atmosphere of my own land.

the flying showers which so

I love to see

often visit us

at this season of the year, and watch the fantastic shapes and motions of the everchanging clouds heightening the effect of Nature's panorama.

J. But do you not, at times, find the hours pass heavily in your retreat ?

S. Never when the weather absolutely defies me to walk abroad, I have abundance of occupation within doors; good companions who have cheered me in hours of sadness and monitors even for the grey head.

Like

"O Rus, quando ego te aspiciam ?”

but not that I might doze away my life in dreamy apathy and uselessness,-I was always an enemy to

"The ministre and the norice unto vices

Which that men clepe in English idelnesse;"

nor that I might altogether shun the society

of my fellow-men. It has been well remarked that solitude reigns supreme in the greatest cities, "for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love."

J. This love of a country life is after all, I believe, inherent, and scarcely to be acquired.

S. Perhaps you are right; in my case it is so, for my father loved the country as I do, and like me was an angler. An old farmer, one of my neighbours, says, "Talk o' music, there's nothing like two flails and a cuckoo!" Now, though I am not quite of the same mind, I confess, that sounds like those are to me sweet music.

"Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore

The tone of languid Nature."

The notes which come from barn and mill

have a peculiar charm for my ear. Yes, even

when a boy, long ere I had the strength to cast

a fly,

“I loved the brimming wave that swam

Through quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,
The pool beneath it never still,
The meal sacks on the whitened floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal."

But here is our village Church. Is not this a quiet spot,-good anchorage for a stormtossed spirit?

J. Such nooks are only to be seen in England: I know of nothing to compare with them.

S. This is one of my most favourite spots. When a younger man I once caught myself, while lounging here, uttering thoughts which ran somewhat in this strain:

When I am dead let me not buried lie
Where the world's hubbub sounds continually ;
No funeral pomp, no marble tomb I crave,
A simple slab alone shall mark my grave;
Robin's sweet note my only dirge shall be,
My epitaph the good man's memory.