DREAM CHILDREN; A REVERIE

some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer-here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted-the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me. because I was never half so good or religious as she-and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holydays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost rubbed out

CHILDREN love to listen to stories about when she came to die, her funeral was their elders, when they were children; to attended by a concourse of all the poor, and stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene-so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country-of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts; till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how,

sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless

when now and then a solitary gardening man when he was impatient, and in pain, nor would cross me-and how the nectarines and remember sufficiently how considerate he had peaches hung upon the walls, without my been to me when I was lame-footed; and ever offering to pluck them, because they how when he died, though he had not been were forbidden fruit, unless now and then,- dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died and because I had more pleasure in strolling a great while ago, such a distance there is about among the old melancholy-looking yew-betwixt life and death; and how I bore his trees, or the firs, and picking up the red death as I thought pretty well at first, but berries, and the fir-apples, which were good afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and for nothing but to look at―or in lying about though I did not cry or take it to heart as upon the fresh grass with all the fine some do, and as I think he would have done garden smells around me-or basking in the if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, orangery, till I could almost fancy myself and knew not till then how much I had ripening too along with the oranges and the loved him. I missed his kindness, and I limes in that grateful warmth-or in watch- missed his crossness, and wished him to be ing the dace that darted to and fro in the alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not here and there a great sulky pike hanging have him again, and was as uneasy without midway down the water in silent state, as if him, as he their poor uncle must have been it mocked at their impertinent friskings, when the doctor took off his limb. Here the I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diver- children fell a crying, and asked if their little sions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, mourning which they had on was not for nectarines, oranges, and such-like common uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed baits of children. Here John slyly deposited me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, them some stories about their pretty dead not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated mother. Then I told how for seven long dividing with her, and both seemed willing years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in deto relinquish them for the present as irrele- spair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair vant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened Alice W-n; and, as much as children tone, I told how, though their great-grand- could understand, I explained to them what mother Field loved all her grandchildren, coyness, and difficulty, and denial, meant in yet in an especial manner she might be said maidens-when suddenly, turning to Alice, to love their uncle, John L- -, because he the soul of the first Alice looked out at her was so handsome and spirited a youth, and eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, a king to the rest of us; and, instead of that I became in doubt which of them stood moping about in solitary corners, like some there before me, or whose that bright hair of us, he would mount the most mettlesome was; and while I stood gazing, both the horse he could get, when but an imp no children gradually grew fainter to my view, bigger than themselves, and make it carry receding, and still receding, till nothing at him half over the county in a morning, and last but two mournful features were seen in join the hunters when there were any out the uttermost distance, which, without speech, and yet he loved the old great house and strangely impressed upon me the effects of gardens too, but had too much spirit to be speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, always pent up within their boundaries- nor are we children at all. The children of and how their uncle grew up to man's estate Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; as brave as he was handsome, to the admira- less than nothing, and dreams. We are only tion of everybody, but of their great-grand- what might have been, and must wait upon mother Field most especially; and how he the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages used to carry me upon his back when I was before we have existence, and a name "a lame-footed boy-for he was a good bit and immediately awaking, I found myself older than me-many a mile when I could quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, not walk for pain;-and how in after life he where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful became lame-footed too, and I did not always Bridget unchanged by my side-but John L (I fear) make allowances enough for him (or James Elia) was gone for ever.

DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS.

IN A LETTER TO B. F. ESQ., AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES.

MY DEAR F.-When I think how welcome is natural and friendly. But at this present the sight of a letter from the world where reading-your Now he may possibly be in you were born must be to you in that the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in strange one to which you have been trans- reason ought to abate something of your planted, I feel some compunctious visitings transport (i. e. at hearing he was well, &c.), at my long silence. But, indeed, it is no or at least considerably to modify it. I am easy effort to set about a correspondence at going to the play this evening, to have a our distance. The weary world of waters laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, between us oppresses the imagination. It is I think you told me, in your land of d—d difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine realities. You naturally lick your lips, and should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, presumption to expect that one's thoughts and you will correct the hateful emotion. should live so far. It is like writing for pos- Why it is Sunday morning with you, and terity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand Rowe's superscriptions, " Alcander to Stre- solecism of two presents, is in a degree phon in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel common to all postage. But if I sent you is no more than would be expedient in such word to Bath or Devizes, that I was exan intercourse. One drops a packet at Lom-pecting the aforesaid treat this evening, bard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend though at the moment you received the inin Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came telligence my full feast of fun would be over, in ice. It is only like whispering through a yet there would be for a day or two after, as long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down you would well know, a smack, a relish left from the moon, with yourself at one end and upon my mental palate, which would give the man at the other; it would be some balk rational encouragement for you to foster a to the spirit of conversation, if you knew portion, at least, of the disagreeable passion, that the dialogue exchanged with that in- which it was in part my intention to proteresting theosophist would take two or three duce. But ten months hence, your envy or revolutions of a higher luminary in its pas- your sympathy would be as useless as a sage. Yet, for aught I know, you may be passion spent upon the dead. Not only does some parasangs nigher that primitive idea- truth, in these long intervals, un-essence Plato's man-than we in England here have herself, but (what is harder) one cannot the honour to reckon ourselves. venture a crude fiction, for the fear that it Epistolary matter usually compriseth three may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. topics; news, sentiment, and puns. In the What a wild improbable banter I put upon latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or you, some three years since,- -of Will subjects serious in themselves, but treated Weatherall having married a servant-maid ! after my fashion, non-seriously.—And first, I remember gravely consulting you how we for news. In them the most desirable cir- were to receive her-for Will's wife was in cumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be no case to be rejected; and your no less true. But what security can I have that serious replication in the matter; how tenwhat I now send you for truth shall not, derly you advised an abstemious introduction before you get it, unaccountably turn into a of literary topics before the lady, with a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at caution not to be too forward in bringing on this present writing-my Now-in good the carpet matters more within the sphere of health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, reputation. You are glad to hear it. This or rather wise suspension of sentence, how

far jacks, and spits, and mops, could, with less life, so took his fancy that he could propriety, be introduced as subjects; whether imagine no place so proper, in the event of the conscious avoiding of all such matters in his death, to lay his bones in. This was all discourse would not have a worse look than very natural and excusable as a sentiment, the taking of them casually in our way; in and shows his character in a very pleasing what manner we should carry ourselves to light. But when from a passing sentiment our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall it came to be an act; and when, by a posibeing by; whether we should show more tive testamentary disposal, his remains were delicacy, and a truer sense of respect for actually carried all that way from England; Will's wife, by treating Becky with our cus- who was there, some desperate sentimentomary chiding before her, or by an unusual talists excepted, that did not ask the quesdeferential civility paid to Becky, as to a tion, Why could not his Lordship have found person of great worth, but thrown by the a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree caprice of fate into a humble station. There as green and pendent, with a stream as emwere difficulties, I remember, on both sides, blematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, which you did me the favour to state with or in Devon ? Conceive the sentiment the precision of a lawyer, united to the ten- boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom derness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve House (startling the tide-waiters with the at your solemn pleadings, when lo! while I novelty), hoisted into a ship. Conceive it was valuing myself upon this flam put upon pawed about and handled between the rude you in New South Wales, the devil in Eng- jests of tarpaulin ruffians-a thing of its land, jealous possibly of any lie-children not delicate texture-the salt bilge wetting it his own, or working after my copy, has till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. actually instigated our friend (not three days Suppose it in material danger (mariners have since) to the commission of a matrimony, some superstition about sentiments) of being which I had only conjured up for your tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiadiversion. William Weatherall has married tory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to take it in its from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy news from me must become history to you; consummation. Trace it then to its lucky which I neither profess to write, nor indeed landing-at Lyons shall we say ?—I have care much for reading. No person, under a not the map before me-jostled upon four diviner, can, with any prospect of veracity, men's shoulders-baiting at this townconduct a correspondence at such an arm's stopping to refresh at t'other villagelength. Two prophets, indeed, might thus waiting a passport here, a license there; the interchange intelligence with effect; the epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true present time of the receiver (Daniel); but then we are no prophets.

Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot, or sent off in water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself. If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold meats. I have often smiled at a conceit of the late Lord C. It seems that travelling somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green spot, or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so fantastically and invitingly over a stream-was it ?—or a rock ? -no matter-but the stillness and the repose, after a weary journey, 'tis likely, in a languid moment of his Lordship's hot, rest

sanction of the magistracy in this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out and jaded, from a brisk sentiment into a feature of silly pride or tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite seaworthy.

Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though contemptible in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which should irradiate a right friendly epistle-your puns and small jests are, I apprehend, extremely circumscribed in their sphere of action. They are so far from a capacity of being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will scarce endure to be transported by hand from this room to the next. Their vigour is as the instant of

reconciles. For their scansion, it is less to be regretted; for if they take it into their heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists. Is there much difference to see, too, between the son of a th**f and the grandson? or where does the taint stop? Do you bleach in three or in four generations? I have many questions to put, but ten Delphic voyages can be made in a shorter time than it will take to satisfy my scruples. Do you grow your own hemp ?-What is your staple trade,-exclusive of the national profession, I mean? Your locksmiths, I take it, are some of your great capitalists.

their birth. Their nutriment for their brief scanning ?-It must look very odd, but use existence is the intellectual atmosphere of the by-standers or this last is the fine slime of Nilus-the melior lutus-whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the sol pater to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more transmit it in its pristine flavour than you can send a kiss.Have you not tried in some instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like picking up at a village ale-house a twodays'-old newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you resent the stale thing as an I am insensibly chatting to you as famiaffront. This sort of merchandise above all liarly as when we used to exchange goodrequires a quick return. A pun, and its morrows out of our old contiguous windows, recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. in pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. The one is the brisk lightning, the other the Why did you ever leave that quiet corner? fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and—Why did I ?—with its complement of four the link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy?

I cannot image to myself whereabout you are. When I try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Sometimes you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves. I see Diogenes prying among you with his perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten how we look. And tell me what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such a depredation ! The kangaroos-your Aborigines-do they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short fore puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided á priori; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as tair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony. We hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray is it true that the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils their

poor elms, from whose smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you. But while I talk I think you hear me,-thoughts dallying with vain surmise

Aye me! while thee the seas and sounding shores
Hold far away.

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you left children have become sage matrons while you are tarrying there. The blooming Miss W-r (you remember Sally W-r) called upon us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks whom you knew die off every year. Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,—I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J. W., two springs back, corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet you, of me, or mine.