For in gone years they of my race
Had 'mong the hills their dwelling-place:
In an old mansion that doth stand

As in the heart of fairy land.

In the "merrie days of England" Lullingfworth was a scene of joyous feftivities, but Charles Mackay fays of it now

It is an ancient house.

Four hundred years ago

Men dug its basements deep,
And roof'd it from the wind;

And held within its walls

The joyous marriage feast,

The christening and the dance—

Four hundred years ago

They scoop'd and fill'd the moat,

Where now the rank weeds grow,

And water-lilies vie

In whiteness with the swans,

A solitary pair,

That float, and feed, and float
Beneath the crumbling bridge,
And past the garden wall.

Four hundred years ago
They planted trees around,
To shield it from the sun;
And still those oaks and elms,
The patriarchs of the world,
Extend their sturdy boughs
To woo the summer breeze :
The old house ivy grown,
Red, green, and mossy gray,

Still lifts its gables quaint;
And in the evening sun

Its windows, as of yore,

Still gleam with ruddy light,
Reflected from the west.

Clofely resembling, by the intereft they excite and the pleafing affociations with which they are connected, are the few road-fide inns that may ftill be seen in fome parts of the country. The screaming locomotive now hurries along with its eager crowd of pleasure-feekers, or its care-worn worshippers of Mammon, high up on lofty embankments, or low down in deep cuttings or darksome tunnels;—fields, trees, manfions, abbeys, castles, are passed; but what knows or cares those helpless, train-bound throngs of the charms or beauties of those rural scenes, as they haften to the dreary stucco terminus. to which they are booked? The village and the wayfide inn are deferted ;-happily, however, fome few of them are rescued from total oblivion by fuch defcriptions as that of the May-pole, by Charles Dickens, in his ftory of "Barnaby Rudge:"

"The May-pole was an old building with more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a funny day; huge zigzag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes imparted to it in its tortuous progrefs. The place was faid to have been built in the days of King Henry the Eighth; and there was a legend not only that Queen Elizabeth had slept there

one night while upon a hunting excurfion, but that next morning, while standing on a mounting-block before the door, with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. The Maypole was really an old house, a very old house. Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices; its floors were funken and uneven; its ceilings blackened by the hand of time and heavy with matlive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely carved. With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's fkin; the sturdy timber had decayed like teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapped its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls."

THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN.

0000000 000000 HOSE who dwelt in the ancient manfions. of England were a clafs of men proverbial for their hospitality. The finest sketch we have of an old English gen

tleman is that which Chaucer has drawn of the Franklin who formed one of the troop of Canterbury pilgrims. The Franklin was one who ufually held the office of fheriff and knight of the fhire; he difpenfed gratuitously among the people on his estate a rude patriarchal justice; he

was ever hofpitable, and gave a generous and cordial welcome to all who approached him. When he appeared in public, he wore a furcoat of red lined with blue, with bars or stripes of fringe or lace, a small blue hat, turned up at the edges, and black boots; and-but Chaucer muft himself introduce his inimitable type of an old English gentleman

White was his beard as is the daièsy,

Of his complexion he was sanguíne;

Well lov'd he by the morrow a sop in wine.
To liven in delight was ever his wone,*

For he was Epicurus' owen son;

That held opinion that plain delight

Was verily felicity parfite.

A householder, and that a great was he;

Saint Julian he was in his country,

His bread, his ale was always after one:
A better envínèd † man was no where none.
Withouten bak'd meat never was his house,
Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous;
It snowèd, in his house, of meat and drink,
Of alle dainties that men could of think,
After the sundry seasons of the year :
So changed he his meat and his suppére.
Full many a fat partridge had he in mew,
And many a bream and many a luce ‡ in stew.
Woe was his cook, but if his sauce were
Poignant and sharp, and ready all his gear.
His table dormant in his hall alway,
Stood ready cover'd all the longe day.

At sessions there was he lord and sire;
Full oftentime he was knight of the shire.
An anelace, § and a gipcire || all of silk,
Hung at his girdle, white as morrow milk.
A sheriff had he been, and a countour,
Was no where such a worthy vavasour.

In Knight's "Cabinet Pictures of English Life," the Franklin is thus drawn :

"Over all the perfons on his eftate,-harvest-men, ploughdrivers, fhepherds, carters, fwineherds, labourers of all claffes,—

Pike.

Custom.

Good store of wine.

§ A knife worn at the belt.

|| A purse.