her hilly sides-and hanging thick and pendant over the gushing streams that sparkled through her secluded valleys.

Those delightful woodland scenes so dear to the heart of the native Saxon; which Shakspeare has transferred to his forest of Arden; scenes where the outlaw once had dwelt in his greenwood bower, under the shade of melancholy boughs,-where the red stag sheltered, and the herds of fallow-deer grazed amid the sunny glades.

But the forest was not all of the country which remained in its primitive state.

Though most of the best land of England had long been enclosed and cultivated, immense districts remained in a state of nature; either as barren sandy heaths— green commons of prodigious extent-or black dreary moors and mosses. The unredeemed tracts were of such extent, that the aid of the "land-pilot" of Comus was frequently necessary. man, a sort of lighthouse was standing to guide the traveller through wastes of this description, among the high lands of Lincolnshire ;-lands which, under the influences of a system now perhaps to be destroyed, have been redeemed at a vast expense, and are now waving with seas of corn.

Even within the memory of

The fragrance and beauty of the sandy heaths covered with gorse, purple ling, centaury, and hawkweed; the sense of freedom and community of rights inspired by the wide commons, nibbled by flocks of little black-nosed sheep; the mysteries of those dark, gloomy moors, as

seen under the indigo clouds of a November skypeopled as they were by the superstition of the times, with witches, demons, dwarfs, and fairies-served to elevate the imagination; and, doubtless, added force to that ardour of sentiment, in matters either of love, patriotism, or religion, which distinguished the period.

He who lived in such scenes-sat by the lonely mere, or visited the silent streams tenanted by the crane, the egret, the melancholy heron, and the innumerable broods of lesser waterfowl-became a poet before he was aware of it, and an enthusiast unknown to himself.

In spite of those gloomy passages which darken her history-but which, acted upon that narrow stage then occupied by the court and government, seem little to have affected the general sentiment-England was a merry England.

It was a free, happy England. The people of this country enjoyed a share of domestic liberty, and cherished a sense of domestic independence, almost totally unknown to the miserable serfs and peasants of the continent.

The aspect of the country gave evidence of this.-The haughty Norman castles might rival those of the warlike barons of France and Germany; but where else could have been found the innumerable country houses, built by the gentry?—the men of the middle class of society -numbers of which edifices still remain to attest by their splendour the general diffusion of prosperity.

"For now," says Camden," began more noblemen's and private men's houses to be raised here and there in

England; built with largenesse, neatnesse, and beautiful show than ever in any other age; and surely to the great ornament of the kingdom."

Numbers of these were erected by the Catholic gentry; a fact which Butler accounts for, by the circumstance of their owners appearing at court much less frequently than their Protestant neighbours; and thus being spared many expenses incident to such habits; but which at least proves that they were not so grievously oppressed by pecuniary fines, as it is the pleasure of some writers of their party to represent.

Rushton Hall, in Northamptonshire, may be quoted as one of the most beautiful specimens of the domestic architecture of Queen Elizabeth's time: it, with the Town-Hall of Rothwell, and the beautiful ruin of Leveden, now buried in the surrounding woods, was erected by Sir Thomas Tresham: a Catholic gentleman of wealth and consideration, though a great sufferer for his religious opinions-of which the unfinished state of the Town-Hall, and the ruin of an edifice never completed, seem to tell the melancholy story.

The houses of the farmers and yeomen were large and substantial, though certainly not furnished with modern luxury. The stalwart master of the mansion sat at the head of his huge oaken board, dispensing their daily food to his hinds and labourers; and, stretched at night upon his hard pallet, thought his good Queen Bess not to be envied upon her throne.

The hind or the peasant sought his warm thatched cottage, where the houseleek grew and the swallow

harboured, and cherished no jealous heartburning against the man who fared better than he.

Exclusive pride on the one hand, and that black heartrending jealousy which infects the lower ranks of society on the other, were alike unknown. Each man accepted his rank in life as dispensed by the hand of his Creator; enjoyed its pleasures frankly; and never thought of enviously comparing his lot with that of others more splendid, but not more happy than himself.

Even the very beggar under the hedge was a merry being, and thought a "cup of ale was a drink for a king."

All this cheerful harmony of classes, in which each one, forming a portion of the whole, was content to execute his part in his proper place-where some were satisfied to perform, though they were only to hold second and third violins, and loyally supported with their instruments the chosen leaders of the band-is at an end.

We must all play first fiddles now, or we become very ill-humoured and enraged musicians.-How the concert is to fare may be questioned by the lovers of the good old music; but C'a ira is become the motto of the world.

It is impossible for a mind of any imagination not to regret in this picture the absence of the monasteries, which, under the destructive agency of Henry and his minister Cromwell, had altogether disappeared.

The magnificent abbey situated on the bank of some gentle stream; its rich meadows covered with sheep and kine―the convent bell tolling for evening prayer— the beautiful priory-the hermit's silent cell-all had vanished.

The monk in his long, waving garments, book in hand, the type of a life of contemplation-the holy nun—the ancient palmer-were gone. The tide of destruction had swept over all this, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

The unsparing and indiscriminate destruction of the monasteries was a very doubtful feature in the Reformation, and is still by many, not without reason, regretted. To destroy is easy; but to re-erect that which was founded upon sentiment, impossible. The sole vestiges which remain of that life of learned leisure, devoted to the higher purposes of being, undesecrated by the sordid struggles of every day life, remain in our two universities. And oh! may the hand of innovation at least spare them! And leave us these last relics of days, when man, with all his errors, lived to God rather than to Mammon; and prized the regions of intellect and the heart's best freedom better than whole miles of smoking factories, millions of web-weaving slaves, and mountains of untold gold.

One glance at the different classes of society which then possessed this lovely land of England, and to my story.

There was the queen-ay, every inch a queenwise, courageous, religious, learned; magnificent, accomplished, spirited, and gay. Affable to the lower orders, resolute with the higher. A lover of mercy, yet of unflinching severity in justice; splendid, yet frugal of her people's money; emulous of peace, prepared for war. The noble leader of the great march of intellect which then began for the world of Europe; the