Our Anniversary. [JUNE, 



After some difficulty we succeeded in pacifying Mr. and having 



covered up his face with his handkerchief, he remained in silence during 

 the rest of the journey. 



The harmonious voice of Algernon broke upon the stillness we were 

 at the Star and Garter at Richmond ! 



A considerable number of the nobility and gentry who resided in the 

 neighbourhood were waiting round the doors of the hotel to receive us, 

 and testified their respect by waving of handkerchiefs and similar demon- 

 strations of joy. Among the company we noticed Lord Leveson Gower 

 and the Earl of Mulgrave, both of whom we invited to dine with us, 

 which of course they gladly promised to do. After having partaken of 

 a cold collation, we walked out into the fields, and having found a very 

 beautiful beech-tree whose giant branches made a pavilion over our heads, 

 we determined to sit down for a. season. 



" It reminds me of" said Old Mortality. 



" Bloomfield's May-day with the Muses," cried Algernon, finishing 

 the sentence. " The scene around us is very picturesquely described in the 

 following stanza 



Laid at the foot of some old tree, whose boughs 

 Leaf-laden, bent, their softened shadows wed 



In the clear water, on whose surface ploughs 



His venturous way the midge, with trailing thread : 

 The dusky spotted moth, his wings half-spread, 



Goes flagging drowsily across the mire, 

 The Druid Echo slumbers over head, 



A shrunk leaf wavers down untimely sere, 

 No sound that silence hears, but the rapt senses hear. 



" Beautifully read," exclaimed Marmaduke. 



" Deliciously written, you mean," returned Algernon, " to me it seems 

 almost as good as that famous picture of summer silence by John Keats, 

 the Endymion. I have extracted it from a poem called The Solitary , 

 which is evidently the production of a young man and a poet. You know 

 that I am fond of antitheses, but in this instance the figure is allowable. 

 The Solitary is fuller of faults than beauties ; but then the beauties are 

 precisely of that order which is above the mediocrity of the day. The 

 principal objection I take to the poem is, that it is not natural. I am 

 quite certain that no person ever felt for so long a period, such extreme 

 and unmitigated wretchedness. Mr. Whitehead, the author of the poem, 

 may not, indeed, lay his head upon a pillow fringed with gold few men 

 of talent do ! but I confidently hope and trust that he is not so destitute 

 of happiness, present and to come, as his verses would lead us to suppose. 

 Let him read the Pensees de Pascal, particularly that article entitled 

 Misere de I'homme, and if," continued Algernon, with a burst of feeling pecu- 

 liar to himself, " the perusal of them shall be as influential upon his mind 

 as it has been upon mine, I shall have reason to rejoice in my advice. 



" But let me return for a moment to the poem itself, in order to gather 

 a few flowers which I had marked out as especially deserving of being 

 woven into a garland of true poesy. 



"An evening scene 



Hark ! the sad nightingale begins the strain, 

 ** And Echo, like a weary anchorite. 



Sits crouching in the ivoods, mute in her own despite. 



