8 Chit-chat. 



Ay ; let the shutters be closed ; and the lights are cheerful. 

 How awfully the storm peals it over the woods ! 



Dov. I have often, when riding with you in the night, Von 

 Osdat, admired the unerring accuracy with which you have 

 named the trees, from their mere outline dimly marked 

 against the sky. 



Von Os. It was from an observation of yours I acquired 

 it ; that every tree had invariably its distinct physiognomical 

 character. 



Dov. I have nearly the same nicety of ear in that respect : 

 so that, sitting here, I can discriminate almost every sort of 

 tree, as it is called upon, either solo or in score, to take part 

 in the grand choral harmonies of the tempest. Now it roars 

 deep and still among the oaks just behind this book-room ; 

 anon, breathes hoarse and hollow upon the dark old Scotch 

 pines of the cider-mill grove ; groans through the sycamores 

 and lime avenue, " that weather-fends my cell ; " rattles the 

 bony boughs of the skeleton ash ; howls through the elms ; 

 hisses (and each obviously different) in the cedars, spruce, 

 and silver fir ; whistles through the larch ; whispers in the 

 Weymouth and aphornousli ; and suddenly whisks a solitary 

 cypress ; while the evergreens, and dry-leaved hornbeams, 

 keep up a constant accompaniment, each after his kind. 



Von Os. Encore ! Egad, our good cheer enables us to 

 convert even the conflicting elements into a noble concert : 

 and I have been thinking these stridulous owls in the bushy 

 ivy about our chimney-top, and their hooting counterparts in 

 the woods, no bad vocalists. 



Dov. I love the owl more than many do the finer melodists. 

 If you used the word counterpart designedly, you do not 

 agree with him of Selborne, who says they always hoot in 

 Bflat. 



Von Os. I am sorry to differ from such authority : but, 

 most certainly, they use various keys. 



Dov. So do the cushat and cuckoo, and many other such 

 even-tenour performers. 



Von Os. This Virginia smokes divinely. Have you the 

 horned owl ever in your prodigious ivies ? 



Dov. Not of late years. When a little boy, as I well re- 

 member, just at sunrise, I was fearfully terrified at a pair I 

 'spied sitting on an old Portugal laurel, close to the oak we 

 have since inscribed to our learned, gifted, and beloved friend 

 Rylance. I was early a fond reader of poetry, and fancied 

 them marvellous messengers just arrived from the enchanted 

 regions of romance. 



Von Os. A fitting guest for the tree of our merry friend — 

 the Attic bird. 



