cottage a proud Socinian curate studied | right line,) an old-fashioned rectangular and prayed himself, greatly against his park, that of the Throckmortons will, into one of the soundest Calvinists about half a mile in breadth by about of modern times: it was for many years three quarters of a mile in length. The the dwelling-place of Thomas Scott; and sides of the inclosure are bordered by his well-known narrative, "The Force a broad belting of very tall and very of Truth," forms a portion of his history ancient wood; its grassy area is mottled during the time he lived in it. The road by numerous trees, scattered irregularly; I had just travelled over with the woman its surface partakes of the general slope; was that along which John Newton had it is traversed by a green valley, with a come, in the January of 1774, to visit, in small stream trotting along the bottom, one of these cottages, two of Scott's that enters it from above, nearly about parishioners,—a dying man and woman; the middle of the upper side, and that and the Socinian, who had not visited then, cutting it diagonally, passes outthem, was led to think seriously for the wards and downwards towards the Ouse first time, that he had a duty as a clergy- through the lower corner. About the man, which he failed to perform. It was middle of the park this valley sends out along the same piece of road, some three an off-shoot valley, or dell rather, toyears later, that Scott used to steal, when wards that upper corner furthest removed no longer a Socinian, but still wofully from the corner by which it makes its exit; afraid of being deemed a Methodist, to the off-shoot dell has no stream at the hear Newton preach. bottom, but is a mere grassy depression, dotted with trees. It serves, however, with the valley into which it opens, so to break the surface of the park, that the rectangular formality of the lines of boundary almost escape notice. Now, the walk described in "The Task" lay along three of the four sides of this parallelogram. The poet, quitting the Olney-road at the lower corner where the diagonal valley finds egress, struck up along the side of the park, turned at the nearer upper corner, and passed through the belting of wood that runs along the top; turned again at the further upper corner, and coming down on Weston, joined the Olney-road, just where it enters the village. After first quitting the highway, a walk of two furlongs or so brought him abreast of the "Pheasant's Nest;" after the first turning a-top, and a walk of some two or three furlongs more, he descended into the diagonal valley, just where it enters the park, crossed the rustic bridge which spans the stream at the bottom, marked the doings of the mole, and then ascended to the level on the other side. Near the second turning he found the alcove, and saw the trees in the streamless dell, as if "sunk, and shortened to their topmost boughs;" then coming down upon Weston, he passed under the My old woman had now pretty nearly scattered over the neighbourhood her basket of herrings; but she needed, she said, just to look in upon her grandchildren, to say she was going to the Woodlands, lest the poor things should come to think they had lost her; and I accompanied her to the cottage. It was a humble, low-roofed hut, with its earthen floor sunk, as in many of our Scottish cottages, a single step below the level of the lane. Her grandchildren, little girls of seven and nine years, were busily engaged with their lace-bobbins: the younger was working a piece of narrow edging, for her breadth of attainment in the lace department extended as yet over only a few threads; whereas the elder was achieving a little belt of open work, with a pattern in it. They were orphans, and lived with their poor grandmother, and she was a widow. We regained the street, and then, passing through a dilapidated gateway, entered the pleasuregrounds, the scene of the walk so enchantingly described in the opening book of "The Task." But before taking up in detail the minuter features of the place, I must attempt communicating to the reader some conception of it as a whole. The road from Olney to WestonUnderwood lies parallel to the valley of the Ouse, at little more than a field's breadth up the slope. On its upper side, just where it enters Weston, there lies based upon it (like the parallelogram of a tyro geometrician, raised on a given 66 light and graceful arch" of the ancient avenue; reached the " Wilderness" as he was nearing the village; and, emerging from the thicket full upon the houses, saw the "thrasher at his task," through the open door of some one of the barns Q of the place. Such is a hard outline, in road-map fashion, of the walk which, in the pages of Cowper, forms such exquisite poetry. I entered it somewhat unluckily to day at the wrong end, commencing at the western corner, and passing on along its angles to the corner near Olney-thus reversing the course of Cowper, for my old woman had no acquaintance with "The Task," or the order of its descriptions; but after mastering the various scenes in detail, I felt no difficulty in restoring them to the integrity of the classic arrangement. On first entering the park, among the tall forest-trees that, viewed from the approach to Olney, seem to overhang the village and its church, one sees a square, formal corner, separated from the opener ground by a sunk dry-stone fence, within which the trees, by no means lofty, are massed as thickly together as saplings in a nursery-bed run wild, or nettles in a neglected burying-ground. There are what seem sepulchral urns among the thickets of this inclosure; and sepulchral urns they are, raised, however, to commemorate the burial-places, not of men, but of beasts. Cowper, in 1792, wrote an epitaph for a favourite pointer of the Throckmortons; and the family, stirred up by the event, seem from that period to have taken a dog-burying bias, and to have made their Wilderness the cemetery; for this square inclosure in the corner, with its tangled thickets and its green mouldy urns, is the identical Wilderness of "The Task," "Whose well-roll'd walks, With curvature of slow and easy sweep,Deception innocent,-give ample space To narrow bounds." One wonders at the fortune that assigned to so homely and obscure a corner,-a corner which a nursery-gardener could get up to order in a fortnight, -so proud and conspicuous a niche in English literature. We walk on, however, and find the scene next described greatly more worthy of the celebrity conferred on it. In passing upwards, along the side of the park, we have got into a noble avenue of limes, tall as York Minster, and very considerably longer, for the vista diminishes till the lofty arch seems reduced to a mere doorway; the smooth, glossy trunks form stately columns, and the branches, interlacing high over head, a magnificent roof: "How airy and how light the graceful arch, What exquisite description! And who, acquainted with Cowper, ever walked in a wood when the sun shone, and the wind ruffled the leaves, without realizing it! It was too dead a calm to-day to show me the dancing light and shadow where the picture had first been taken. The feathery outline of the foliage lay in diluted black, moveless on the grass, like the foliage of an Indian ink-drawing newly washed in; but all else was present, just as Cowper had described half a century before. Two minutes' walk, after passing through the avenue, brought me to the upper corner of the park, and "the proud alcove that still crown it. But time, and the weather, crowns it," for the "proud alcove" does and rotting damps seem to be working double tides on the failing pile, and it will not crown it long. The alcove is a somewhat clumsy erection of wood and in front, of a hybrid order between the plaster, with two squat wooden columns Tuscan and Doric, and a seat within. A crop rished by the damp summer, had shot up of dark-coloured mushrooms, chealong the joints of the decaying floor; the plaster, flawed and much stained, dangled from the ceiling in numerous little bits, suspended, like the sword of old, by single hairs; the broad, deal architrave had given way at one end, but the bolt at the other still proved true; and so it hung diagonally athwart the two columns, like the middle bar of a gigantic letter N. The "characters uncouth" of the "rural carvers" are, however, still legible; and not a few names have since been added. This upper corner of the park forms its highest ground, and the view is very fine. The streamless dell,- not streamless always, however, for the poet describes the urn of its little Naïad as filled in winter,-lies immediately in front, and we see the wood within its hollow recesses, as if "sunk, and shortened to the topmost boughs." The green, undulating surface of the park, still more deeply grooved in the distance by the diagonal valley, and mottled with trees, stretches away beyond to the thick belting of tall wood below. There is a wide opening, just where the valley opens,-a great gap in an immense hedge that gives access to the further landscape; the decent spire of John Newton's church rises, about two miles away, as the central object in the vista thus formed; we see in front a few silvery reaches of the Ouse, and a blue uneven line of woods, that runs along the horizon, closes in the prospect. The nearer objects within the pale of the park, animate and inanimate the sheepfold and its sheep, the hay-wains, empty and full, as they pass and repass to and from the hay-field—the distinctive characters of the various trees, and their shortened appearance in the streamless valley,-occupy by much the larger part of Cowper's description from the alcove; while the concluding five lines afford a bright, though brief, glimpse of the remoter prospect, as seen through the opening. But I must not withhold the description itself, at once so true to nature, and so instinct with poetry,familiar as it must prove to the great bulk of my readers: "Now roves the eye; And, posted on this speculative height, The loaded wain; while, lighten'd of its charge, trunks Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. O'er these, but far beyond (a spacious map Quitting the alcove, we skirt the top of the park of the Throckmortons, on a retired grassy walk that runs straight as a tightened cord along the middle of the belting which forms the park's upper boundary,-its inclosing hedge, if I may so speak without offence to the dignity of the ancient forest-trees which compose it. There is a long line of squat, broadstemmed chestnuts on either hand, that fling their interlacing arms athwart the pathway, and bury it, save where here and there the sun breaks in through a gap, in deep shade; but the roof overhead, unlike that of the ancient avenue already described, is not the roof of a lofty nave in the light florid style, but of a low-browed, thickly-ribbed Saxon crypt, flanked by ponderous columns, of dwarfish stature but gigantic strength. And this double tier of chestnuts, extended along the park-top from corner to corner, is the identical "length of colonnade" eulogized by Cowper in "The Task:" "Monument of ancient taste, Now scorn'd, but worthy of a better fate, Half-way on we descend into the diagonal valley," but cautious, lest too fast," -just where it enters the park from the uplands, and find at its bottom the "rustic bridge." It was rustic when at its best, an arch, of some four feet span or so, built of undressed stone, fenced with no parapet, and covered overhead by a green breadth of turf; and it is now both rustic and ruinous to boot,-for onehalf the arch has fallen in. The stream is a mere sluggish runnel, much overhung by hawthorn bushes: there are a good many half-grown oaks scattered about in the hollow; while on either hand the old, massy chestnuts top the acclivities. Leaving the park at the rustic bridge, by a gap in the fence, my guide and I struck onwards through the valley, towards the uplands. We had left, on crossing the hedge, the scene of the walk in "The Task;" but there is no getting away in this locality from Cowper. The first field we stepped into, " adjoining close to Kilwick's echoing wood," is that described in the "Needless Alarm ;" and we were on our way to visit "Yardley "A narrow brook, by rushy banks concealed, A Oak." The poet, conscious of his great graven on the mossy tombstones, and its wealth in the pictorial, was no niggard inquiet tune" sounds like some low dirge description; and so the field, though not for those who lie beneath the sods. very remarkable for anything, has had its little way from the river stands the picture drawn: church and the school-house, and the groups of white cottages, some of which peer out from among the green trees; and if they did not send their wreaths of smoke curling into the air, might lie unperceived by the traveller, who paces the road through the village. Neat little gardens, with rich roses, and fragrant jessamines trailing over walls and palings, and square beds fringed with crimson daisies, which border the larkspurs and columbines, or perhaps some rarer auricula or pansy, give a home-like look to the dwellings, and show that though the inmates of the cottages may labour, as man was appointed to do, in order to earn his daily bread, yet that he had time left for a pleasant recreation, and a heart alive to the beauties of nature. The "narrow brook" here is that which, passing downwards into the park, runs underneath the rustic bridge, and flows towards the Ouse, through the diagonal valley. The field itself, which lies on one of the sides of the valley, and presents rather a steep slope to the plough, has still its sprinkling of trees; but the oaks, with the oven-wood crests, have nearly all disappeared; and for the "gulf beside the thorn" I could find but a small oblong, steep-sided pond, half overshadowed by an ash-tree.-Abridged from Hugh Miller. THE FORGOTTEN VOWS. THERE is a retired valley lying among the hills in one of our northern counties, which has often been sung of by the poet, and to which the artist often travels in quest of the picturesque. The hills around it are not high enough to claim the name of mountains. Some of them are rich grassy slopes, which the sun and cloud chequer with light and shadow; others have the short thin grass of a less fertile soil, and are gay with the yellow flowers of the furze-bush, and sweet with the scent of wild thyme; with here and there some sturdy oak, which seems only to have grown the stronger, now that it has not the shelter of neighbouring trees. A river bounds along by woods and cornfields, at the foot of the hill-a blue and clear river, running onwards like the daily course of our lives, slowly and silently, as if it were to run on for ever. A beautiful stream it is, refreshing the grass and flowers as it wanders by them; at one moment seeming to dance gaily in the sunshine, and at the next, by its plaintive murmuring, seeming to sympathize with our feelings. When roaming by the churchyard of the village, we pause to look at the records of the past, Whether it is that the poets have dwelt so much on the innocence of people who reside in these rural solitudes, or whether the calmness and peacefulness of such scenes, so apart from the busy world, at once suggests the idea, yet it is certain that few look upon a lovely valley like this, without some vague notion, if not a more defined belief, that the cottagers are better than the dwellers in townsthat they are indeed a simple and innocent community. The man who well knows the world, tells us, that it needs not the crowds of the city to nourish some of the worst of vices; and the reader of Scripture at once suspects the truth of the picture which his own imagination would lead him to draw; for he has read of all men, whether in town or country, the same description,—" There is none that doeth good, no not one;" and he well knows that unless the grace of God has changed the natural heart of man, that the seeds of all sins may have been planted there, and be springing up as on a fertile soil. When bishop Heber looked on some of the loveliest scenes of India, he said, "Here every prospect pleases, And if the eye of the traveller could This little dwelling, though beautifully situated in the midst of trees, was not | no mother had spoken to them of the graced with a garden; it had no green love and fear of God; no father's authriving plants in its window, and it was thority might have restrained them from altogether less neat in its appearance vice. To them the commands of God, than most of the other cottages. Within and the offers of his mercy were alike its walls resided a man and woman of a unknown. The ills of life were theirs, wretched description. The man had a but what consolations had they? Guilty downcast sullen countenance, and was as he knew them to be, much as he himrather feared by his neighbours, although, self shrunk from the contamination of when sober, he seldom spoke to any of guilt; yet he reflected, that He who them. Some said that he had for many hated sin far more than mortal man can years been a smuggler, and various imagine, who looks upon iniquity with reports were whispered in the village, abhorrence,-He who "was holy, harmthat he had formerly been engaged in less, undefiled, separate from sinners;" some acts of guilt. Little, however, was yet even He loved and pitied the souls of really known of him, and the respectable the most hardened and the most vile, and neighbours neither sought his house nor entreated the most miserable sinners to held more than necessary communica- come to him to be washed from all their tion with him. The woman had a bold pollution. and defiant countenance. She seemed to have outlived all the delicacy and gentleness of the feminine character, and she was no less feared and shunned than the man; for her violent abuse of any who offended her, either intentionally or otherwise, prevented all from attempting any converse with her. There were several benevolent persons in this village, who were accustomed to visit their poorer neighbours when in sickness or distress, and who would go and read the Bible to them, and give or lend tracts. They were kind to them in every way; for, as we may generally see, those who attend most to the spiritual necessities of those around them, are the first also to administer to their present and daily temporal need. There are, certainly, many kind and benevolent persons, who, without having any religious motive for action, are generous and considerate for the poor, and whose hearts are full of compassion to them; but the love of God, once fully implanted in any heart, gives the fullest assurance that love to our neighbour will be one of its first-fruits. One of these tract-distributors had often felt much distressed at hearing of the wickedness of the people who dwelt in the cottage, which he could see from his own window. He knew that sin brings misery even now; but he thought still more of the misery of that future life in which sin must find its eternal punishment that dreadful state, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." He thought of them, not with anger, but with pity. He remembered that perhaps, in their childhood, It was in the spirit of his Lord and Master that this tract-distributor once determined to brave the insults of these wretched people, and strive to gain an opportunity of warning them of their sin and danger. He hoped that they would listen to him; and for this purpose he knocked at the door of the cottage. The door was half opened by the surly man, who rudely asked him what he wanted; and when the gentleman told him that he wished to have a little conversation with him, the woman came forward, and hastily shutting the door, desired him to be gone. As he passed away from the house, he heard the unhappy woman uttering threats and imprecations, of the most dreadful description, on the intruder; but if there was a feeling of sorrow, as he thought, of their hard-heartedness, there was, too, the approval of his conscience, that he had at least striven to do them good. Their blood would not be on his head. His conscience was clear respecting them; they would not be able to say of him, at the judgment-day, "No man cared for my soul." Years passed onwards, and these people remained apparently in the same condition, only that they were growing older in sin; when, early in the winter, both the man and woman were seized with sudden fever. The infectious nature of the disease, as well as the bad character of these cottagers, prevented those acts of kindness and sympathy in sickness which the poor are so frequently, so generally, found ready to offer to each other. These poor people were daily attended by the parish doctor, but few |