trous worship, they beset them with trees; and thence arose the consecration of groves and woods, from whence also their idols were often named. At length certain choice and select trees began to be consecrated. The French magi, termed Dryadæ, worshipped the oak; the Etrurians worshipped an elm-tree; and amongst the Celta, a tall oak was the very idol of Jupiter.

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and became so common, that they had peculiar priests, whom they termed the prophets of the grove and idols of the grove.

Christians, in the consecration of their churches, make special choice of peculiar saints, by whose name they are called. The heathens consecrated their groves to peculiar idols; whence in profane authors we read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Arduenna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their names from the groves in which they were worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes called a grove-" Josiah brought out the grove from the house of the Lord." It is probable, that in this idol was portraited the form and similitude of a grove, and that from thence it was called a grove, as those similitudes of Diana's temple, made by Demetrius, were termed temples of Diana.

These customs appear exemplified by inscriptions on coins, medals, in churchyards, and the various buildings commemorated by marble, flowers, and durable and perishing substances. J. R. P.

***The groves round London within a few years have been nearly destroyed by the speculating builders.

J. R. P.'s note may be an excuse for observing, that the "grove" best known, perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is that at Camberwell-a spacious roadway and fine walks, above half a mile in length, between rows of stately trees, from the beginning of the village and ascending the hill to its summit, from whence there is, or rather was, the finest burst of scenery the eye can look upon within the same distance from London. The view is partially obstructed by new buildings, and the character of the "grove" itself has been gradually injured by the breaking up of the adjacent grounds and meadows into brickfields, and the flanking of its sides with town-like houses. This grove has been the theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first gave celebrity to it by his writings, and pleasant residence on its eastern extremity;

and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice in an elegant poem, with delightful engravings on wood. After the death of the benevolent physician, and before the decease of the illustrator of "Indian Antiquities," much of the earth, consecrated by their love and praise, “passed through the fire" in sacrifice to the Moloch of improvement. In a year or two "Grove Hill" may be properly named "Grove Street."

Hampstead, however, is the "place of groves;"-how long it may remain so is a secret in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove, townward, is the noble private avenue from the Hampstead-road to Belsize-house, in the valley between Primrose hill and the hill whereon the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson's remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the pleasant highway to the little village of West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hampstead church, and between that edifice and the heath, there are several old groves. Winding southwardly from the heath, there is a charming little grove in Well Walk, with a bench at the end; whereon I last saw poor Keats, the poet of the "Pot of Basil," sitting and sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief,— gleaning parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted in-musing, as in his Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, .
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm south,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

-From Beckenham church we walked about two miles along a nearly straight road, fenced off from the adjoining lands, till we reached West Wickham. It was from a painted window in this church that I made the tracing of St. Catherine engraved in the Every-Day Book, where some mention is made of the retired situation of this village.

"Wickham Court," the ancient manorhouse adjacent to the church, was formerly the residence of Gilbert West, the translator of Pindar, and author of the "Observations on the Resurrection of Christ," for which the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. was very often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used, at Wickham, to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary conversation."* It was in West's

Dr. Johnson.

"He

society, at Wickham, that lord Lyttelton was convinced of the truth of Christianity. Under that conviction he wrote his celebrated"Dissertation on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul," which, until the appearance of Paley's "Hora Paulina," was an unrivalled treatise. Mr. Pitt, (the great earl of Chatham,) during his intimacy with West, formed a walk at Wickham Court. In a summer-house of the grounds, Mr. West inscribed the following lines, in imitation of Ausonius, a Latin poet of the fourth century, " Ad Villam :"

Not wrapt in smoky London's sulphurous clouds, And not far distant stands my rural cot; Neither obnoxious to intruding crowds,

Nor for the good and friendly too remote.

And when too much repose brings on the spleen,
Or the gay city's idle pleasures cloy;
Swift as my changing wish I change the scene,"
And now the country, now the town enjoy.

Nor that your iron-tooth'd harrows print my face
So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides
For marle and soil, and make me bleed my springs
Thro' all my open'd veins to weaken me-
Do I conceal your Daughter. I have spread
My arms from sea to sea, look'd o'er my mountains,
Examin'd all my pastures, groves, and plains,
Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields,
My dens and caves-and yet, from foot to head,
I have no place on which the Moon doth tread.

Cer. Then, Earth, thou'st lost her; and, for Proser pine,

I'll strike thee with a lasting barrenness.

No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows;
I'll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike:
With idle agues I'll consume thy swains;
Sow tares and cockles in thy lands of wheat,
Whose spikes the weed and cooch-grass shall outgrow,
And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers
Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch,
Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be
A prey to ravenous birds.-Oh Proserpine !→
You Gods that dwell above, and you below,
Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks,
Fountains and wells, some one among you all
Shew me her self or grave: to you I call,

Sib. Mother, of all that ever mothers were Most wretched! Kiss thy sweet babe ere he die, That hath life only lent to suffer death. Sweet Lad, I would thy father saw thee smile. Thy beauty, and thy pretty infancy, Would mollify his heart, were't hew'd from flint, Or carved with iron tools from Corsic rock. Thou laugh'st to think thou must be kill'd in jest. Oh! if thou needs must die, I'll be thy murtheress, And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.-And can'st thou laugh to see thy mother weep? Qr art thou in thy chearful smiles so free,

Proserpine; who was also Luna in Heaven, Diana on Earth.

In scorn of thy rude father's tyranny?
I'll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life,
The Lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife.
Vest. Then give him me; I am his Grandmother,
And I will kill him gently: this sad office
Belongs to me, as to the next of kin.

Sib. For heaven's sake, when you kill him, hurt him not.

Vest. Come, little knave, prepare your naked throat; I have not heart to give thee many wounds, My kindness is to take thy life at once. Now

Alack, my pretty Grandchild, smilest thou still?

I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill.
Nurse. You may be careless of the King's command.
But it concerns me; and I love my life
More than I do a Stripling's. Give him me,
I'll make him sure; a sharp weapon lend,
I'll quickly bring the Youngster to his end.—
Alack, my pretty knave, 'twere more than sin
With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin.
O Madam, he's so full of angel grace,

I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face.

Sib. I'll wink, and strike; come, once more reach

him hither;

For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed:

'Las, for a world I would not see him bleed. Vest. Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy; The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless.

C. L.

THE FIRST BUTTERFLY.. One of the superstitions prevailing in Devonshire is, that any individual neglecting to kill the first butterfly he may see for the season will have ill-luck throughout the year. The following recent example is given by a young lady :-"The other Sunday, as we were walking to church, we met a man running at full speed, with his hat, in one hand, and a stick in the other. As he passed us, he exclaimed, I sha'n't hat'en now, I b'lieve.' He did not give us time to inquire what he was so eagerly pursuing; but we presently overtook an old man, whom we knew to be his father, and who being very infirm, at upwards of seventy, generally hobbled about by the aid of two sticks. Addressing me, he observed, 'My zin a took away wan a' my sticks, miss, wan't be ebble to kill'n now, though, I b'lieve.' 'Kill what?' said I. Why, 'tis a butterfly, miss, the furst hee'th a zeed for the year; and they zay that a body will have cruel bad luck if a ditn'en kill a furst

a zeeth.'

6

• Dorset Chronicle, May, 1825.

MARCH OF INTELLECT.

Every intelligent mind of right reflection accords its wishes for general enlightenment. It appears, from a fashionable miscellany, that a late distinguished writer expressed himself to that effect; the following are extracts from the article referred to. They contain, in the sequel, a forcible opinion on the tendency of the present general diffusion of literature.

CONVERSATIONS OF MATURIN.

Maturin's opinions of poetry, as of every thing else, were to be inferred rather than gathered. It was very difficult to draw him into literary conversation: like Congreve, he wished to be an author only in his study. Yet he courted the society of men of letters when it was to be had; but would at any time have sacrificed it to dally an hour in the drawing-room, or at the quadrille. Sometimes, however, amongst friends (particularly if he was in a splenetic mood) he freely entered into a discussion upon the living authors of England, and delivered his opinions rapidly, brilliantly, and with effect. On one occasión a conversation of this description took place, in which I had the pleasure of participating. I will recall the substance of it as well as I can. Do not expect from Maturin the turgidity of Boswell's great man, or the amiable philosophy of Franklin: you will be disappointed if you anticipate any thing profound or speculative from him; for at the best of times he was exceedingly fond of mixing up the frivolity of a fashionable conversazione with the most solid subjects.

I met him in the county of Wicklow on a pedestrian excursion in the autumn; a relaxation he constantly indulged in, particularly at that season of the year. It was in that part of the vale of Avoca, where Moore is said to have composed his celebrated song: a green knoll forms a gradual declivity to the river, which flows through the vale, and in the centre of the knoll there is the trunk of an old oak, cut down to a seat. Upon that venerable trunk, say the peasants, Moore sat when he composed a song that, like the Rans de Vache of the Swiss, will be sung amidst those mountains and valleys as long as they are inhabited. Opposite to that spot I met Maturin, accompanied by a young gentleman carrying a fishing-rod. We were at the distance of thirty miles from Dublin; in the heart of the most beautiful valley in the island; surrounded by associations of history and

poetry, with spirits subdued into tranquillity by the Italian skies above, and the peaceful gurgling of the waters below us. Never shall I forget Maturin's strange appearance amongst those romantic dells. He was dressed in a crazy and affectedly shabby suit of black, that had waxed into a "brilliant polish" by over zeal in the service of its master; he wore no cravat, for the heat obliged him to throw it off, and his delicate neck rising gracefully from his thrice-crested collar, gave him an appearance of great singularity. His raven hair, which he generally wore long, fell down luxuriantly without a breath to agitate it; and his head was crowned with a hat which I could sketch with a pencil, but not with a pen. His gait and manner were in perfect keeping; but his peculiarities excited no surprise in me, for I was accustomed to them. In a short time we were seated on the banks of the Avoca, the stream cooling our feet with its refreshing spray, and the green foliage protecting us from the sun.

"Moore is said to have written his song in this place."

"I don't believe a word of it," replied Maturin. "No man ever wrote poetry under a burning sun, or in the moonlight. I have often attempted a retired walk in the country at moonlight, when I had a madrigal in my head, and every gust of wind rang in my ears like the footsteps of a robber. One robber would put to flight a hundred tropes. You feel uneasy in à perfectly secluded place, and cannot collect your mind."

"But Moore, who is a poet by inspiration, could write in any circumstances?"

"There is no man of the age labours harder than Moore. He is often a month working out the fag-end of an epigram. 'Pon my honour, I would not be such a victim to literature for the reputation of Pope, the greatest man of them all.”

"Don't you think that every man has his own peculiarity in writing, and can only write under particular excitements, and in a particular way?"

"Certainly. Pope, who ridiculed such a caprice, practised it himself; for he never wrote well but at midnight. Gibbon dictated to his amanuensis, while he walked up and down the room in a terrible passion; Stephens wrote on horseback in a full gallop; Montaigne and Chateaubriand in the fields; Sheridan over a bottle of wine; Molière with his knees in the fire; and lord Bacon in a small room, which he said helped him to condense his thoughts. But Moore, whose peculiarity is retirement,"