INTRODUCTION 



the green, enchanted forest of his boyhood." 

 It is the especial and characteristic charm of 

 Christopher North that throughout life he 

 retained more than most men the power of 

 retiring into "the green, enchanted forest of 

 his boyhood." Thomas Duncan painted Chris- 

 topher North in his Sporting Jacket as an 

 old man, hale, hearty, but still patriarchal. 

 We like better his own picture of himself in 

 our reprint as a gay, enthusiastic boy, some- 

 what savage in his instincts, it may be, but 

 fine-spirited and poetic withal. For boy he 

 never ceased to be, even after he had assumed 

 some of the gravity proper to a professor of 

 the Moralities. Here we still see him in spirit, 

 as Mrs. Gordon described him in person in 

 the day of his youth, "as beautiful and ani- 

 mated a creature as ever played in the sun- 

 shine." 



WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY. 



