a great gun, and his right arm disabled by a pistol-shot, at Worcester Fight.

In the year 1653 there come sad news to Ellswether. My Lord Brandon, heading a rising for the young king in the North, was taken and beheaded; and my lady his wife, who had wearied herself in vain to obtain his pardon, died after giving birth to a daughter. Their son and heir had died in his infancy, and the barony must needs descend to a distant cousin of my lord's, that was a boon companion of the king in France and Flanders. My lord's estates and property was all confiscated, and for the poor babe was nothing left, save that she might have my lady's gowns and suchlike. My lady had committed her babe to the charge of the gentlewoman that bare her company, desiring that she should be brought to Ellswether, and bred up by my mother. Wherefore this gentlewoman, Mrs Sophronia Skipwith by name, took with her the babe, together with my lady's gowns and jewels, and the great portraits of her and my lord which he had had painted for her on their wedding, and divers tomes of French and English romances, and started on her journey. Coming to Ellswether, she found there sore lamentation, for that my dear mother had departed this life two days before. And Sir Harry, my father, finding himself with my Lady Brandon's babe to keep, and discerning Mrs Skipwith to be a gentlewoman of most discreet conversation and a sobriety suiting her years (which were thirtyfive at the least, and rather over than under), did offer her to remain as governess to the babe, the rather as the aforesaid Mrs Skipwith was an orphan and a distant kinswoman of my lady's. Now if you look. to hear that Mrs Skipwith made use of Sir Harry's kindness to creep into his good graces, and thus marry him thereafter, you shall be disappointed, for she behaved herself throughout her life with a rare discreetness

MY FATHER'S ESTATE.

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and wisdom, and hath left behind her a memory full of praise.

My good father, then, adopted for his own the little Mrs Dorothy Brandon (whose kinsman, even after the happy Restoration of his majesty King Charles II., when he gat back his lands, never troubled himself to inquire. after her, lest for very shame he must settle on her a portion out of the estates of my lord her father), my father, I say, adopted her, intending in due time to marry her to me his son, and we grew up together as brother and sister, but in that prospect. Now at the Restoration, as I have said, there was many received back their confiscated lands, but my father, who (with his brothers) had sold and mortgaged all for the king's service, gat nothing, since he had done it all willingly. There remained to us, then, only the manor of Ellswether itself, whereon was a heavy mortgage, that was fallen into the hands of Mr Sternhold, the attorney that my grandfather had been wont to employ. And again, if you look to hear in this place that Mr Sternhold proved himself a cruel or an unrighteous creditor, you will again receive a disappointment, for sure there was never no man that served better either the father or the absent son. But if this great burden of the mortgage was to be removed, it was needful for me to make my fortune, and this in no unspeedy way. And if you shall be surprised that my father allowed me, his only son, to undertake such a distant and dangerous manner of life as that I have followed, I would have you remember that Sir Harry, as was but natural in a gentleman of his family and breeding, cared more for the honour and name of the house than for him that might one day bear it, and that he sent me forth in quest of wealth for to redeem the estates, as any father in Rome might have sent forth his son in quest of warlike honour. After this explanation, which I trust shall

resolve any matters that might otherwise seem to you obscure or contradictory, I will proceed to my tale.

Since I have spoke to you of my father's poverty, you will readily perceive that he could not send me to any great school, nor was he likely, in the dark days that then shadowed this poor realm of ours, to commit me to the tuition of the schismatical minister that had usurped the room of the vicar of our parish, wherefore he was constrained to send me by the day to the grammar-school of Puckle Acton, which town lieth in the vicinage of Ellswether. Here, in common with the sons of many gentlemen of the country round, I gained a slight acquaintance with Greek and Latin, and (for which my life hath made me far more grateful) such a knowledge of the art of fence, of boxing and shooting, as hath often stood me in good stead. When I was not at the school, the time did often hang heavy for me, for the gentlemen's sons of whom I have spoken durst not admit me to their company more than rarely, for fear of the suspicions of our tyrants, that were wont to scent a conjuration or conspiracy whensoever any number of Malignants (for so they called us) was met together. The company of the boys of the town I neither sought nor would my father have permitted me so to do, and I came thus, almost of necessity, to use and enjoy that of my little cousin Dorothy Brandon, in all my holidays and times of rest. 'Twas with her I learned from Mrs Skipwith to read French, and we loved to pore together over the pages of the Grand Cyrus,' that magazine of brave thoughts and witty conceits, of the Cleopâtre' and of the Clélie.' Of English books we had no great store, but in Sir Philip Sidney his Arcadia' and in Mr Lyly's 'Euphues' we found a rare delight. Add to this, that my little cousin taught herself Latin in order to the reading it with me, and (her youth remembered) was no mean scholar

OUR STUDIES AND PLAYS.

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in the Greek, and you shall see that we had no lack of fantastic and heroical reading for to divert ourselves withal.

Nor was this all our diversion, for we had, beside, our especial romance, or rather romancical drama, since we never writ our incidents, but, if I may so speak, lived them. In this piece my cousin was called Polyxandra, a wood-nymph vowed to Dian's service, and I Cleombrocles, her faithful knight. The action of the plot was mighty tragical, and full of moving scenes and incidents, for we were beset not alone by the horrid monster Anthropophage, whose castle I have ofttimes besieged, and whose self (as presented by Bevis our house-dog) I often slew, but also by Sophronysius, the tyrannic governor of Mycene, whose part, unknown to herself, was played by Mrs Skipwith. This tyrant was wont to carry off the amiable Polyxandra whensoever as our romance was most alluring; and many fearful vows have I breathed against her, the poor victim weeping meanwhile over her task of presenting in needlework the history of Sisera and Jael. My father performed the part of the Deus ex machina, stepping in to grant Polyxandra an holiday when all my intercessions failed; but even he could do little against a certain terrible enchanter, named Virgilius Tully, to whom the renowned Cleombrocles was bound by a solemn vow, that he should attend upon him daily in his cave, and there serve him. Yet was not all our life spent in wars, for to us the meadows and woods around Ellswether were those of Arcady and Thessalia, and we wandered through them engaged in heroic discourse, carried on in extreme picked and delicate language, and garnished with many euphuisms and other pretty conceits, such as I now hear the learned ladies of France do mightily affect. Oh! the vows of never-dying devotion these woods have echoed, the coy answers of the nymph,

and the renewed passion of Cleombrocles, interrupted by the approach of the fell Sophronysius!

After the joyful and happy Restoration of his majesty King Charles II., I was able to meet with my fellows without molestation, and also to join with them in many noble sports; but so great was the ruin and poverty brought upon us by the dominion of the rebels (though now happily past), that of the common usages and hospitalities of the country was there next to none among us. 'Twas but rarely that my little cousin and I visited upon any, and 'twas fewer still that came to the Hall, save now and then an ancient cavalier that had known my father in the days of his youth. Yet 'twas one of these ancient gentlemen, as I believe, that must have stirred Sir Harry's mind to see that I, his only son, was growing up in idleness, and thus embarked him, if I may so speak, on that long voyage of treaties and negotiations, whereof I was only made aware when all was complete.

Two or three times in the year, it was our custom (my little cousin's and mine) to go to Puckle Acton and take supper with good Mr Sternhold, the attorney. There was never there for us any lack of welcome on the part of Mrs Sternhold or himself; and their two comely daughters, Mrs Diony and Mrs Sisley, were wont to make much of me, and to show great kindness to my little cousin. It did much please them that we, being so young, were deemed troth-plight; and they did delight to set us side by side, and to cry out how pretty a couple we made, and then to incite me to show myself a courteous servant to that my little lady. But always after this was Dorothy wont to behave herself so coy and disdainful as 'tis impossible to conceive, and would try me with as many grievous slights as did ever the coldest and cruellest maid in the romances, so as I would threaten to go away into some foreign kingdom, and seek my fortune, far from my un