their eccentricities are rubbed off by daily concussion with men as hard-headed as themselves, we see glimpses beneath the polished surface, of what they would be in ruder and custom-freer scenes. The Johnny Darbyshires may be said to be instances of English independence run to seed. VOL. II. L CICELY HARDINGE. "Too late!-Alas! that it should wake too late,- I WAS sauntering one evening upon the long, low, antiquated bridge, at the end of an old provincial town, in which I was paying a visit of some weeks-much amused, (for it was the eve of a great annual fair,) with the continual stream of country people that was pouring over it. To a person, whose eye is chiefly conversant with town figures, there is something exceedingly striking and picturesque in the various persons and costumes which such an occasion presents. The free and unconstrained inhabitants of the country seem to bring their characters and feelings broadly blazoned on their fronts. Their tall, full-grown persons, their homely style of action, their unshorn locks, their rough, ruddy, and familiar faces, lit up with the interest of their concerns, of which they come loudly talking, or rather shouting, to each other, and their pleasant recognition of old acquaintances at almost every step, whom they hail frankly and merrily, with a quaint, jocular humour, which is as sonorous and unguarded as if it were played off in their own quiet fields ;—one cannot but be touched and entertained with such a display of human nature, naive, bold and English. the My eye was wandering from wave to wave of this torrent of simple and hearty beings; pedestrian servants in their best holiday suits men with their great knotty sticks, the women in their red or grey cloaks; farmers of the old school, coming jog, jog, on their heavy, shaggyheeled horses, with their wives pillioned behind them—or, in light carts, a whole family smiling together under a green awning, or under cover of the broad, blue sky; farmers of the new school, with bright boots and spurs, on mettled steeds, or in gigs, which swept rapidly past their elder friends; jockies with their long string of horses, and show-people, with their huge, creaking caravans;—when my attention was suddenly arrested by a group of a different character. It consisted of three men, of a foreign aspect; two of whom carried pedal-harps, and the third a box upon his back. They were men of a dark complexion, of handsome features, of a profuse growth of black whiskers-whom, in a passing glance, we might take for either strolling Italians or gipseys; men of those leathern, slouching hats, and long, swinging coats, which such perambulating gentry affect. Not far behind them I observed three girls, who, although far younger than themselves, evidently belonged to them. They were girls, the oldest of whom did not appear to have much exceeded her twentieth year, although the youngest of the men must have been considerably more than thirty. Twoof them were young creatures of great beauty, such as free-lived and free-spoken itinerants, like these, so readily pick up in their endless rambles. Girls they were too, of dark, quick, sparkling eyes, of an Italian aspect, who fagged on after their long-legged lords as fast as they were able; talking merrily, and throwing about their pococurante glances, with that peculiar expression which such a life as theirs invariably gives. The third walked silently and wearily behind. Her countenance was inclined towards the ground; but a glimpse which I caught of its expression, filled me with sad astonishment. To my eye, her beauty, entirely of an English character, far, very far, surpassed that of her companions. She was of a fair, delicate complexion; one of our own auburn-locked and blue-eyed beauties; but the language of her looks was that of a sensibility so singular in her situation; of a dejection so patient, yet so profound; of so utter a misery, that I was seized with an instantaneous interest about her, and exclaimed to myself: "What a woeful history is there, did one but know it!" I followed the party towards the town, and beheld the two first girls continue their march, without seeming to regard for a moment the melancholy one; while the men, far before, never cast behind them a single look, to ascertain how their help-mates followed them. It was several days after this, that as I had been walking in my friend's garden with his fair and excellent daughter, now no more, and as we were about to enter the house, she was accosted by a little girl, whom she seemed well to know, and whose object it was to procure some article of comfort for a poor female stranger, whom she represented to be at the point of death. After listening to my fair friend's queries, and to the replies of the little girl for some time; "Edith," said I, "it is the very girl of that strolling party, I have so repeatedly spoken about within |