having been promoted to play with the men; and Ben has succeeded to his post as chief and leader of the youngsters. Joe is a sort of person to make himself happy anywhere, but I suspect that he has not at present gained much pleasure by the exchange. It is always a very equivocal advantage when a person is removed from the first place in one class, to the lowest in the rank just above; and in the present instance poor Joe seems to me to have gained little by his preferment except the honour of being Fag general to the whole party. His feelings must be something like those of a provincial actor transplanted to the London boards, who finds himself on the scene of his ambition indeed, but playing Richmond instead of Richard, Macduff instead of Macbeth. Joe, however, will work his way up, and in the mean time Ben fills his abdicated throne with eminent ability. and, the sea, must lay their account, (especially if there be also excellent roads, and a capital pack of fox-hounds) on some of the evils which are generally found to counterbalance so many conveniences; such as a most unusual dearness and scarcity of milk, cream, butter, eggs, and poultry-luxuries held proper to rural life, -a general corruption of domestics, above all, a perpetual change and fluctuation of neighbours. The people of the higher class in this neighbourhood, are as mutable as the six-months denizens of Richmond, or Hampstead-mere birds of passage, who, “come like shadows, so depart." If a resident of ten years ago, were, by any chance, to comme here now, he would be in great luck if he found three faces of gentility that he could recognise. I do not mean to insinuate that faces in our parts wax old or ugly sooner than elsewhere; but, simply, that they do not Jem Eusden, his quondom rival, is lost to stay amongst us long enough to become oldthe cricket ground altogether. He is gone that one after another, they vanish. All our forth to see the world. An uncle of his mo- mansions are let, or to be let. The old mather's, a broker by profession, resident in Shoe norial Hall, where squire succeeded to squire Lane, came into this neighbourhood to attend from generation to generation, is cut down ina great auction, and was so caught by Jem's to a villa, or a hunting-lodge, and transferred | scholarship that he carried him off to London season after season, from tenant to tenant, and placed him with a hosier in Cheapside, where he is to this hour engaged in tying up gloves and stockings, and carrying out parcels. His grand-uncle describes him as much improved by the removal; and his own letters to Ben (for since they have been parted they are become great friends) confirm the assertion. He writes by every opportunity, full as often, I should think, as once a quarter: and his letters give by far the best accounts of the Lord Mayor's day, as well as of the dwarfs, giants, and other monsters on show in London, of any that arrive in these parts. He is critical on the Christmas Pantomimes, descriptive on the Panoramas, and his narrative of the death of the elephant (whose remains his good kinsman the broker took him to visit) was so pathetic that it made the whole village cry. All the common is in admiration of Jem's genius, always excepting his friend Ben Kirby, who laughs at every thing, even his correspondent's letters, and hath been heard to insinuate that the most eloquent morceaux are "bits out of newspapers." Ben is a shrewd wag and knowing; but in this instance I think he is mistaken. I hold Jem's flights for original, and suspect that the young gentleman will turn out literary. THE TENANTS OF BEECHGROVE. THOSE who live in a thickly inhabited, and very pretty country, close to a large town, within a morning's ride of London, and an easy distance from Bath or Cheltenham and with as little remorse as if it were a lodginghouse at Brighton. The lords of the soil are, almost as universally absentees as if our fair country were part and parcel of the Sister Kingdom. The spirit of migration possesses the land. Nobody of any note even talks of staying amongst us, that I have heard-except a speculating candidate for the next borough; and he is said to have given pretty intelligible hints that he shall certainly be off, unless he be elected. In short, we H—shire people are a generation of runaways. As "out of evil cometh good," one pleasant consequence of this incessant mutation has been the absence of that sort of prying and observation of which country neighbours used to be accused. No street even in London was freer from small gossiping. With us, they who were moving or thinking of moving, had something else to do: and we, the few dull laggards, who remained fixed in our places, as stationary as directing-posts, and pretty nearly as useless, were too much accustomed to the whirl, to take any great note of the passers-by. Yet, even amidst the general flitting, one abode gradually forced itself into notice, for the unrivalled rapidity of succession, with which tenant followed tenant,-the most admired and the most changeable of all. It was an exceedingly pretty inconvenient cottage, a picture of a place,-with its French windows and verandahs, its trellis and porch covered with clematis and jessamine, its baby-house conservatory, and its miniature lawn. It was situated in the midst of woody, winding lanes, lost as it were in the labyrinths of our rich and intricate country; with an open grove of noble beeches on one side of it, and a clear stream crossed by a winding bridge, on the other. In short, Beechgrove, with all its pretty rusticities, its violets and primroses, and nightingales and turtle-doves, was the very place in which to spend the honeymoon. It seemed a spot made expressly for brides and bridegrooms, doomed by the inexorable laws of fashion, to four weeks of connubial felicity, to get creditably weary of solitude and of each other. She never entered it afterwards. Poor thing! guilt was there, but shame and repentance were there also. She was born for better things: and shrank from the eye as if looks were swords. tentions with unalterable sweetness, seemed best pleased to glide away alone, given up to her own thoughts,-sad thoughts, alas! I fear they were!-to her cheerless prospects and mournful recollections. She would walk with her bonnet in her hand, and her beautiful curls put back from her white temples, as if air were necessary to still their throbbing,—and she would so sigh! Poor thing! poor thing! once she came to church, closely veiled, downcast, and trembling. She had forgotten the key of her own pew, and was invited by the Accordingly, couple after couple repaired to vicar's lady into hers. And she went in, and Beechgrove. The very postilions, whether knelt in the lowest place, and sate out great from south or north, east or west, knew in- part of the service. But the sermon was afstinctively, where to deposit a new-married fecting; it spake of female frailty; of the pair. There was not so pretty a dovecote woman taken in adultery; of sin and of forwithin twenty miles. Here they came in giveness. She could not bear it, and left the quick succession, and we had great amuse-church. ment in watching them. A bridal party is generally very pleasant to look at,-all white satin, and white lace, and white favours, and finery and gaiety! one likes every thing about it: the horses so sleek and prancing: the carriages so ostentatiously new and grand; the servants so full of conscious importance, parading and bustling, as proud of their master's splendour, as if they belonged to a Sheriff on Lord Mayor's day, or to a winning candidate at an election time! Well! they came, and they went,—the fashionable, the titled, the wealthy, and the plain, glad, as it seemed, to come, and certainly glad to go. One couple only remained a little beyond the allotted time. (N. B. that bride was remarkably pretty.) They lingered on; she was charmed with Beechgrove, and they talked of wintering there, and re-engaged the house. But I don't know how it was; she was a sweet pretty woman to be sure, but did not look over-wise; and it happened to her as to Cowley's Beauty in his "Chronicle," her reign was short "One month, three days, and half an hour Judith held the sovereign power." Her husband whisked her off to Paris at the end of five weeks. They were succeeded by a man in the prime of life, and a woman in its very morning; an elegant but most melancholy pair, who brought with them no bridal favours, no gay carriages, no proud servants, no titles, no name. He was of a person splendidly beautiful-tall, stately, commanding; of a regality of port, and a haughtiness of aspect almost defying, as if expecting inquiry and determined to look it down. It was only when gazing at his fair companion, that his bright eye softened, and his demeanour changed into the most gentle expression of tenderness and submission. He appeared devoted to her; and would read to her on the lawn, ride with her, or drive her in a little open chaise for hours together. She, on the other hand, although receiving his at L Without any intention of watching this lovely downcast penitent-for most lovely she was!-it so happened that I met her frequently; and although we never spoke, she grew so familiarized to my passing her in the lanes, as not to start and tremble at my appearance, like a fluttered dove,-as was usual with her, on the sight of strangers. She would even stop to fondle my greyhound, Mayflower, who, with the extraordinary instinct of her kind, had been attracted by her sweet countenance, and never failed to accost her. May and she were quite acquainted; and she had even learnt her name. We used to meet almost every day; especially in one spot, which soon became as much her favourite, as it had long been mine. About half a mile to the right of Beechgrove, a shady lane leads to a beautiful patch of woodland scenery,—the lingering remains of an ancient chase. Turfy sheep-walks intersect thick brakes of fern and holly, mingled with rich old thorns, and the light feathery birch, and surmounted by noble oaks and beeches, the growth of centuries. In one of the recesses of the wood, just opposite the deep clear pond, which lets the light so finely into this forest picture, stands a real cottage, rough, rude, irregular, mis-shapen; with its hedged-in garden, and its well-stocked orchard; all evidently cribbed in from the waste, and sufficiently spacious to give an air of unusual comfort to the rural dwelling. The cart-shed, too, and the fagot-pile, and the old horse grazing before the door, indicate a considerable portion of rustic prosperity. In fact they are a thriving family. Charles North, the head of the house, is a jobbing gardener, whose services are in such request, that they are accorded somewhat in the manner of favours, and must be bespoken as long beforehand as the attendance of a first singer at a the baby,-a rosy smiling brat, clean amidst all the dirt, and placid amidst all the uproar, who lived out of doors, like a gipsy, and might be seen in its little pink frock, stretching its round hardy limbs on the turf, or sitting in infantine state with its back propped against a tree, from morning to night, the general pet and plaything of the family. musical party. He is a fine athletic man, whose firm upright form, and bold, hale, lively visage contrast rather strangely with the premature grey locks that hang around the latter. In manner, he is singularly agreeable, full of shrewdness and good humour, very merry, and a little arch: perceiving, instantly, the weaknesses of those with whom he converses, and humouring them as much from pliability of This infant was evidently the attraction temper, and a natural sympathy, as from views which drew the fair tenant of Beechgrove to of interest. The rogue is my factotum; and this secluded spot. May and I used to dive sees at a glance which hyacinth to prefer, and into the recesses of the wood, scenery where which geranium to admire. Good gardener you may almost realize the delicious creations as he is, I doubt if this be not the great secret of "Comus," and "As You Like It;" but of Charles North's popularity. Popular he she always paused at the cottage, always as is, that is certain; perhaps the most popular near as possible to the baby. It was a child person of my acquaintance: quite good enough that, for mere childish beauty, would have to please the wise, and not too good to alarm been remarked amongst thousands. The the gay; for the rest, an excellent husband square vigorous form; the dimpled hands and and excellent father, a thoroughly sober and feet, and elbows, so firm, so mottled, of so industrious man, except now and then an out-pure a carnation; the fair open forehead, with break at tide-times, which commonly lasts for a day or two, and leaves him more ardently laborious than ever. One of the most enviable persons whom I have ever encountered, is Charles North in his blue apron. little rings of brown hair curling round it; the large bright blue eye; the delicate features; and the sweet look of content, the passionlesss composure, which give a dignity to infant loveliness, would have made Mary North a model for Sir Joshua. No one ever passed without admiring the child, but on no one did her beauty produce such an effect as she seemed to intend it sometimes; but always stopped, and returned to her old station near the cottage. He however is very seldom seen at his pleasant home. He trudges forth, whistling, at four o'clock every morning, and comes back, still whistling, about seven at night. The cot-on this unhappy lady. She could not pass : tage at the wood-side is quite populous enough without him. To say nothing of his ailing wife, who is what in a lady would be called nervous; there were, at the time of which I Her object was, evidently, Mary. At first, speak, thirteen goodly children, from twenty she tried to talk to Mrs. North, to Martha, to years old to eight months. Shall I give a the little ones that dabbled round the pond; catalogue? Yes. First, an eldest son, a but the effort was visibly painful; and she baker, (for one of the protuberances which soon desisted from it; content to hang over make the dwelling so picturesque, is a huge the little girl, or sit on the grass by her side, oven) Charles North, junior,-tall and vigor- sometimes crying, sometimes with a heartous as his father,—a staid sober youth, who, broken look, as if her tears were gone. The by dint of the small-pox and a miraculous child's name, if accidentally pronounced, algravity, might pass for the father of the fami- ways occasioned a convulsive shuddering; and ly himself. Then an eldest sister, stout and one day, Mrs. North, unable to resist the curiossteady; a home-keeping Martha North, acting ity excited by these extraordinary proceedings, as regent during her mother's illnesses, which said to her, "I fancy, ma'am, for so young as know no pause; deputy mistress and deputy you look, that you must have had a little Mary servant of the whole house. Then a fine open-of your own!"-" Once," was the answer, countenanced girl, her father in petticoats, parcel pickle, and parcel coquette,-who puts her hair in curl-papers, and flirts with one half of the parish, and romps with the other, as she carries her brother's bread round the country, -sole driver of the old white horse: we have not a prettier black-eyed lass in the village than Sally North. Then Tom, who goes to work with his father, and is, at a word, Sally in breeches. Then there were four or five urchins, names unknown, who attended Sunday seminaries, some for charity, some for pay. Then three or four others, sex unknown, imps in tattered frocks, dirty, noisy, healthy, and happy, who dabbled by the side of the pond with the ducks and geese, or helped the pigs to find acorns in the wood. Last of all, with a burst of bitter grief, "once!" "It's a sad affliction," pursued Mrs. North, "to bury a baby, especially the first. I lost mine, poor innocent! but I have thought, since, how much happier she is than my Mary would be, if I was to die now, and leave her motherless in the wide world." "Oh my Mary! my Mary! my child! my child!" cried the unhappy lady, and fell to the ground in strong and obstinate convulsive fits. She was conveyed home; and came no more to the cottage by the wood-side. In a few days, Beechgrove was again vacant, and she was gone; leaving for Mrs. North a little green purse containing eighteen guineas, and some silver, and a small slip of paper on which was written, "For your Mary, from a mother who left her child!"-Poor thing! poor thing! | ful protection I began to learn and unlearn, to we have never heard of her since. acquire the habits and enter into the views of my companions, as well disposed to be idle as the best of them. Mary North is now a rosy prattler, the life and joy of her humble home, the loveliest and gayest creature that ever lived. But, better than playing with her doll, better even than base-ball, or sliding or romping, does she like to creep of an evening to her father's knee, and look at the well-hoarded purse, (not a shilling has been taken out,) and gaze, with a mysterious feeling of awe at her little heart, on the slip of uneven writing; and hear, for the hundredth time, the story of the poor lady who was so good to Mary when she was a baby,-the beautiful lady of Beechgrove. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. THE FRENCH TEACHER. Nobody was less thought of in this respectable school than our respectable governess. She seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely dressed, in a nicely furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of delicate needle-work, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering questions, and administering as much praise as she conscientiously could, perhaps a little more. In the school-room she ruled, like other rulers, by ministers and delegates, of whom the French Teacher was the principal. When I first arrived, this high post was filled by the daughter of an emigré of distinction, a gentle drooping creature, who looked downward like a columbine, and was totally unequal to contend with twenty light-hearted and boisterous girls. She was the prettiest piece of melanIt is now more than twenty years since I, choly that I have ever seen; as pale as alaa petted child of ten years old, born and bred baster, with large black eyes, that seemed in the country, and as shy as a hare, was sent made for tears, and a voice "far above singto that scene of bustle and confusion, a Lon- ing." I do not think she could chide; she don school. O what a change it was! What did not know how. Nobody could help lova terrible change! The good old nurse, and ing a creature so mild and inoffensive; and the sweet gentle mamma, and the dear, dear there was something, with this gentleness, of papa, who in their several ways seemed to purity and dignity, that ensured our respecthave no other object than that of spoiling me it clung to her like a garment. She did her from morning to night,to leave them and duty scrupulously, as far as instruction went, my own dear home for this strange new place, but left all other cares to the English Teacher, and these strange new people, what a-a very different person, coarse and common change! And so many of them! and children too! Men and women I could have endured: but I had been a solitary child, and hated nothing so much as the din, the laughter, the shrill voices, and rapid motions of children. They fairly made me dizzy. I shall never forget the misery of the first two days, blushing to be looked at, dreading to be spoken to, shrinking like a sensitive plant from the touch, ashamed to cry, and feeling as if I never could laugh again. I was broken-mained, all was quiet. But these happy days hearted. These disconsolate feelings are not astonishing, even in recollection: the wonder is, that they so soon passed away. But every body was good and kind. There was just attention enough from the heads of the house, and a merciful neglect from the pupils. In less than a week the poor wild bird was tamed. I could look without fear on the bright happy faces; listen without starting to the clear high voices, even though they talked in French; began to watch the ball and the battledore; and felt something like an inclination to join in the sports. In short I soon became an efficient member of the commonwealth; as efficient as a quiet little girl of ten years old could be; made a friend, provided myself with a school-mother, a fine tall blooming girl, who, having attained the dignity of the first class and the mature age of fourteen, already thought herself a young woman, under whose power as could be; a better sort of nursery maid; one who from pure laziness would rather do things herself than take the trouble to see that they were done by another. Under her fosterage our evil habits throve apace: she put away, and hid, and lied for us, till we became the most irregular and untidy generation that ever trod the floor of a school-room. All seemed fair in the sight of the governess; and, whilst our drooping lily Mademoiselle L. re could not last long. She left us in the short 66 son of the dancing-room. Her face was almost parts, pincushions, petticoats, thimbles, frocks, invisible, being concealed between a mannish sashes, dolls, portfolios, shuttlecocks, playkind of neckcloth, that tied in her chin, and things, work-things, trumpery without end. an enormous cap, whose wide flaunting strip The entire mass was to be apportioned amongst hung over her cheeks and eyes,-to say no- the different owners and then affixed to their thing of a huge pair of spectacles. What persons, after the manner of some of Mr. Lancould be seen of the face was in a fine Roman caster's punishments, though, to do Madame style of beauty that answered to her figure; justice, the design, under her management, beautiful, in spite of age, and cap-strip, and was altogether French. She had generously neckeloth, and spectacles; lady-like, in spite taken the most difficult part herself, and was of the high heeis, the trip, the mantua-making much in the situation of the Princess in the vulgarity of scissors and pincushion dangling Fairy Tale, who was put into a great hall full outside of her gown, and such a pair of pan- of feathers, and ordered to select from the niers within as have seldom been seen in these mingled heap those which belonged to every degenerate days of reticules and work-bags. separate bird. Poor Madame! she was worse Such was the outward woman of Madame. off than the princess-she had no good Genius Her inner qualities were speedily developed. to help her-she did not even know the plumWe soon found that like "Goose Gibbie," she age of her little birds-sad refractory birds as kept the hours of her flock; went to bed at ever beat their wings against a cage. Poor nine o'clock, and rose at six; and, instead of Madame! Article after article was fished up trying to lose the sight and sound of children from the mass, and held out to be owned in in books and drawings, and running away vain; not a soul would claim such dangerous from the very thoughts of us the moment property: gloves looked about for hands to school-hours were over, as poor Mademoiselle wear them; slippers were like the famous L. used to do, Madame was content to keep glass one, and fitted nobody; bonnets wanted us company all the day long; was never tired heads; dolls went a-begging. Poor Madame! of us, tiresome as we were; and made no Even when she found a name, it did her little other difference between school-time and play- service; she had, to be sure, in ten years time than that of exchanging scolding for talk-picked up some ten words of English,—but ing, long lessons for long stories. She super-proper names! she never came so near them intended our sports; watched over the gaines in her life as old Bassompierre when he wrote of ball and battledore; reprimanded the awkward and the noisy; and finally insisted on translating our old forfeits of "Peter Piper," and "I love my love with an A," into their Gallic counterpart, “ Qui veut vendre le corbillon 2" Innimthorpe for Kensington. Even if she made a distant approach to the sounds in pronunciation, she would never have recognised them when written; it was two to one against her hitting on the initial letter. Nevertheless she did succeed, by dint of lucky guesses and This was sufficiently irksome; but the questions which could not be parried, in apworst was to come. Madame, all Parisian portioning quite sufficient to form a style of though she was, had the fidgety neatness of a decoration more novel than elegant,—an order Dutch-woman, and was scandalized at our of demerit. Dictionaries suspended from the untidy habits. Four days passed in distant neck en medaillon, shawls tied round the murmurs; an exercise book, found, to use her waist en ceinture, unbound music pinned to favourite word, “trainant" about the room, the frock en queue, formed a slight part of our was thrown into the fire, and a skipping-rope, adornment; not one of us but had three or four which nearly overset her by entangling in her of these appendages; many had five or six. train, was tossed out of the window: but this These preparations were intended to meet the was only the gathering of the wind before the eye of Madame's countryman, the French storm. It was dancing-day: we were all dancing-master, who would doubtless assist dressed and assembled, when Madame, pro- in supporting her authority, and in making us voked by some indication of latent disorder, thoroughly ashamed. She did not know that some stray pinafore or pocket-handkerchief | before his arrival we were to pass an hour in peeping from under the form that was meant an exercise of another kind, standing on one to conceal it, instituted, much to our conster-leg like geese upon a common, or facing to nation, a general rummage through the house right and left, under the command of a drillfor things out of their places, which certainly sergeant. The man of scarlet was ushered in ; comprised the larger half of our possessions, and it is difficult to say whether the professor Every hole and corner were searched for con- of marching or the improver of discipline traband goods, and the collected mass thrown looked most astonished: the culprits, Ì am together in one stupendous pile in the middle afraid, supported by numbers and amused by of the school-room; a pile that defies descrip- the ridiculous appearance of their corps, were tion or analysis. Bonnets, old and new, with not so much disconcerted as they should have strings and without, pelisses, tippets, parasols, been. Madame began a very voluble expi anaunmatched shoes, halves of pairs of gloves, tory harangue; but she was again unfortunate, books tattered or whole, inusic in many the sergeant did not understand French. |