for our churchyard is a wonderful pretty place, and it seems sometimes-though that's all nonsense to be sure-but it does seem as if I couldn't rest my dead bones so quiet-like anywhere else. Dunkenfield is not a very grand place, any way; nor a very bustling place. It lays in a flat sort of country, and away from any turnpike roads; so that we don't see much of the world and its goings on. Every one to his taste. I like it all the better for that; but my cousin Thomas, who lives in a great town a good many miles off, wonders how I can bear it. The people of Dunkenfield are, most of them, working people. Setting aside the clergyman and his lady, we are all pretty much given to wearing smock frocks and nailed boots-the men part of us, that is; and the women part don't, in general, wear silk gowns and veils and kid gloves, nor yet carry parasols. We are none the worse for that, and none the better, perhaps; for I reckon there's often as much pride under fustian and plain cotton stuff as under broadcloth and silk. I expect that human nature is pretty much the same all the world over, and whether a man's rich or poor. There are a few stout old farm-houses in Dunkenfield; but setting aside them and the parsonage, all the rest of the houses except one are cottages for poor people; and poor places enough they are, some of them. But there is one house, as I said, that is reckoned a grand sort of place; and 'tis about that house that my story is to be. Not so much about the house, either, as about them that I have known to live in it. Not but what the house itself would be worth telling of, if people knew its history. A strange, thick-walled, rambling old place it is, with oaken floors and stairs, and carved work all about the walls and ceilings. Pleasant grounds there are round it, too. When I was a boy, I remember the garden-a part of it, at least-was full of yew trees, cut in queer shapes to look like men and women and peacocks, and other matters of that sort. But they were grubbed up long ago, and the garden is like other gardens now. But the old house, as I was saying, has been inhabited by more families than one since I first knew it. The first that I remember anything about was an old gentleman and his housekeeper, and a gardener. That was all the family, and the house belonged to the gentleman himself. Captain Milbrook was his name. A strange old gentleman he was too. He had lived a longish time in foreign parts, it is likely, and had got ways about him that kept him pretty much at a distance from all the people round about. As to us village boys, it was a word and a blow with him, if ever any of us offended him; and the blow came first, the word afterwards. You may be sure that we always got out of his way whenever we saw him. We did not often see him though, nor did anybody else besides his two servants. He didn't get out in the daytime much; it was only at night that he was pretty sure to be abroad. As soon as dark set in, the captain used to put on an old cloak that reached down to his heels-a soldiery sort of cloak it was-and start off on his rambles. If the night was wet or stormy, so much the better for him; nothing could keep him in-doors at such times. Nobody knew why he had such a fancy for night walking, except that people did say the captain couldn't rest in bed quiet, a-thinking of the bloodshed he had witnessed, and in which he had had a share in his day. But I reckon that wasn't it. I fancy he was a little bit crazed, and no wonder, for after he was dead a dreadful mark of an old swordcut was found on his head. The sword must have gone right through his skull the doctor said, and it seemed a wonder that he could have liyed after it. A terrible profane old man the captain was, and a very great miser. He grudged every little expense, as if he was going to be ruined outright by it; and it was little good he ever did to Dunkenfield. And yet he was monstrous rich, and had no kith nor kin that he cared for. But it is not always such that do most good in the world. Well, there was neither sorrow nor joy when old Captain Milbrook died. But the people at Dunkenfield began to look out, and wonder who would live at the old house next. There was a great bustle in Dunkenfield only a few weeks after. Solomon tells us that "there's a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together." And it seemed as if the time for gathering stones together, and building them up, was come; for great alterations began to be made in the old house which, for twenty years or more, according to what was said, hadn't had so much as a new brick or tile upon it, though badly enough it wanted both. At any rate, the new people were not so fearful of spending money as old Captain Milbrook had been. It took some time to get the house in order, but it was done at last. Then came wagon-loads of furniture all the way from London, with servants to put it in place and take care of it. Soon afterwards, one fine summer's evening, a carriage, heavily laden with luggage, passed through Dunkenfield, and set down its passengers at the old house. The new family was come. Mr. Milbrook-that was the name of the new gentleman, and he was the nearest of kin to the old captain, I fancy-wasn't known by any one at Dunkenfield; for he had been on no very good terms with the old captain, and hadn't been near the place in the captain's lifetime. He was a middle-aged gentleman, very stern and distant in his ways, and had always lived in London till the property came to him. People wondered what he could see in the old house at Dunkenfield to make it his home, especially as he wasn't known by any of the gentry round about. But he did come; and as he employed a good many people, and lived in good style-very different from the old captainand spent his money pretty freely, the village people were glad of his coming. I was a biggish boy then, and I got into work at the old house as gardener's boy, and kept the place some years, so the change in the families at the old house did me good. Mr. Milbrook was a studious sort of man, and wasn't often seen about the place; but his lady was a busy and good kind of woman, and got soon to be liked by the poor people of Dunkenfield. She was a sort of doctoring lady, and was fond, I fancy, of making up drinks and pills and plasters. Any way, she was always ready to give advice and medicines to them that thought they wanted them; and it was said that her physic sometimes did as much good as the regular doctor's stuff. But, perhaps, it was the more nourishing food that used to go along with the physic. However that might be, the poor lady hadn't very good health herself; and, to my way of thinking then-and for the matter of that, I am pretty much of the same opinion now-she wasn't happy. There were three young people in this family; but only two of them lived always at home, in the old house at Dunkenfield. One of these was a young lady, Mr. and Mrs. Milbrook's only daughter: she was about twelve years old, may be, when the family first came to the place. The other was a boy, three or four years younger-Master May Milbrook-and a fine, bright-eyed boy he was. I took a liking to him the first time I saw him, and so did others; and whenever I think of him I feel a sort of sadness like. But I shall tell that part of the story presently. The other son-he was the oldest in the family -was kept pretty much at school for two or three years after Mr. Milbrook came to Dunkenfield; and after that he went to college-Oxford, I think they told me. He only came home in the holidays. Mr. Basil Milbrook was his name; and there's a story about him too, that I have a thought of telling. The young lady, Miss Lucy; she was a dear young creature, so mild and gentle and loving! She wouldn't have harmed a worm, nor given a crooked word or dark look to any living thing. If the poor people round liked Mrs. Milbrook well enough, they doted on Miss Lucy when they came to know her, and would have done anything almost to serve her. Leastways, I know that I would have gone through fire and water for her, only just to have had one of her bright thankful looks and pleasant, loving words. Poor dear Miss Lucy! I think I see her now; not like what she was when Isaw her last; but like when I first set eyes on her, as she played in and out in the shrubberies with her little brother May. Though there was plenty of money, I don't think there was much real happiness in that family. Mr. Milbrook had a good deal of the old captain's temper in him. He would be minded; and, right or wrong, when he had set his mind on a thing, it must be done; nothing would turn him. Every body that had to do with Mr. Milbrook somehow or other got to be afraid of him. The long and short of it is, he was a terrible tyrant over all his family. His own wife didn't dare oppose him in the slightest thing: I think she was more in dread of him than anybody else was; and, I take it, when a man, whether he be gentle or simple, as the saying is, carries it high, like that, over his wife, 'tis little domestic happiness there can be. As to the servants, they knew who they must mind, and who they needn't. Not but what they were obliged to be civil to their mistress; but when it came to be said to them, as it was too often, "There's only one master in this family, and you are to obey my orders first, and your mistress's afterwards," there couldn't be much respect for her. I take it, she was looked upon only as a sort of upper servant; and to my way of thinking, the poor lady was worse off than her servants, for they had the liberty, which she hadn't, of leaving their places when they had a mind. And they had a mind for that pretty regularly once a year, if not oftener. They were well fed, though, and well paid; but they couldn't stand the tight rein Mr. Milbrook kept on them. I dare say Mr. Milbrook loved his children; I haven't a doubt but he did; but he never showed it-to anybody's knowledge that lived in his house, that is. Or if he did show it, it was in an uncommon sort of way; but then he had ways of his own that were not like everybody's ways. And maybe his children loved him; but it wasn't with a fearless sort of love, by any manner of means. 'Tis a bad sign, I think, when a father's going away from home for a few days, on business or what not, is looked forward to with joy and rejoicing by those who ought not only to reverence and obey him, but also to cling to him with love and affection. There! I've got children of my and I do think it would make me wretched to hear them say to one another, on the sly:"Father's going away to-morrow; how happy we shall be while he's gone. I hope he won't come back again for a long, long time!" It would take away all my manhood, I know. And where there's that sort of feeling, I don't think it's altogether the poor children's fault. But there's a fault somewhere, that's certain. own; Well, it was just so in Mr. Milbrook's family, at any rate. Bless their little hearts! I could always tell by their looks when they came to walk or to play in the garden grounds, whether Miss Lucy's and Master May's father was at home or abroad, let alone what I heard them say to one another. When he was at home, they were so startled and timid; they seemed as if they didn't dare speak above a whisper; and if they were at play a little, and saw their father coming, they would leave off directly and steal away as if they had been guilty of some shocking bad action. And if he came upon them unawares, he used to speak so stern and sharp and quick, it was enough to make one's heart ache to hear it. It wasn't often, though, that Miss Lucy was caught playing, except it was to please her brother May; for she was kept very strict to her books and studies of one sort or other under a governess; and the governess was sure to be called to task if Miss Lucy had too much liberty given her. So I was told by them that lived in the house. As to Master May, his father was his schoolmaster at that time, and a dreadful hard one, I reckon; and terribly the poor boy was punished, I know, for I have seen it, if he didn't learn as he ought. I expect it set him against books and learning for ever after. But when Mr. Milbrook went away from home, as he used to do at times, then was the time for Master May to break loose: he wasn't like the same boy. And it was what happened at one of these times got him into sad trouble. I shall tell the story of it, as it was told to me at the time. There was, in Mr. Milbrook's library, a curious machine for electrifying, I think they called it; it had a great round wheel made of glass, that used to turn with a handle, till it brought sparks out of people that touched it. I don't understand about it; but there it was. Well, one day, when Mr. Milbrook was away from home, Master May went into the library, all by himself, and hadn't been there many minutes before a great crash was heard by the housemaid; and she ran into the library to see what could be the matter. There stood poor little May, as white as a sheet; and there was this machine, down on the ground, and the great glass wheel smashed into a hundred bits. It doesn't matter, and if it did, I can't tell exactly what passed between Master May and Hesterthat was the servant's name. But it came to this at last, that to save the poor boy from the dreadful flogging he would be sure to get from his father, Hester would take the blame on herself, and say that she threw down the machine in trying to dust it. This of course was very wrong; but the first wrong was, to my way of thinking, in the boy being made so afraid of his father as to be driven, by his very dread, to fall in with such a wicked way of getting out of trouble. After all, Hester had to persuade poor little May a long time before he would consent to it; and 'twas only because he hadn't a bit of hope that his father would forgive him, if he humbled himself ever so much, or begged and prayed ever so hard, that he gave in at last. As to his mother, poor May knew well enough that she had no power to help him or to save him from punishment. You may think how terrified the boy was all the time after that till his father came home. As to Hester, she went about her work as usual. She was a stout-hearted sort of girl, and didn't mind hard words so much as some. "He won't flog me, any way, I reckon," she said to herself; "and I don't like the house nor its ways, and may as well lose my place one way as another." And it is true enough, she did mean to leave; so, according to her way of thinking then, it was all one whether she was turned away for an accident, or left of her own accord. But Mr. Milbrook wasn't the sort of man to be deceived so easily; and it did not end at all as Hester had laid out that it should. He staid from home longer than was expected; but he returned at last, and hadn't been an hour in the house before all the servants were called into the library, where they found Mr. Milbrook with his lady, and Miss Lucy and Master May. I should say that nobody had been told, or knew anything about the accident but Hester and the poor little boy; for the library was a room that Mrs. Milbrook scarcely ever thought of going into, and the servants had no business there. By all accounts, Mr. Milbrook was half beside himself with anger; and it wasn't long before he began to ask all round, who had done the mischief. Everybody denied any knowledge of it till it came to Hester; and then, as boldly as she could, she said, yes, it was she who did it; and went on to say that going into the room to draw down a blind, she saw that the machine was covered with dust: any way, she tried to make out a story about it that she thought her master would believe. But it wouldn't do. As generally happens in such cases, it didn't hold together well; and one way or other, when questions were put to the girl, she contradicted herself; so that not only Mr. Milbrook, but everybody else, thought that she had gone into the room for some dishonest purpose, and had thrown down the machine in trying to get at some drawers that it stood near, where her master kept different sorts of curiosities. Go and fetch the constable," Mr. Milbrook said, in his stern way, to the footman. At this turn in the affair the poor girl turned pale. She didn't fear that anything could be proved against her, but it is likely she dreaded losing her character. Master May had been, all along, in a shiver like. He had said he didn't know anything about the accident, only that Hester had told him she had done it; but he wasn't used to falsehood, and besides he didn't know how it might end. So as soon as his father said, "Go and fetch the constable," and when he saw Hester's pale face, he couldn't restrain himself any longer: he couldn't bear to think that another was to be sent to prison, perhaps, for what he had done. So he came forward, and out with all the truth. What happened after this nobody ever seemed to have a right knowledge of. The poor boy had scarce finished his story, however, before there was a terrible shriek from him, and he fell to the ground, struck senseless by a dreadful heavy blow. The maid-servants shrieked too; and the poor mother sank into a chair, and turned as pale as death. Little Lucy was the only one that showed any sense. She ran to her father, and laid hold on his arm, and looked him in the face bold and brave. "Papa," she said, "do you know what you are about? Do you mean to kill my brother ?" "No," he said; and they that heard him said that he ground his teeth like a madman. "No, Lucy; I won't kill him, though he deserves itthe liar! But go to your room, Lucy; it is not fit you should be here; and take your mother with you, if she has sense enough to know what she is about." But Lucy wouldn't go. "I must not go, papa," she said; "and I will not leave this room till you promise me not to strike my poor brother again." And she stooped down and tried to raise him in her arms. But he was stunned, poor boy, and the blood was trickling down his face. I expect that Mr. Milbrook was ashamed of his passion then, and he gave the promise. But he didn't promise that the punishment should end there; and it didn't. I don't know how long it was that Master May was shut up, and kept on bread and water; but it was a longish time. But that wasn't the worst. When he was let go about again, it was with a card fastened on to him, bearing the word LIAR, in great big staring letters, upon it. Nobody dared to take it off, nor yet to show pity to the poor boy. As to Hester, she was turned away at once, without a character; but she soon got another place, for the story came to be known, and everybody was crying out against Mr. Milbrook. 1 suppose he mightn't have known of that; but, if he had, he wouldn't have cared for what people said. But poor May, from that time, wasn't the same boy. He felt the disgrace, and became hardened like. I don't believe he cared, after that, for any thing his father did to him. At last he was sent to school, and everybody about was glad for the poor boy's sake that he was. We thought he would pluck up spirit again there. And so he did, maybe; but not the right sort of spirit. He seemed, by all accounts, to have been made desperate, and didn't care what he did or what came to him. Well, after three or four years he came home again, for the first time. He hadn't been allowed to come home for the holidays till then. His father's heart seemed to have been turned against him. Perhaps it wasn't. Mr. Milbrook might have thought he was doing for the best, and might have felt more than he liked to show. Any way that was part of the punishment for the lie; and it was of no use for the poor sorrowful mother, no, nor yet sweet Miss Lucy, to try to alter his father's mind. But dear, dear! what an alteration there was in the boy when he did come home! His bright sparkling eyes were all that were left to know him by, and they seemed now to sparkle with pride and scorn, instead of good humour as they used to do. He had grown, too, to be tall; but so pale and thin he was, and weakly! And the worst of it was, he had lost his love for home, if he ever had it. The memory of his disgrace stuck to him, that was plain, and chilled his heart -turned it to ice, like. "I can't bear this place," he said to me one day, when I was at work on the grounds, and nobody else was near. "I can't bear the place "he stamped on the ground as he said it: "I wonder you can stop here, and work on and on, as you do, when you might get away and never see it again." I said I had a very good place; and so I had, for I was raised to be a sort of under gardener. Mr. Milbrook was proud of his garden, and kept two men always at work. It was he who had the yew-trees grubbed up. Well, I said mine was a good place, and I wasn't tired of it, and didn't want to throw it up. 'Well," he said, "you may be right, and it may be a good thing for you to think as you do. But, if it wasn't for my poor mother and Lucy, I would leave it to-morrow, ay, to-night;" and he set his teeth close together as he spoke, and elenched his hands in a desperate sort of way; "ay, to-night, if I had to go bare-foot and without a penny to help me on the road!" Those were May Milbrook's very words; and they were the last words I heard him speak more than twenty years afterwards. should suggest to poetic minds images and modes of expression such as have found embodiment hundreds of times before. We should be more surprised if such were not the case. An instance of this has just met our eye, which will show that even the "myriad-minded" Shakspeare has been forestalled in that most justly celebrated passage of his on the "seven ages" of man : "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; Now, without wishing to hint a surmise of plagiar- To appreciate fully the force of the passage, it may be necessary to premise that theatres in ancient times were open during the day, and that the performers wore masks: "The rich man died, and was buried; Lazarus also departed-for I would not say died. The rich man's death was indeed a death and burial; but the poor man's death was a departure, a removal to a better world, a passing from the arena to the prize, from the sea to the haven, from the line of battle to the trophy, from toils to the crown. They both departed to the scenes of truth and reality. The theatre was closed, and the masks were laid aside. For as in a theatre disguises are used at midday, and many appear on the stage acting a borrowed part, with masks on their faces, reciting a story of ancient times, and representtilling deeds of other days; and one comes forward as a philosopher, not a philosopher in reality,-another a king, though not a king, but only assuming a royal appearance on account of the part he is to perform,— another is a physician, but has only a physician's dress,-another is a slave, who is really a free man,another a teacher, while yet he knows not his letters; none of them are such as they appear to be, but are what they appear not. For one appears a physician who is not a physician, or a philosopher having his hair under his mask, or a soldier having only a soldier's dress. The aspect of the mask deceives; nature, however, the reality of which seems to be transferred, is not belied. So long as the delighted spectators keep their seats, the masks remain; but when evening comes on, and the performance is ended, and all leave the place, the masks are taken off, and he who on the stage was a king, is out of the theatre nothing but a brazier. The masks are laid aside, the deception vanishes, the reality appears. He who within was a freeman, is found without to be a slave; for, as I said, within is deception, without is the reality. The even ing overtook them, the play was ended, the truth made its appearance. So it is in life, and at its close. The present state of things is a theatrical show; the business of men a play; wealth and poverty, the ruler and the subject, and such like things are representa. tions. But when the day shall have passed, then that SHAKSPEARE ANTICIPATED. THE most original and creative minds have not always been able to escape the charge of imitation or positive plagiarism. Sometimes, however, great injustice has been inflicted upon the reputation of men of genius, by imputations of literary theft, in cases where a candid judgment would be able only to detect those parallelisms of thought and resemblances of illustration which must inevitably occur from time to time among the children of song. Even the lapse of ages and the separations of lands far asunder afford no guarantee against this reproduction of old ideas, or the simultaneous employment of the same train of thought. Like causes will, under similar circumstances, produce like effects; and it is by no means wonderful, therefore, that the same human life, with its everold and ever-new aspects; the same social customs; the same pursuits of war, fame, ambition, gain, piety, or usefulness; the same changeful seasons, bounteous nature, beaming stars, and burning sun, |