440 THE FLIGHT OF THE WOOD-NYMPHS. 



with its graceful spray, nor the neat-spread gravel-walks, 

 induce them to remain ? More than all, could not the 

 beautiful statuary that represented them in material 

 shape please them and retain them in their ancient 

 haunts ? 



At length they began to suspect that there was a too 

 entire absence of rustic scenes and objects in their present 

 arrangements ; and forthwith, to appease the deities, rustic 

 arches and bowers, made of rude materials, were erected 

 and placed in different parts of the grounds. A summer- 

 house was built of the rudest of logs, shingled with the 

 rough bark of trees, and rocks were introduced for seats 

 and covered with mosses. Fences were constructed in 

 similar style, and various other rude devices were exe- 

 cuted and distributed in a fanciful manner over the face 

 of the landscape. But not even the shaggy goat-footed 

 Pan would acknowledge any such thing for an altar. No 

 such objects could be made to accord with the "high keep- 

 ing " of the grounds, nor could they give an air of rusticity 

 to the scenes that w T ere so elaborately ornamented. They 

 w T ere mere pieces of affectation ; blotches upon the fair 

 surface of beauty, that served no other purpose but to add 

 deformity to the unique productions of art. 



One day, as the ladies were strolling pensively along their 

 accustomed paths, lamenting that nothing could be done 

 to appease the divinities whom they had offended, they 

 discovered in a little nook, under a cliff that projected over 

 a rude entrance into the wood, a slab of weather-stained 

 slate, resembling a headstone. Observing that it was let- 

 tered, they knelt down upon the green turf and read the 

 following 



INSCRIPTION. 



In peaceful solitudes and sylvan shades 

 That lure to meditation ; where the birds 

 Sing all day unmolested in their haunts, 



