HANNAH DYER. 93 



Charlton, the village of Charlton, was, twenty years since, among 

 the few really legitimate villages which were left us as a record of 

 the " good old days." Situated between two and three miles from 

 one of our most fascinating and fashionable watering places, and a 

 mile from the great metropolitan road, it offered to the invalid one 

 of the most agreeably restorative spots. The village small — the 

 cottages low, thatched, and smiling with flowers — the old church 

 and its ivy-bound tower — the village church-yard silent and so- 

 lemn — the sandy lane o'ergrown with briars, brambles, and the 

 ebon-stemmed hawthorn, the only carriage-entrance to the village 

 — the old grass-tufted walks under the emerald-leafed Chestnut 

 trees — the large expansive fields and ploughed lands, surrounding 

 the village on all sides, luxuriant with verdure and richest crops — 

 the well-wooded landscape, dell, and bosky bourn — the not far dis- 

 tant hills, their base rising in a semi-amphitheatre around the village, 

 their barren rocky steeps, hill above hill, gemmed with the golden 

 blossoms of the rich Heath and prickly Gorse — the straggling Pine 

 standing out like some dark shade of the primeval world, or, clus- 

 tered together, weaving their blackened branches in each other — al- 

 together offered a scene the most varied, the most beautiful. 



Scarcely a quarter of a mile from the village was Prynne Park, 

 with its broad bubbling river brawling over the chafed bed ; the 

 herd of dappled deer startled by the shrill whistle of some little 

 urchin peering through the pales ; then the aristocratic cawing of 

 hundreds of ministerial rooks, perched on the topmost branches of a 

 cluster of fine old Elms ; the spacious antique mansion occupying 

 an acre of ground, with the green wide-extending park stretching 

 o*er hill and dale for many a mile. There was a silence around all 

 that might be felt, deepened by the long caw, caw, of great-grand- 

 father Crow, who, with his long black bill pushed out to its full 

 length, might be fancied a lineal descendent from William the 

 Conqueror. 



How often have I seen the pallid cheek of the fair and lovely 

 victim of consumption warmed with the quiet sense of her enjoy- 

 ment as she gazed with lustrous eye upon the profuse luxuriance of 

 nature ! O ! there is a blessing in all the dispensations of God : — 

 disease, with all the suffering of the body, subtilizes the spirit that 

 inhabits there, quickens the sensibilities of the heart, and purifies 

 the thoughts from all grossness. There, far from the hum of men. 

 Nature, with her still small voice, held communion with her heart, 

 and by a divine inspiration quickened immortal hopes. 



There my infancy, my boyhood, was passed, there my natural 

 wild dispositions were softened. I knew 



