrecy-suspected, and more than as being one who, though he played no more, o'erlooked the cards.' Yet windward of the law, and indeed contrived to be on such terms of social iendly intercourse with the guardians of the game on M- Common, as 1 to prevail between reputed thieves and the myrmidons of justice in the ood of Bow Street.

id any human being look more like that sort of sportsman commonly acher. He was a fall, finely-built man, with a prodigious stride, that e ground like a horse, and a power of continuing his slow and steady seemed nothing less than miraculous. Neither man, nor horse, nor dog, ire him. He had a bold, undaunted presence, and an evident strength of bone and muscle. You might se, by looking at him, that he did not fear meant. In his youth he had fought more battles than any man st. He was as if born without nerves, totally insensible to the recoils and humanity. I have known him take up a huge adder, cut off its head, and sit the living and writhing body in his brimless hat. and walk with it wreathing about his head, like another Medusa, til he sport of the day and he carried it home to secure the fat. With all this iron stubbornness he was of a most mild and gentle demeanour, had a fine placidity of counad a quick blue eye beaming with good-humour. His face was sunburnt eneral pale vermilion hue that overspread all his features; his very hair

rnt too.

ody liked Tom Cordery. He had himself an aptness to like, which is cerrepaid in kind; the very dogs knew him, and loved him, and would beat nost as soon as for their master. Even May, the most sagacious of greypreciated his talents, and would as soon listen to Tom sohoing as to old tongue.

No

those sallows, in a nook between them and the hill, rose the uncouth and cottage of Tom Cordery. It is a scene which hangs upon the eye and the triking, grand-almost sublime, and, above all, eminently foreign. inter would choose such a subject for an English landscape; no one, in a ould take it for Englis. It might pass for one of those scenes which have models to Salvator Rosa. Tom's cottage was however, very thoroughly od characteristic; a low, ruinous hovel, the door of which was fastened with attention to security, that contrasted strangely with the tattered thatch of nd the half-broken windows. No garden, no pigsty, no pens for geese, e usual signs of cottage habitation; yet the house was covered with nondelings, and the very walls were animate with their extraordinary tenants--partridges, rabbits, tame wild-ducks, haif-tame hares, and their enemies and education, the ferrets, terriers, and mongrels, of whom his retinue Great ingenuity had been evinced in keeping separate these jarring and by dint of hutches. cages, fences, kennels, and half-a-dozen little closures, resembling the sort of courts which children are apt to build round houses, peace was in general tolerably well preserved. Frequent sounds, of fear or of anger, as their several inst ncts were aroused, gave token that a forced and hollow truce; and at such times the clamour was prodigious. the remarkable tenderness for animals when domesticated, which is

so often found in those whose sole vocation seems to be their destruction in the field; and the one long, straggling, unceiled, barn-like room, which served for kitchen, bed-chamber, and hall, was cumbered with bipeds and quadrupeds of all kinds and descriptions-the sick, the delicate, the newly caught, the lying-in. In the midst of this menagerie sat Tom's wife--for he was married, though without a family-married to a woman lame of a leg, as he himself was minus an arm-now trying to quiet her noisy inmates, now to outscold them. How long his friend, the keeper, would have continued to wink at this den of live game, none can say; the roof fairly fell in during the deep snow of last winter, kiling. as poor Tom observed, two as fine litters of rabbits as ever were kittened. Remotely, I have no doubt that he himself fell a sacrifice to this misadventure. The overseer, to whom he applied to reinstate his beloved habitation, decided that the walls would never hear another roof, and removed him and his wife, as an especial favour, to a tidy, snug, comfortable room in the workhouse. The workhouse! From that hour poor Tom visibly altered. He lost his hilarity and independence. It was a change such as he had bimself often inflicted-a complete change of habits, a transition from the wild to the tame. No labour was demanded of him; he went about as before, finding hares, killing rats, selling brooms; but the spirit of the man was departed. He talked of the quiet of his old abode, and the noise of his new; complained of children and other bad company; and looked down on his neighbours with the sort of contempt with which a cock-pheasant might regard a barn-door fowl. Most of all did he, braced into a gipsy-like defiance of wet and cold, grumble at the warmth and dryness of his apartment. He used to foretell that it would kill him, and assuredly it did so. Never could the typhus fever have found out that wild hillside, or have lurked under that broken roof. The free touch of the air would have chased the demon. Alas, poor Tom! warmth, and snugness, and comfort, whole windows, and an entire ceiling, were the death of him. Alas, poor Tom!

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK.

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK (1788-1866) was born at Weymouth, the son of a London merchant. He was an accomplished classical scholar, though self-taught from the age of thirteen. He was long connected with the East India Company, and in 1816 came to be Chief Examiner of Indian correspondence, as successor to James Mill, the historian. On Peacock's retirement in 1856, John Stuart Mill took his place. Peacock was the author of some lively, natural, and descriptive novels, with little plot or story, but containing witty and sarcastic dialogues, with copies of verses above mediocrity, and sketches of eccentric character. Headlong Hall' was produced in 1816; Nightmare Abbey'in 1818; Maid Marian' in 1822; Misfortunes of Elphin' in 1829; Crochet Castle' in 1831; and 'Gryll Grange' in 1860-the last, though written when its author was seventy-two, is as full of humour and clever dialogue as his earlier tales. Besides these works of fiction, Peacock wrote several poetical satires and other poems, and contributed to Fraser's Magazine' Memoirs of Shelley, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy. Conjointly with Byron, he was named as Shelley's executor, with a legacy of £1000. To Peacock we owe a clear and authentic account of the most interesting passages of Shelley's life and domestic history. In 1875 the collected works of Peacock were published in three volumes, with a Preface by Lord Houghton, and a biographical notice by Peacock's granddaughter, Edith Nicolls.