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in later times by shows and puppet-plays. The glories of Bartholomew fair have departed, but an old hand-bill preserved among the Harleian MSS. announces that

"At Crawley's Booth, over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield, during the time of Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little opera, called the Old Creation of the World, yet newly revived; with the addition of Noah's Flood; also several fountains playing water during the time of the play. The last scene does represent Noah and his family coming out of the Ark, with all the beasts 2 by 2, and all the fowls of the air feen in a profpect fitting upon trees; likewife over the Ark is feen the fun rifing in moft glorious manner: moreover, a multitude of Angels will be seen in a double rank, which prefents a double profpect, one for the fun, the other for a palace, where will be feen fix Angels ringing of bells. Likewife Machines defcend from above, double and treble, with Dives rifing out of Hell, and Lazarus feen in Abraham's bofom, befides feveral figures dancing jiggs, farabands, and country dances, to the admiration of the fpectators; with the merry conceits of fquire Punch and Sir John Spendall."

51

THE MANSIONS OF MERRIE ENGLAND.

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were merry.

HILE the lower claffes of England were happy in the good old times, thofe who were above them in rank, and who poffeffed more of the bleffings of fortune, they, too, The manfions of the old English gentlemen, the caftles of the barons, and the abbeys of olden time, are they not infeparably affociated with ideas of life free from cares and anxiety, and paffed amid fcenes of plenty, manly fport, and healthy paftime? Still among the most picturefque beauties of our native land may be feen the manfions whofe noble halls have witneffed many a gay and festive scene, have rung with the joyous laugh, and echoed the fimple strain of the minstrel in the bygone days of England.

The stately homes of England!
How beautiful they stand,
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land!

The deer across their greensward bound,
Through shade and sunny glen;

And the swan glides past them with the sound

Of some rejoicing stream.

The days when the old English manfions were not fubjected to the improving spirit and reforming taste of the present times, are not separated from us by any very long interval. Southey, in one of his English Eclogues, connects the paft and prefent by the links of an old man's memory, and gives us at the fame time one of the most pleafing and natural pictures of gentle life and manners in these good old times. A young squire, just come into poffeffion of his eftate, had begun to improve away all the old features of the hall and grounds; he had felled the trees, and altered the porch, and modernized the windows; made ftraight the walks, and filled up the fish-pond. He accofts a venerable man breaking the highway-ftones, and the two enter into converfation upon the changes which are being effected in the old manfionhouse,-changes fo great, that the old man fays:

If my poor old lady could rise up

God rest her soul!-'t would grieve her to behold
What wicked work is here.

Ay, master! fine old trees.

Lord bless us! I have heard my father say

His grandfather could just remember back,

When they were planted there. It was my task

To keep them trimmed, and 't was a pleasure to me.

My poor old lady many a time would come

!

And tell me where to clip, for she had played
In childhood under them, and 't was her pride
To keep them in their beauty.

I could as soon

Have ploughed my father's grave as cut them down.

STRANGER.

Come, come! all is not wrong;

Those old dark windows

OLD MAN.

They're demolished too;

The very redbreasts that so regular

Came to my lady for her morning crumbs

Won't know the windows now.

There was a sweetbrier too that grew beside ;

My lady loved at evening to sit there

And knit, and her old dog lay at her feet

And slept in the sun; 'twas an old favourite dog;
She did not love him less that he was old

And feeble, and he always had a place

By the fireside; and when he died at last,
She made me dig a grave in the garden for him.

For she was good to all: a woeful day
'Twas for the poor when to her grave she went.
. . At Christmas, Sir!

It would have warmed your heart if you had seen
Her Christmas kitchen,-how the blazing fire
Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs
So cheerful red, and as for mistletoe,

The finest bush that grew in the country round
Was marked for Madam. Then her old ale went

So bountiful about! A Christmas cask,

And 't was a noble one,-God help me, Sir!

But I shall never see such days again.

'Twas a gloomy view for that old man to take, and stonebreaking on the highways at fourscore is not favourable to cheerful buoyancy of spirits. New-fangled whimsies" had not, however, made the young fquire forget the hofpitality of his fathers who had gone before, and the old man's heart must have warmed towards the ftranger when he replied

"T would not be easy

To make you like the outside; but within,

That is not changed, my friend! you'll always find
The same old bounty and old welcome there.

Pleasant it is to reflect that there are to be found fome who, like the young squire, are still resolved to keep alive fome of the good old inftitutions and customs of their ancestors. All honour to those who thus refpect the memories and imitate the conduct of their ancestors, and who can fympathise with Mrs. Howitt in her reverie on the old manfion of Lodore.

I think of some old country hall,

With carved porch and chimneys tall,
And pleasant windows many a one,
Set deep into the old grey stone.
Hid among trees so large and green,
'Tis only dimly to be seen.

I think of its dusk garden bowers,
The little plot of curious flowers :
Its casements, wreathed with jessamine,

Flung wide to let all odours in ;

And all sweet sounds of bird and bee,
And the cool fountains' melody;

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