greatly aggravate the evil, insomuch that I have sometimes ventured to liken tailors at their boards to so many envious Junos, sitting cross-legged to hinder the birth of their own felicity. The legs transversed thus cross-wise, or decussated, was among the ancients the posture of malediction. The Turks who practise it at this day, are noted to be a melancholy people.

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Secondly, his diet.-To which purpose I find a most remarkable passage in Burton, in his chapter entitled "Bad diet a cause of melancholy." Amongst herbs to be eaten, (he says,) I find gourds, cucumbers, melons, disallowed; but especially CABBAGE. It causeth troublesome dreams, and sends up black vapours to the brain. Galen, loc. affect. lib. 3, cap. 6. of all herbs condemns. CABBAGE. And Isaack, lib. 2, cap. 1, animæ gravitatem facit, it brings heaviness to the soul." I could not omit so flattering a testimony from an author, who, having no theory of his own to serve, has so unconsciously contributed to the confirmation of mine. It is well known that this last named vegetable has, from the earliest periods which we can discover, constituted almost the sole food of this extraordinary race of people.

THE

NUNS AND ALE OF CAVERSWELL.

A SKETCH.

CAVERSWELL, ancient Caverswell, the residence of the Cradocks, renowned in Romance, of Jervis, famous in maritime story, and esteemed over the east for thy delightful ale and thy beautiful women; I think of thee with reverence and awe. Can the lovers of romance forget that Cradock's lady alone, of all the dames of Arthur's court, wore, without suspicion or reproach, the charmed kirtle of chastity; which, by its shrivelling and curling like a November leaf, showed the lightness of Queen Gueniver and her ladies? Can the lovers of beauty forget, that in a later day the lady of George Cradock brought him at a birth, if I read the legendary inscription in the church aright-"a pair-royal of incomparable daughters, Dorothy, Jane, and Mary;" and that, for her sake, the castle of Caverswell "was beautified even unto beauty," as the same singular authority bears? Or can we forget, that in Caverswell church kneels the devout Countess of old brave St. Vincent-praying in the ripeness of beauty and pride of youth-stamped off in the

eternal grace and perpetual loveliness of art-her hands folded over her bosom, and her head bowed down with such an expression of meekness and benevolence as would inspire a preacher-if preachers were not inspired, and keep from slumber a congregation, if the pleasant people of Caverswell ever slept at a sermon? But Caverswell, fair and ancient Caverswell, thou hast other attractions. Thy daughters are passing-fair, with nut-brown locks and hazel eyes; and thy sons love dancing, mirth, minstrelsy, and ale. If thy maidens are fair and excelling-so is thy ale, surpassing all other potations, whether dribbled through a distillery worm, or poured out free and foaming from the mysterious union of hops and barley. It is called ale by the dull and gross peasantry at festivals and bridals-but it is not ale-it is drink for the lesser divinities and mitred divines. The art of brewing it was no happy labour of man's brain-there is a mystery about the manner of its being communicated to earth; it was dropt in a receipt from the moon. It was Staffordshire ale that I once saw two bards drink out of an antique silver flagon-at each alternate quaff their eyes grew brighter, their faces became flushed with a ruddy light resembling a July morn-their forms seemed to dilate into what statuaries call the heroic standard—at each glut of the divine beverage they had more and more the port of the demigods, and there they sat superior to the sons of little men-the dabblers in the blood-royal of the grape-and seemed

Possest beyond the Muse's painting.

Such is the true Caverswell nectar, known among men by the name of Staffordshire ale. I thirst afresh at the remembrance, and long to renew my intercourse with the frothing and foaming flagons which welcomed me into happy little Caverswell. Those who would view this village aright must not go in the company of the moon, as a poet somewhere recommends-let them trust to a less capricious influence than that of a planet -let them wipe the foam of their second flagon from their lips, and then go forth and look on its ladies and on its towers. Ale, like the fairy's eye-salve, will purge the sight of its grossnessthings will come in their true shape and native hue-nor will they be deceived by the magic of book or spell which can make

A cobweb on a dungeon wall

Seem tapestry in lordly hall.

Those who admire beauty will love thy maidens; and those who love themselves will drink thy glorious ale, old Staffordshire!

But besides its ale, and its native maidens, Caverswell has other attractions to which it is indebted to Spain and France: there is a refuge for ladies whom unhappy love or devotion has stung, and driven to seclusion and penance. Beneath the church-yard wall, I observed a little plat of greensward, redeemed from a wood, and bestrewn by Nature's lavish and hasty hand with violets and daisies and other flowers of summer. I saw two long narrow ridges-one green and

flourishing in its grass and flowers; the other appeared with its turf newly turned, and the flowers had begun to lift afresh their heads and revive. Small crosses of wood stood at the head of the nuns' graves-for such they were on one the hand of some unbidden but not uninterested villager had written, "alas Julia," the other no writing had appropriated-it was a plain cross, white and pure. The old castle of Caverswell threw its shadow in the descending sun as far as these two solitary graves. I looked up and beheld many young and beautiful faces at the latticed windows-saw female forms gliding among the trees, and beheld a grave and staid lady looking on me with an eye less of benevolence than suspicion. I left the two graves; and seeking my way to a distant lawn, passed over part of the castle garden-ground. It skirted the margin of a fosse or lake, and was filled with fruit-trees and blossomed shrubs and flowers. Part of it was portioned out into small plots; and here the secluded daughters of devotion amused themselves in sowing and in planting, and sought, in the beauty of the flowers they nursed, some solace for their removal from the pleasant cares and gentle solicitudes of domestic life. But the world is not so easily forgot-and a stung spirit is not so readily solaced. A shirt of hair-self-denialrigid penance-the torture of daily confessionthe presence of one who comes to teach suffering rather than pleasure-high walls and the curses of the church, all serve to bring to mind the joy and the gladness they have forsaken. To be a