NOAH'S ARK-A DRAMATIC MYSTERY E. H. Corbould.

THE OLD MANSION HOUSE

THE POOR AT HIS GATE

A STAG HUNT .

A HAWKING PARTY. .

AN ANGLER'S MORNING.

THE TOURNAMENT . .

OLD ENGLISH PASTIMES-FENCING

CANTERBURY PILGRIMS.

W. Thomas

E. Wimperis.

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George Thomas.

H. Harral.

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Initial Letters and Ornaments designed by HARRY ROGERS and T. MACQUOID.

The Drawings by JOSEPH NASH, copied upon Wood by J. F. SKILL.

THE

MERRIE DAYS OF ENGLAND.

COTTAGE HOMES.

0000000000000 HERE are few, if any scenes in England
which are more fuggeftive of the "merrie"
days of the past, than the picturesque
villages which are to be met with in every
part of our country. Not only do they

convey to the mind pleasant pictures of rural life, of healthy occupations, of fimple pleasures, and contented minds; but they carry us back in imagination to the days when poets fang the charms of peafant life, and Spenfer told the loves of fhepherdeffes, and the wooings of "gentle herdfmen." Who has not been charmed with the fight of an English village, neftling amid the

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foliage of fome thickly wooded spot; its humble spire pointing with tapering finger to the clear blue heaven above; its ancient church marking the hallowed fpot beneath whofe bright green turf,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

As we look upon these "God's acres," and their " "mouldering heaps," we reflect that many a time and oft the occupants of thofe "narrow cells" had wended their way along thofe graffgrown walks, when the village chime fummoned them to their devout worship; or when, at the folemn tolling of the bell, stalwart men fobbed, and maidens wept, as they bade the last adieu to thofe alike "to fortune and to fame unknown."

It is fuch a village church that Mrs. Hemans describes in her graceful sonnet :

Crowning a flowery slope, it stood alone

In gracious sanctity. A bright rill wound,
Caressingly, about the holy ground;

And warbled with a never-dying tone
Amidst the tombs. A hue of ages gone

Seem'd, from that ivied porch, that solemn gleam,
Of tower and cross, pale-quivering on the stream,
O'er all th' ancestral woodlands to be thrown-
And something yet more deep. The air was fraught
With noble memories, whispering many a thought
Of England's fathers: loftily serene,
They that had toil'd, watch'd, struggled to secure,
Within such fabrics, worship free and pure,

Reign'd there, the o'ershadowing spirit of the scene.

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And of the humble dwellings that cluster round that venerable fabric, the fame writer has faid:

The cottage homes of England!

By thousands on her plains,

They are smiling o'er the silvery brooks,

And round the hamlet fanes.

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves ;

And fearless there the lowly sleep,

As the birds beneath their eaves.

These cottage homes, and the ivy-mantled tower of the village church, have not greatly changed by fashion or by time. They were reared in the days of "merrie England," and are not yet altogether fupplanted by model cottages. Darwin's pretty sketch of a rustic dwelling in the laft.century, compared with the description of Miss Mitford of the prettieft cottage in "Our Village,” will show how little has been the change which a century has made.

The rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor,
Where ruddy children frolic round the door;
The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,
The shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke;
The bearded goat, with nimble eyes that glare
Through the long tissue of his hoary hair,
As with quick foot he climbs some ruined wall,
And crops the ivy which prevents its fall;
With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,
And form a picture to th' admiring sight.

"The prettiest cottage," fays Mifs Mitford, "on our village green, is the little dwelling of Dame Wilfon. It stands in