place. Happily, the manners of the baron visibly softened, as his windows were unbarred and increased; the vigilant warder no longer attended his gate, the drawbridge was constantly open, the moat became dry, and the dungeon untenanted and useless. The wet ditch disappeared, and was superseded by a shrubbery; and instead of the drawbridge and portcullis, there was a regular approach with a gate of ordinary construction. Instead, also, of a bare region around, in which no foe might shelter himself, gardens were established, and an avenue of trees led to the modernised building. As the arts of civilized life gained an influence over the people, they became gradually more enlightened. The nobility, instead of vying with one another in the number and boldness of their retainers, acquired by degrees more temperate habits, and preferred to excel in the splendour of their equipages, houses, and tables; while the common people, no longer maintained in vicious idleness by their superiors, were obliged to apply themselves to some industrious calling, and thus became useful to themselves and to others. It must also be generally acknowledged, that as the tradesmen of the present day are better and more useful men than the idle retainers of olden time, so the lives of modern noblemen are more laudably employed than those of the ancient barons. As time rolled on, the furniture of the houses was much improved in character, and the comforts of the people increased. Nor is this remark confined to the nobility; for the middle classes displayed an equal advancement. Harrison, in writing on the condition of his times, informs us of the great improvements which had occurred within the remembrance of many then living :-"In the houses," he says, of knights, gentlemen, merchantmen, and some other wealthy citizens, it is not geson to behold generally their profusion of tapestry, Turkey-work, pewter, brass, fine linen, and thereto costly cupboards of plate, worth five or six hundred, or a thousand pounds, to be deemed by estimation. But as herein all these sorts do far exceed their elders and predecessors, and in neatness and curiosity the merchant all the other; so in time past the costly furniture stated there, whereas now it is descended yet lower, even unto the inferior officers and many farmers, who, by virtue of their old, and not of their new leases, have, for the most part, learned to garnish their cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestry and silk hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naptery, whereby the wealth of our country (God be praised therefore, and give us grace to employ it well,) doth infinitely appear. Neither do I speak this in reproach of any man, God is my judge, but to show that I do rejoice rather to see how God hath blessed us with his good gifts. Our fathers (yea, we ourselves also) have lain full oft upon straw pallets, or rough mats, covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dogswain, and a good round log under their heads, instead of a bolster or a pillow. If it were so that the good man of the house had, within seven years after his marriage, purchased a mattress or flock bed, and thereto a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, that, peradventure, lie seldom in a bed of down or whole feathers; so well were they contented, and with such base kind of furniture. As for servants, if they had one sheet above them, it was well; for seldom had they any under their bodies, to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvass of the pallet, and razed their hardened skins." LYCIA AND ITS PEOPLE. BE pleased, good reader, to imagine that you are just leaving the most southern promontory of Greece, and sailing nearly due east. To your left are the waters of the Egean, the modern Archipelago, stretching inward so as to mark the seaward boundary of old Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, and separating, like a magnificent bay, between the shores of Greece which look towards Asia, and the shores of Asia Minor which look towards Europe. On your right, is the blue line of the open sea, closing upon the horizon, its waters spreading on and on in that direction, until they fall on the coast which extends from the Straits of Gibraltar to the estuary of the Nile. But your vessel is floating towards that line of coast in Asia Minor, which looks due south, and where snowy mountains lift themselves aloft, as if striving to rise higher than the intervening sea which separates them from the sight of their brother mountains on the African ing its course, with an amplitude as broad as the Thames at Richmond, and with much more rapidity, towards the sea, divides the country into two somewhat unequal parts, the eastern section being the largest. The following is a description given by some recent travellers of a scene from a high point of Anticragus: continent. In approaching this aspect of Asia Minor, you have the elevated points of its coast opening upon you on your left and in front, and the island of Rhodes near upon your right. You have not long passed that island, when a portion of the Asiatic continent is seen to be projecting in front of you far into the sea and the point at which that projecting curve commences on this western side, and that to which it recedes on the eastern, mark the extent of the shores of ancient Lycia. This irregular coast measures about a hundred miles; the Lycian territory inland extends to about sixty miles, narrowing considerably as it recedes. Long before you approach its nearest point, your attention is arrested by the snow-covered heights of a range of mountains, forming part of the great projecting line of coast just mentioned. Those are the Cragus and Anticragus, or the Cragi Vertices Octo-mountains of the ancients; so called, because, like some ancient oak, they sent their roots down in such huge masses into the sea as to form eight capes upon its shore. In modern geography, these mountains bear the name of the Seven Capes. They rise to the height of nearly 7,000 feet above the sea, and beyond them, to the east and north-east, are the Massicytus and the Solymean heights, the white ice--sometimes clambering over slippery bound peaks of the former rising to the elevation of 8,700 feet, of the latter, to 9,000. The whole territory, anciently known by the name of Lycia, is of a nature to satisfy the expectation raised by this approach to it. Its three ranges of mountains send their graduated points and slopes over the greater part of its surface, forming capes, harbours, and well-watered valleys; high pasture lands of every kind of temperature; natural fastnesses of the most romantic description; ravines and gorges as wild as Salvator Rosa himself could have coveted; dense forests rising far up the mountain sides, and contributing to mark the line which separates the space where vegetation is possible, from the elevation where the snow reflects the ever-varying hues of the rising or the setting sun. Nearly everything that could impart beauty and value to a country, and render it the home of a joyous and a free people, seemed to meet in the land of the ancient Lycians. Its principal river is the Xanthus, which bursts forth abruptly from one of its northern mountains, and wind "On waking in the morning, we found that, in the darkness of the night before, we had come unawares upon a scene of surpassing grandeur. Beneath our dwelling sank a tremendous ravine, cleft down to the very sea, the waves of which were dashing against the margin of a small flat plain, buried in the gloom of the abyss. Immense masses of rocks, torn, rent, and broken up, lay scattered and hanging on every shelving ledge, while tremendous precipices towered upwards to the snow-crowned summit of Anticragus, which rose majestically over this wondrous gulf, seven thousand feet above the sea, the waves of which and the mountain-top were visible to us at once from the same spot. There seemed no passage to the other side, and none but a native of this rugged solitude could have guessed where a route might be. A way there was, however, but a dizzy one, and in places the horses could scarcely get along ledges not two feet broad-sometimes bending under gigantic impending blocks, which had fallen from above, and been arrested in their descent. One of the great boundary precipices presented a most singular aspect, in consequence of being partly formed of beds of shale, contorted so as to show as many as fifty doublings, which lay pressed, as it were, between great masses of horizontal strata of scaglia. There is not in all Europe a wilder or grander scene than this pass through the Seven Capes of Cragus.' Here is a description of another scene, from a less elevated spot inland, and giving you Cragus and Anticragus, as part of your mountain outline: "The house in which we lodged is one of the largest in the valley of the Xanthus. Our host, a gloomy-looking, welldressed, one-eyed man, was extremely polite, and paid us much attention. Our room was a long, well-proportioned chamber, the walls ornamented with arabesque paintings, and the ceiling of carved wood. Near the door, a framework of wood divided off the greater portion of the room, which was elevated con above the lesser. Over the fireplace | sion. But so far back as the time of was a carved wooden canopy. Round Homer we trace two distinct races of the house were many stables; and in the inhabitants in Lycia-the one a yard was a large wooden house, so Swiss-quering, the other a conquered people. Like in its form and carvings, that it The conquered people were in all promight have been brought from Inter- bability the earliest inhabitants. laken. In front was a flat grassy courtyard, being the levelled summit of the Acropolis. At sunset, the view from this platform was surpassingly beautiful. The distant snow became tinged of the brightest crimson, and rested on mountains of the deepest purple. The valley which lay outspread far below seemed a sheet of dark golden green, through which wound tortuously the silver thread of Xanthus. Cragus, towering between us and the sun, was a mass of the darkest blue. In the far distance lay the golden sea; and the few clouds, which hung in a sky of azure above and gold below, were like fire altars suspended in the heavens. Poor Daniell, whose spirit was deeply imbued with the love and appreciation of art, the friend and enthusiastic admirer of Turner, would sit and gaze with intense delight on this gorgeous landscape, and, eloquently dilating on its charms, appeal to them as evidences of the truth and nature which he maintained were ever present in the works of the great living master, whose merits he thoroughly understood." But the people of this beautiful country -what of them? The earliest mention of Lycia is in the poems of Homer. We find the Lycians at the siege of Troy. They were then a warlike and powerful nation. Signal services were rendered by them to the Trojans, under the command of their several leaders, Glaucus, Sarpedon, and Pandarus. From the parley between Glaucus and Diomede in front of the two armies, it is clear that the language of the Lycians at that time was Greek. So also was their religionHomer having described them as the worshippers of Apollo.* Herodotus was a native of the neighbouring province of Caria, and as that historian evinces much curiosity about the language of the people whom he describes, it is not to be supposed that he would have failed to mention any peculiarity of that nature among the people of Lycia if such had obtained. The evidence, we think, amounts to everything but certainty, that a language distinct from the Greek, and peculiar to Lycia, was not known in that country until after the Persian inva * Iliad, Book iv. 150; vi. 150. The Lycians, and their neighbours the Cilicians, were the only people in those regions who held out against Croesus. But before the Persian power their bravery availed them not. The inhabitants of Xanthus, being defeated in battle, retired within the walls of their city, collected their wives, children, slaves, and treasure, within the Acropolis, and having committed the whole to the flames, they sallied forth, and perished in a dreadful onslaught upon the besiegers. In this display of an indomitable spirit, their example was followed by the people of Caunus. But, speaking generally, the Lycians appear advantageously in history as a peaceful, wellgoverned people, taking no part in the piracies to which many of their neighbours were addicted.-British Quarterly Review. APPEARANCES OF NATURE. MAY. How much is there to enjoy in a very early morning walk at this period of the year! Let but the summit of that hill be gained, and many objects may be quietly and gradually observed. The white and fleecy fog is still in the valleys and along the sources of the streams, while the whole landscape is so soft, shadowy, and undefined, that the visible outline can only be filled up by conjecture, and it appears to become more indefinite as the sun approaches the horizon. dews seem to feel the coming influence, The and the one streaming pencil of golden light, which marks the eastern horizon, tells us that the sun is dissipating the shades of twilight. If the sky be perfectly clear, this "blink" of the rising orb sometimes has a very curious effect, for its appearance is but momentary, and all seems darker than before. But this shade passes away as quickly as the early light, and the rising grounds are soon displayed in that beautiful grouping of light and shade which never appears The when the sun is at any height. Then the shadows extend from eminence to eminence, filling all the intervening hollows; and though deep, they are remarkably transparent, as evaporation has not yet begun to give its fluttering indistinctness to the outlines of objects. The fogs now melt away, except, indeed, a few trailing fleeces, over the streams and lakes, that lie sheltered beneath steep or wooded banks; yet these soon retire, and the mingled fields, woods, and streams are arrayed in green and gold. charms of the distant landscape, with their varied forms, are now fully revealed. The meadows, refreshed during the night by the softening dews, show their bespangled flowers glittering in the sunbeams. The lark soars to the clouds, the small birds salute the orb of day as they flutter on the trees and hedges, while the clear voices of the blackbird and thrush charm the ear in every grove. A thousand insects wake into existence, while the lowing herds and bleating flocks feel the all-pervading and invigor ating influence. Every heart exults in the cheering scene, while the hills, the valleys, and the woods resound with rural harmony. Well might one of our poets say: "Spring, how delighted in life's early dawn I trod each bending vale and breezy lawn, Its sides once more with cheering verdure graced, Vegetation shares in the benefits imparted to animated nature. The rich green of spring continues, and the luxuriant meadows send forth their rich perfumes. The trees teem with blessings. The wild flowers are distinguished by their beauty and variety, as the botanist well knows. The sweet woodruff sends forth its perfume, which even increases when it is dead; the bedstraw appears, with others of the same tribe; the cleavers attach themselves to the clothes of the passer-by; the cross-wort bedstraw shows its feeble branches and small yellow flowers; and the herb-robert is conspicuous for its beautiful rose-coloured blossoms; while the geraniums and hyacinths for the plums, the cherries, the apples, and the pears are in full bloom, varying the landscape, and delighting the heart of the owner by the promise of future plenty. But time-not inclination would fail, were we to examine a thousand beauteous objects that crowd upon the view, or to notice as many pleasing associations which are suggested to the mind. There is the shady green lane-the old turnpike-road of interest. There are the cattle grazing -the village stile-each of which is full peacefully in the meadows, or crowding beneath the old thorn bushes by the pond; there is the farmhouse at the corner of the village, surrounded by gardens and orchards, and adorned with jessamines and roses, while the barn on the hill-side, with its outhouses, corn-hovels, and stacks, tell us of rural plenty. There is the peaceful valley, the verdant hill, the rugged cliff, with the busy windmill, relieved by the green corn-fields, beautified by the placid lake, and traversed by the gentle rill, which dashes over the opposing pebbles, and is lost in the dense foliage of the wood. There, too, is the village, from the cottage-chimneys of which the smoke ascends in long blue volumes, while the spire of the old church rises above the trees in which it is embosomed. Such scenes as these may well be interesting to the most illiterate, and are capable of instruction to the most enlightened. But, unhappily, there are many who are prevented from enjoying them, while those who have the opportunity often pass them over without notice, or prefer the indulgence of sleep to the elevating contemplation of nature's richest gifts. Often, indeed, is the reproof merited To lie in dead oblivion, losing half The fleeting moments of too short a life." Many of the birds which were in their eggs last month, now, for the first time, use their feeble pinions; nor are their attempts to fly unworthy of observation. Probably there is much which is usually regarded as the effect of parental instruction, that is rather the result of the instinct of the little creature. The duck precedes her young ones on the water; but though this would naturally appear as a kind of lesson to her brood, it is well known that, if the ducklings are hatched by a hen, or in an oven, they will seek the nearest water, and exercise their powers on it as soon as possible. On the other hand, a brood of turkeys has been raised by a goose, and she has been desirous to lead them on the water, yet have they as pertinaciously refused to go, as the ducklings did to quit it. Swallows and sparrows, too, may readily be imagined to be instructing their young, when it is only partially the case. The family may have left the nest, and as they bask in the sunshine, and enjoy the freshness of the balmy air, the parents are joyfully flitting from place to place. These movements, however, may be nothing more than the expression of their pleasurable feelings; and the movements of the young birds are easily accounted for, on the same principle that young frogs and fish learn to swim, though their parents may be far away or dead. Doubtless, much confidence is experienced by the young birds when aided by their parents; and even if supplied with food and warmth, we question whether they would attain proficiency in so short a time as when under parental guardianship. ors will arrive. The migratory movements of birds may be regarded as one of the most wonderful instinctive impulses possessed by animals, and it supplied an apt illustration of the prophet's views when he reproached the chosen nation of God for their neglect of appointed duty— "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; And the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming; But my people know not the judgment of the Lord," Jer. viii. 7. It was long considered by naturalists that the disappearance of birds during the winter was accounted for by their being hidden in holes in rocks and trees, and even under the surface of the water. And it is very possible that occasionally there may be found birds concealed in holes; but it is now universally agreed that the migrations of birds are to distant countries. Some persons have, indeed, gravely argued that they retire to the moon; and the calculation was even made that the journey would be accomplished in two months, while, in order to support the absurd argument, it was suggested that when they arrived above the lower regions of the air, they would have no occasion for food. "Concerning the great distance between the moon and the earth," one writer continues, "if any shall remain still unsatisfied, I leave only this to his consideration, Whether there may not be some concrete bodies at much less distance than the moon, which may be the recess of these creatures, and serve for little else but their entertainment."* In whatever part we now direct our steps, the sweet notes of feathered songsters fall upon the ear, and "the music of the groves" may well have become a poet's favourite theme. Thomson has said : When the primrose, the violet, and the daisy made their appearance, we noticed the early birds, as they arrived from distant climes-among which were the wheatear, as it was seen on sandy downs; the whin-chat, among the thickets of furze; and the ring-ouzel, in the woody districts. As the season advanced, when the hawthorn displayed its fresh young leaflets, and the sloe was covered with a profusion of sweet white flowers, the swallows enlivened the air; and the shrill whistle of the swift was heard as he wheeled in rapid flight over the houses. These were followed by the cuckoo, the bunting, the stone curlew, the quail, and the terus; and during the present month the sedge and reed warblers, the fieldtitlark, and the last of the feathered visit- Stork, etc. Crouch, London, 1703. "Every copse, Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, And woodlark, o'er the kind-contending throng Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns * Essay in reference to the Movements of the |