And all I remember is friends flocking round,

As I sate with his head twixt my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat one last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

Although we have cause to hope that the good steed recovered, yet his trial of speed and strength is too painful to conclude with. I add a few lines from the "Englishman in Italy," a long poem so pulpy, so juicy, so full of bright color and of rich detail, that it is just like a picture by Rubens. Selection is difficult-but I choose the passage in question because its exceeding truth was first pointed out to me by Mr. Ruskin.

But to-day not a boat reached Salerno,
So back to a man

Came our friends with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest began:

In the vat half-way up on our house-side

Like blood the juice spins,

While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins

Dead beaten in effort on effort

To keep the grapes under,

Since still when he seems all but master
In pours the fresh plunder

From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder-

Meanwhile see the grape-bunch they've brought you,—

The rain-water slips

O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe,
Which the wasp to your lips

Still follows with fretful persistence

Nay taste while awake

This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,

That peels flake by flake

Like an onion's each smoother and whiter

Next sip this weak wine

From the thin green flask with its stopper
A leaf of the vine-

And end with the prickly pear's red flesh,
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl teeth-

and so on.

XV.

PROSE PASTORALS.

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY'S ARCADIA-ISAAC WALTON'S COMPLETE ANGLER.

DURING this warm summer, and above all during this dry burning harvest weather, which makes my poor little roadside cottage (the cottage which for that reason among others I am about to leave) so insupportable from glare, and heat, and dust in the fine season, I have the frequent, almost daily habit of sallying forth into the charming green lane, the grassy, turfy, shady lane of which I have before made mention, and of which I share the use and the enjoyment with the gipsys. Last summer I was able to walk thither, but in the winter I was visited by rheumatism, and can not walk so far without much heat and fatigue; so my old poney-phaeton conveys me and my little maid, and my pet-dog Fanchon, and my little maid's needle-work of flounces and fineries, and my books and writing-case, as far as the road leads, and sometimes a little farther; and we proceed to a certain green hillock under down-hanging elms, close shut in between a bend in the lane on our own side, and an amphitheater of oak and ash and beech trees opposite; where we have partly found and partly scooped out for ourselves a turfy seat and turfy table redolent of wild-thyme and a thousand fairy-flowers, delicious in its coolness, its fragrance, and its

repose.

Behind the thick hedge on the one hand stretch fresh watermeadows, where the clear brook wanders in strange meanders between clumps of alder-bushes and willow-pollards; fringed by the blue forget-me-not, the yellow loosestrife, the purple willowherb, and the creamy tufts of the queen of the meadow; on the other hand we catch a glimpse over gates of large tracts of arable land, wheat, oat, clover, and bean fields, sloping upward

to the sun; and hear, not too closely, the creaking wagon and the sharpening sythe, the whistle, the halloo, and the laugh, all that forms the pleasant sound of harvest labor. Just beyond the bend in the lane too, are two fires, belonging to two distinct encampments of gipsys; and the children, dogs, and donkeys of these wandering tribes are nearly the only living things that come into sight, exciting Fanchon now to pretty defiance, now to prettier fear.

This is my constant resort on summer afternoons; and there I have the habit of remaining engaged either with my book or with my pen until the decline of the sun gives token that we may gather up our several properties, and that aided by my staff I may take a turn or two in the smoothest part of the lane and proceed to meet the pony-chaise at a gate leading to the old Manor House which forms the usual termination of my walk. Now this staff, one of the oldest friends I have in the world, is pretty nearly as well known as myself in our Berkshire village. Sixty years ago it was a stick of quality, and belonged to a certain Duchess Dowager of Atholl, that Duchess of Atholl who was in her own right Baroness Strange and Lady of Mann, with whom we had some acquaintance because her youngest son married a first cousin of my father's and took the name of Aynsley as his wife had done before him, as a condition of inheriting an estate in Northumberland. I have a dim recollection of the Duchess, much such an one as Dr. Johnson had of Queen Anne, as a stately lady in black silk." Well! in her time the stick was a stick of distinction, but on her leaving her Berkshire house it was left behind and huddled by an auctioneer into a lot of old umbrellas, watering-pots, and flower-stands which my father bought for a song. I believe that he made the purchase chiefly for the sake of this stick, which he presented to my mother's faithful and favorite old housekeeper, Mrs. Mosse, who lived in our family sixty years, and was sufficiently lame to find such a support of great use and comfort in her short and unfrequent walks. During her time and for her sake, I first contracted a familiar and friendly acquaintanceship with this ancient piece of garniture. It was indeed a stick of some pretension, of the order commonly called a crook, such as may be seen upon a chimney-piece figuring in the hand of some trim shepherdess of Dresden china. What the wood might have been I can not tell :

light, straight, slender, strong it certainly was, polished and veined, and as I first remember it yellowish in color, although it became darker as it advanced in age. It was among the tallest of its order; nearly five feet high, and headed with a crook of ivory, bound to the wood by a broad silver rim,—as lady-like a stick as could be seen on a summer's day. The only one of the sort I ever met with had belonged to the great-grandmother of a friend of mine, and was handed down as a family relic; that crook, probably of the same age as ours, was more ornate and elaborate, it had a curious carved handle, not unlike the hilt of a sword, decorated with a leather tassel, so to say a stick-knot.

Well, poor Mossy died; and the stick, precious upon her account, became doubly so when my own dear mother took to using it during her latter days, and when she also followed her old servant to a happier world. And then every body knows how the merest trifles which have formed part of the daily life of the loved and lost, especially those things which they have touched, are cherished and cared for and put aside; how we dare not look upon them for very love; and how by some accident that nobody can explain they come to light in the course of time, and after a momentary increase of sadness help to familiarize and render pleasant the memory by which they are endeared. It is a natural and right process, like the springing of a flower upon a grave. So the stick re-appeared in the hall, and from some whim which I have never rightly understood myself, I, who had no more need of such a supporter than the youngest woman in the parish, who was indeed the best walker of my years for a dozen miles round, and piqued myself not a little upon so being, took a fancy to use this stick in my own proper person, and most pertinaciously carried this fancy into execution. Much was I laughed at for this crotchet, and I laughed too. Friends questioned, strangers stared; but impassive to stare or to question, I remained constant to my supporter. Except when I went to London (for I paid so much homage to public opinion as to avoid such a display there) I should as soon have thought of walking out without my bonnet as without my stick. That stick was my inseparable companion.

To be sure we met with a few misadventures in our companionship. Once I left my prop behind me in a marquee at a cricket match, and it had well-nigh been tossed away among

the tent-poles; once it was stuck against a bush in a copse where I happened to be nutting and got well thrashed (according to the notable example of Sancho with the galley-slaves), in company with its brethren the hazel-rods; once it was lost in a fair (I am not sure that it was not cried upon that occasion); often forgotten in halls and vestibules; and once fairly stolen by a mischievous school-boy from a friend's portico.

This last calamity cost me a ten-mile walk, undertaken with an alacrity which proved how little I really needed my trusty supporter. Before I had discovered my loss-for that same prop of mine had passed many a summer night leaning against the pillars of that portico-before I had even dreamt of the mishap, the papa and mamma of the delinquent, chancing to have old-fashioned notions of good-breeding, sent a servant with a magnificent note, in the third person, setting forth in the choicest terms their regret and displeasure, deprecating my anger, and entreating me to fix the day and the hour on which they and the culprit might be permitted to wait upon me to renew their excuses in person. Such a note! In diction, in caligraphy, in folding, it would have done honor to "The Polite Letter-writer:" the paper stamped with an oak-wreath, and breathing of ottar of roses, and the seal as big as that bearing her Majesty's arms from a public office, were real works of art. I could as soon have answered such a letter, or have sat in state to receive the threatened apology, as I could have taken a journey in the air upon a broomstick. Greatly preferring the offense to the reparation, I had nothing for it but to forestall the visit, shake hands with the poor boy, who turned out a fine spirited lad, and try, by laughing over the matter with his parents, to bring about a general pacification; in which attempt, they being less formidable in person than on paper, I happily suc

ceeded.

Manifold have been our escapes. natural to the stick-genus-a battle.

One was from an adventure

Walking past a farm-house, by the side of a fair neighbor, with no other companions than our dogs; hers a beautiful King Charles, mine a no less beautiful and far rarer spaniel of the old brown cocking breed, Flush, the father of Fanchon ;-our poor pets were set upon by a furious yard-dog, unluckily let loose, a tremendous mastiff, dangerous to man and beast. The King Charles fled to his mistress, who instantly caught him up. Flush