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THE SYCAMORE AT ELLERAY,

North. O sweetest and shadiest of all Sycamores-
Registrar. Incurable.

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North. -we love thee beyond all other Trees-because thou art here!1 May we be buried below thee, and our coffin clasped by thy roots-" and curst be he who stirs our bones!" Registrar. Again-our bones. Indeed there is little else of him now. The anatomie vivante would find it difficult to be much more of a skeleton were he a corpse. Yet he is a true Scotchman-for his bones are raw. Could it be as tradition reports that he was once inclining to corpulency-"like two single gentlemen rolled into one !" All the fat has melted

in the fire of his genius,-gone "like snaw aff a dyke "—and the dyke itself a rickle o' stanes ! " 2

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North. Yet have we lived, all our lives, in the best sylvan society-we have the entrée of the soirées of the Pines, the Elms, the Ashes, and the Oaks, the oldest and highest families in Britain.

Registrar. The old Tory! Aristocratical in his dwawms! North. Nor have they disdained to receive us with open arms, when, after having been "absent long and distant far," we have found them again, on our return to park or chase, as stately as ever among the groups of deer!

Registrar. In Mar Forest-with the Thane.

North. But with this one single Tree-this sole sweet Sycamore—are we in love. Yet so spiritual is our passion, that we care not even if it be unreturned !

Registrar. In the Platonics.

North. Self-sufficient for its own happiness is our almost life-long affection, pure as it is profound-no jealousy ever disturbs its assured repose. SHE may hold dalliance with all the airs and lights and shadows of heaven-may open her bosom to the thunder-glooms-take to her inmost heart, in its delirious madness, the shivering storm.

Registrar. Who could have thought there was so much. imagination left within those temples

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"His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare!"

1 That is, at Elleray, Professor Wilson's seat on the banks of Windermere. Here he built a commodious house; but the original "cottage" was overshadowed by a luxuriant sycamore, of which he is now dreaming.

2 A rickle o' stanes-a heap of stones.

3 Lyart haffets-grey-haired temples.

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THE SELFISHNESS OF LOVE.

North. Oh! blessed is the calm that breathes over all emotions inspired by the beauty of lifeless things! Love creates delight that dies not till she dies; and then, indeed, dead seems all the earth. But wherever Love journeys-ay, be it through the Great Desert-before her feet "Beauty pitches her tents." And oh! how divine their slumber-of Love in the arms of Beauty-by the Palm-tree Well!

Registrar. What a pity the creature never wrote in verse! North. Alas! not so with Love- when Love, a male spirit

Registrar. That's heterodox, old boy-seraphs are of no

sex.

North. -is in love with the fairness of a Thing with life

Registrar. A Thing with life!

North.how often is the imagination alarmed, as by the tolling of a bell in the air for some unknown funeral; and while it knows not why, the whole region, even but now bathed in day, grows night-like! and the heart is troubled.

Registrar. Ay, ay-my dear friend, I too have felt that, for, gay as I am, North, to the public eye, you know, Kit, that I have had my sorrows.

North. That virgin, Heaven may have decreed, shall be the wife of your dearest foe. O! the cruel selfishness of Love's religion! That fear is worse than the thought even of her death! Rather than see her walking all in white, and with white roses in her hair, into the church, leaning on that arm, her fair face crimsoning with blushes at the altar, as if breathed from the shadow of a rosy cloud, Love would see her carried, all in white, with white roses in her hair then too, towards that hole in the churchyard—a hole into which distraction has crowded and heaped all that is most dismal on this side of hell-her pale face-though that he dares not dream of yellowing within her coffin.

Registrar. Nay, that's too much-hang me if I can stand that ne quid nimis, North-and for having made me blubber, you shall have your face freshened, my lad, with the Woodburn.

[Runs down to the Wood-burn, fills his hat to the brim, and dashes the contents into the face of the Dormant.

North (starting up in a splutter). Whew! a water-spout! a

A WATER-SPOUT. THE FAIRY'S CLEUGH.

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water-spout! Sam! Sam! Sam! Where are you, First

Samuel?

Registrar. What's all this?

North. A mystery, Sam. Not a cloud in the sky—yet, look here

Registrar. A mystery indeed! Never till this day beheld I the beau-ideal of a drowned rat.

North (musing). There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Samuel.

Registrar. My philosophy! I make no pretensions to philosophy-but won't you walk into the Tent, and change yourself, sir?

North. A Scotticism, Sam, a palpable Scotticism. No-I will never change myself; but to the last be Christopher North. Ah, Sam! I am up to your tricks; but was it kind— was it fair, to steal upon my slumbers so, and take advantage of my sleeping innocence? "I had a dream, yet 'twas not all a dream." I thought I was at Windermere, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, and that for me, and for me alone, "Jocund Morn

Stood tiptoe on yon rosy mountain's head."

Registrar. And here we are in the Fairy's Cleugh, among the mountains of

North. Peeblesshire, Dumfriesshire, Lanarkshire, for here all three counties get inextricably entangled; yet in their pastoral peace they quarrel not for the dominion of this nook, central in the hill-heart, and haunted by the Silent People.

Registrar. You do not call us silent people! Why, you outtalk a spinning-jenny, and the mill-clapper stops in despair at the volubility of your speech.

North. Elves, Sam-Elves. Is it not the Fairy's Cleugh? Registrar. And here have been "little feet that print the ground." But I took them for those of hares—

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North. These, Sam, are not worm-holes-nor did Mole the miner upheave these pretty little pyramids of primroses-for these, Sam, are all Fairy palaces, and yonder edifice that towers above the Lady-Fern therein now sleeps - let us speak low, and disturb her not-the Fairy Queen, waiting for the moonlight-and soon as the orb shows her rim rising from behind Birk-fell—away to the ring will she be gliding with all the ladies of her Court

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THE FAIRY'S BURIAL.

Registrar. And we will join the dance-Kit

North. Remember-then-that I am engaged to

Registrar. So am I-three-deep.

North. Do you know, Sam, that I dreamed a dream?

Registrar. You cannot keep a secret, for you blab in your sleep.

North. Ay-both talk and walk. But I dreamed that I saw a Fairy's funeral, and that I was myself a fairy.

Registrar. A warlock.

North. No-a pretty little female fairy, not a span long. Registrar. Ha! ha! ha!

North. And they asked me to sing her dirge, and then I sang—for sorrow in sleep, Sam, is sometimes sweeter than any joy-ineffably sweet—and thus comes back wavering into my memory the elegiac strain.

THE FAIRY'S BURIAL.

Where shall our sister rest?
Where shall we bury her?
To the grave's silent breast
Soon we must hurry her!
Gone is the beauty now

From her cold bosom !
Down droops her livid brow,
Like a wan blossom!

Not to those white lips cling
Smiles or caresses!
Dull is the rainbow wing,

Dim the bright tresses!

Death now hath claimed his spoil-
Fling the pall over her!
Lap we earth's lightest soil,
Wherewith to cover her!

Where down in yonder vale
Lilies are growing,
Mourners the pure and pale,

Sweet tears bestowing!
Morning and evening dews

Will they shed o'er her;
Each night their task renews
How to deplore her!

AN UNSEASONABLE INTERRUPTION.

Here let the fern-grass grow,
With its green drooping!
Let the narcissus blow,

O'er the wave stooping!

Let the brook wander by,

Mournfully singing!

Let the wind murmur nigh,

Sad echoes bringing!

And when the moonbeams shower,

Tender and holy,

Light on the haunted hour

Which is ours solely,

Then will we seek the spot
Where thou art sleeping,

Holding thee unforgot

With our long weeping!

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Ambrose (rushing out of the Tent). Mr Tickler, sirs, Mr Tickler! Yonder's his head and shoulders rising over the knollin continuation of his herald the rod.

North (savagely). Go to the devil, sir.

Ambrose (petrified). Ah! ha! ha! ah! si-sir-pa-pa— pard

North (unmollified). Go to the devil, I say, sir. Are you deaf? Ambrose (going, going, gone). I beseech you, Mr Registrar

North (grimly). "How like a fawning publican he looks!" Registrar. A most melancholy example of a truth I never believed before, that poetical and human sensibility are altogether distinct-nay, perhaps, incompatible! North, forgive me (North grasps the Crutch); but you should be ashamed of yourself-nay, strike, but hear me !

North (smiling after a sort). Well-Themistocles.

Registrar. You awaken out of a dream-dirge of Faëry Land-where you, by force of strong imagination, were a female fairy, not a span long-mild as a musical violet, if one might suppose one, "by a mossy stone half-hidden from the eye," inspired with speech.

North. I feel the delicacy of the compliment.

Registrar. Then you feel something very different, sir, I assure you, from what I intended, and still intend, you shall feel; for your treatment of my friend Mr Ambrose was shocking.

North. I declare on my conscience, I never saw Ambrose !

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