there, thought I, sits a reverend-looking old gentleman, cutting open the wet leaves of The British Churchman, and an old lady doing the decencies of dry toast and coffee. It must be the parsonage, and the old gentleman the modern vicar of Bray.

Ah," thought I, "they might have been jolly priests under the old religion-fat, lazy, and pious enough; and celibacy might have been a very holy condition of life: but how the incumbents of the ancient time, lying buried about here with their beads, and the sacred wafer on their tongues, must envy our modern vicar, and such a domestic picture as this!"

My speculation ended, I strolled down again towards the river. A man was leisurely punting himself up against the stream. I hailed him, and found he was going cray-fishing; so as I had nothing better to do for an hour, until the next uptrain passed, I jumped in. The Thames just above Bray is very shallow, but as clear as glass; and the long grasses, the beard of the venerable father of the stream, wave with a beautiful undulating motion. Every here and there we could see great jack lying as still as stones. By-and-by we came to a part of the river where the bank, overhung by bushes, appeared completely honeycombed with rat-holes. Here the fisherman rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt, and leaning over the boat's side thrust his hand into one of the holes below the water level, and pulled out one of the most diabolical-looking devils, in the shape of the genus Crustacea, that a timid man would wish to look at. I involuntarily pulled away my foot from him as he lay sprawling and snapping at everything that fell in the way of his uglylooking nippers, with a temper evidently not improved by his late change of residence.

"There's one lies under yonder stone," said the man, pointing with his dripping hand. "Catch'n behind the ears and he can't bite 'e."

With a "who's afraid?" sort of air, but with some such sensation as Schiller's diver must have experienced when he sprang into the whirlpool the second time, I advanced my hand cauti

ously into the water, but the cunning devil managed, before I could pounce upon him, to change his position; so instead of catching him "behind the ears," I grasped him right by one of his belligerent-looking claws. "Twas a tartar, without doubt, that I seized, for I pulled back my hand with a terrible yell, and a jerk which pretty nearly upset the boat.

In a short time my more dexterous fisherman had covered the bottom of the boat with these infantine lobsters, and then we punted over to Monkey Island, of picnic notoriety, to get something to quench our thirst. We landed at a flight of halfruined steps, which, still in their decay, reminded one of many a scene of the past-of many a clocked silk stocking exposed as the stiff brocade was for a moment lifted by some fairhanded "quality" debarking from her gilded barge (with black page and poodle in attendance), beneath the gigantic poplar-trees which still throw their long shadows over the water. Upon this island one of the dukes of Marlboroughthe third, I think—had a summer-house and a pleasure-ground. The summer-house is now occupied by a fisherman, one of the rooms (an octagon), very prettily proportioned, and fitted up in the substantial manner of the time, is painted all over with monkeys, some fishing, some shooting, some walking about with swords and cocked hats, like fine gentlemen. What a queer taste they had for these brutes in the last century! And from this room the place has since been called Monkey Island. And here, where once the Lady Bettys and the Lady Sallys, in their powder and patches, sipped marischino and ate peaches, with the sun's warm kiss upon them, my fisherman and I quaffed the sprightly ginger-beer, for mine host's cellar could afford no more generous liquor. Yet, thought I, what would the old possessor, carefully lapped in lead in the family vault at Blenheim, give to hear the cork pop of even such an ignoble beverage?

The garden had gone to decay long ago; the fish-pond was a dismal swamp; whilst what was once a fine lawn was now

1

overgrown with couch-grass. The little children of the house, who followed us about with their fingers in their mouths and great staring eyes, pointed out to us the pavilion, a little building of wood, a kind of miniature of the larger building. The boatman, who had been following lazily with a flower in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, suddenly seemed to rouse himself into action at the sight of a straw hanging out of a hole in the building. Putting his foot upon a little projection he lifted himself up to it, and put in his hand.

I could see the eyes of one of the little girls following his motions with intense interest, and when she saw what he was about, she clasped her hands in an agony of tears,

"Oh, 'tis my nest! 'tis my nest! Don't take my little birds!" she said, all the time pulling at the man's coat, and appealing to me with her beseeching blue eyes.

"Hold your tongue, little silly!" said the man, jumping to the ground with a nest full of speckled eggs. "What's the good of breeding such varmint to eat the cherries?" And before I could interfere, with one dash he smashed them all upon the ground.

All the children at this set up a dreadful cry, and one little boy, as bold as a lion, came up to the man, and with his heavy boot gave him a good kick for touching "Mary's nest; and I applauded the little hero, for the act was a cruel one. "Ah, my fine fellow," I said to myself, "you are the worse for this brutality by a bright sixpence which I have in my pocket." The bevy of weeping children followed us up to the landing-place, with dismal lamentations.

"Hold your noise! said the man to the little girl; "there was no bird there-'twas an old nest.'

"You story! you story!" she cried, stamping her little feet with passion. "There is the bird crying up in the poplar

now."

And it was true enough; the poor mother, with her breast

yet bearing the impress of the eggs she had been sitting upon, sat twittering most woefully in the tree. We pushed off the boat to cross to the other side, the children still crying upon the brink of the water; and the mournful note of the poor bereaved little bird was heard above them all, even to the other side of the water. A footpath through two or three corn-fields leads to the station. I was but barely in time for the up-train from Exeter. We had to make up for stoppages, so the speed was such as the Great Western only can go. In less than half-an-hour the beautiful spire of the new church at Paddington came to view-the station was gained—and then, like a rocket which has reached its greatest altitude, and bursts into a thousand stars of fire, the doors were thrown open, and the multitude of travellers (I among the number) was in a moment dispersed in every direction.

AUTUMN ON THE HILL SIDE.

UPON the upland, slanting to the plain
(Gently as slants a bird with outstretched wings),
Dreaming, with half-closed lids, I listless lie.
The thistle-downs float slowly past; each seed,
Pendulous swaying from its parachute,

Skims lightly o'er the hindering blades of grass:
The purple heath-bells, swayed by gentle gusts,
Knock timidly against my brow and cheek:
Whilst ever, in the amber fields below,
The flashing sickle, by brown Labour urged,
Gleams crescentwise through falling threads of corn.
Far off, along the tranquil landscape, creeps
The smoke's thin azure from the stubble fires.

All's gentle motion and continual calm.

Oh, that the scene's content we could drink in!

With thirsty eyes and realizing brow
I gaze, and it is gone; just like some star,
That, in perusing, fades-to dreamy eyes.
The vividness returns. Westward I look.
The setting sun upon the hill's brim rests,
Shooting a golden weft along the ground.
In life-lines o'er the bosom of the steep
The sheep-tracks run, and ever from the sheep
Long shadows stream. Over the broken wall,
With bended knees, a ram leaps suddenly
And stares, tinkling at intervals the bell
Half muffled 'neath his woolly throat, full browed
Between his rib-carved horns, firmly he stands;
And round him gather up the scattered flock,
Till like a cloud the whole drive swiftly past,
Seized with a panic fear. Upon the hills
And o'er the plain, still crowned, Summer sits;
But in the vale sad Autumn slowly steals.
How melancholy, in my homeward walk,
Between the avenue of limes, to see
The leaves fall undulating one by one,
And then upon the ground in eddies whirl!
There are no bees about, no busy drones
Curious within the painted chalices.

The sun-dial in the garden day by day
More idle seems. The pathway weedy grows;
And we do watch no more a favourite flower,
Counting the buds.

A WATER SKETCH.

Thorold. Here, love, towards this islet let us steer, Flush in this bay, thick paved with lily leaves,