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was to have been, in the outlaw Robin Hood."

"Ay, ay," said the baron, "I have recognized you long ago."

"And recognize your young friend Gamwell," said the second, "in the outlaw Scarlet."

"And Little John, the page," said the third, "in Little John the outlaw."

eral, nor swindled so much out of the pockets | of the poor, and middle class of people, as these banks have done. No people but this would have borne the imposition so long. The people of Ireland would not bear Wood's half-pence. What inequalities of talent have been introduced into this country by these aristocratical banks. Our Winthrops, Winslows, Bradfords, Saltonstalls, Quincys, Chandlers, Leonards, Hutchinsons, Olivers, "And Father Michael of Rubygill Ab Sewalls, &c., are precisely in the situation bey," said the friar, "in Friar Tuck of of your Randolphs, Carters, and Burwells, Sherwood Forest. Truly I have a chapel and Harrisons. Some of them unpopular here hard by in the shape of a hollow tree, from the part they took in the late revolution, where I put up my prayers for travellers, but all respected for their names and con- and Little John holds the plate at the door, nections; and whenever they fell in with the for good praying deserves good paying." popular sentiments are preferred, ceteris “I paribus, to all others. When I was young the summum bonum in Massachusetts was to be worth £10,000 sterling, ride in a chariot, be Colonel of a regiment of militia, and hold a seat in his Majesty's council. No man's imagination aspired to anything higher beneath the skies. But these plumes, chariots, colonelships, and counsellorships, are recorded and will never be forgotten. No great accumulations of land were made by our early settlers. Mr. Baudoin, a French refugee, made the first great purchases, and your General Dearborn, born under a fortunate star, is now enjoying a large portion of the aristocratic sweets of them.

FREEBOOTER LIFE IN THE FOREST.

[THOMAS L. PEACOCK, an English novelist and poet

(1788–1866) held office in the India House, and occupied his hours of leisure in producing various entertaining

and satirical works, full of classical allusion, redundant fancy, and keen observation. Peacock was an old

fashioned thinker, wedded to the gentilities and spirit

of the eighteenth century, and devoted much space in

his novels to ridiculing the progressive, scientific and reformatory tendencies of the nineteenth century. He Headlong Hall" (1815), "Melincourt" (1817), “Nightmare Abbey" (1818), "Maid Marian" (1822), "Crotchet Castle" (1831), and " Gryll Grange" (1860).]

wrote

am in fine company," said the baron. "In the very best of company," said the friar; “in the high court of Nature, and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it not so? This goodly grove is our palace; the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy; the sun, and the moon, and the stars, are its everlasting lamps; the grass and the daisy and the primrose, and the violet, are its manycoloured floor of green, white, yellow and blue; the Mayflower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry; the lark and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army, to say nothing of the free choice of his people, which he has indeed; but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power. He holds his dominion over the forest, and its horned multitude of citizen-deer and its swinish multitude of

peasantry of wild boars, by right of conbutions among them by the free consent of quest and force of arms. He levies contrihis archers, their virtual representatives. If they should find a voice to complain that we are 'tyrants and usurpers, to kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place,' we should most convinc ingly admonish them, with point of arrow, that they have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land? And have not they, withal, my blessing?-my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing? Do I not give thanks for them when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose? What title had William of Normandy to England that Robin of Locksley has not to merry

From "Maid Marian."

Sherwood? William fought for his claim. | misnomer. I sprinkle not thy forehead So does Robin. With whom both? With with water, but thy lips with wine, and bap any that would or will dispute it. William tize thee MARIAN."raised contributions. So does Robin. From whom both? From all that they could or can make pay them. Why did any pay them to William? Why do any pay them to Robin ? For the same reason to both-because they

POETRY.

FROM GRYLL GRANGE," BY THOMAS PEACOCK.

Miss Ilex. Few may perceive an inaccuracy, but to those who do, it causes a great diminution, if not a total destruction, of pleasure in perusal. Shakspeare never makes a flower blossom out of season! Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey are true to nature in this and in all other respects, even in their wildest imaginings.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Yet there is a combination, by one of our greatest poets, of flowers that never blossom in the same season:

could not or cannot help it. They differ, in- TRUTH TO NATURE ESSENTIAL IN deed, in this, that William took from the poor and gave to the rich, and Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor; and therein is Robin illegitimate, though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet and John, are they not peers of the forest?-lords temporal of Sherwood? And am not I lord spiritual? Am I not archbishop? Am I not Pope? Do I not consecrate their banner and absolve their sins? Are not they State, and am not I Church? Are not they State monarchical, and am not I Church militant? Do I not excommunicate our victims from venison and brawn, and, by'r Lady! when need calls, beat them down under my feet? The State levies tax, and the Church levies tithe. Even so do we. Mass-we take all at once. What then? Is not tax by redemption and tithe by commutation? Your William and Richard can cut and come again, but our Robin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer. What need we, then, to constitute a court, except a fool and a laureate? For the fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry by art, and we are true men, and are merry by nature. For the laureate, his only office is to find virtues in those who have none, and to drink sack for his pains. We have quite virtue enough to need him not, and can

drink our sack for ourselves."

"Well preached, friar," said-Robin Hood; "yet there is one thing wanting to constitute a court, and that is a queen. And now, lovely Matilda, look round upon these sylvan shades, where we so often have roused the stag from his ferny covert. The rising sun smiles upon us through the stems of that beechen knoll. Shall I take your hand, Matilda, in the presence of this my court? Shall I crown you with our wildwood coronal, and hail you Queen of the Forest? Will you be the Queen Matilda of your own true King Robin?"

Matilda smiled assent.

"Not Matilda," said the friar: "the rules of our holy alliance require new birth. have excepted in favour of Little John, because he is Great John, and his name is a

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine,
The white-pink, and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To deck the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.
[MILTON'S Lycidas.]

And at the same time he plucks the berries
of the myrtle and the ivy.

Miss Ilex. Very beautiful, if not true to English seasons; but Milton might have thought himself justified in making this combination in Arcadia. Generally, he is strictly accurate, to a degree that is in itself a beauty. For instance, in his address to the nightingale:

Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy even song,
And missing thee, I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven green.

The song of the nightingale ceases about the time that the grass is mown.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. The old Greek poetry is always true to nature, and will bear any degree of critical analysis. I must say I take no pleasure in poetry that will

than Moore. His imagery is almost always | Ptolemies were Greeks, and whoever will false. Here is a highly applauded stanza, and very taking at first sight:

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. There are inac

look at their genealogy, their coins, and their medals, will see how carefully they kept their pure blood uncontaminated by African intermixture. Think of this description and this picture applied to one who, Dio saysand all antiquity confirms him-was " the most superlatively beautiful of women, splendid to see, and delightful to hear." For she was eminently accomplished; she spoke many languages with grace and facility. Her mind was as wonderful as her personal

beauty.

THE MITHERLESS BAIRN. [WILLIAM THOм, the "Inverary poet," (1789-1848), wrote some sweet, fanciful, and pathetic strains. He worked for several years as a weaver, and traversed the

curacies more offensive to me than even false imagery. Here is one in a song which I have often heard with displeasure. A young man goes up a mountain, and as he goes higher and higher, he repeats Excelsior! but excelsior is only taller in the comparison of things on a common basis, not higher as a detached object in the air. Jack's country as a pedlar, accompanied by his wife and childbean-stalk was excelsior the higher it grew, but Jack himself was no more celsus at the top than he had been at the bottom.

Mr. Mac-Borrowdale. I am afraid, doctor, if you look for profound knowledge in popular poetry, you will often be disappointed.

The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I do not look for profound knowledge; but I do expect that poets should understand what they talk of. Burns was not a scholar, but he was always master of his subject. All the scholarship of the world would not have produced Tam o'Shanter, but in the whole of that poem there is not a false image nor a misused word. What do you suppose these lines represent?

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,
One sitting on a crimson scarf unrolled-
A queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.

TENNYSON'S Dream of Fair Women.

Mr. Mac-Borrowdale. I should take it to be a description of the Queen of Bambo. The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Yet thus one of our most popular poets describes Cleopatra, and one of our most popular artists has illustrated the description by a portrait of a hideous grinning Ethiop! Moore led the way to this perversion by demonstrating that the Egyptian women must have been beautiful because they were "the countrywomen of Cleopatra." Here we have a sort of counter-demonstration that Cleopatra must have been a fright because she was the countrywoman of the Egyptians. But Cleopatra was a Greek, the daughter of Ptolemy Auletes and a lady of Pontus. The

ren. This unsettled life induced careless habits, and every effort to place him in a situation of permanent comfort failed. His first poem that attracted notice, "The Blind Boy's Pranks," appeared in the Aberdeen Her

ald. In 1844 he published a volume of “Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-loom Weaver." He visited London and was warmly patronized; but returning to Scotland, he died at Dundee in great penury. About £300 was collected for his widow and family.] When a' ither bairnies are hushed to their hame By auntie, or cousin, or frecky* grand-dame, Wha stands last an' lanely, an' naebody carin'? 'Tis the puir doited loonie-the mitherless bairn. The mitherless bairn gangs to his lane bed, Nane covers his cauld back, or haps his bare head; His wee hackit heelies are hard as the airm, An' litheless the lair of the mitherless bairn. Aneath his cauld brow siccan dreams hover there, O' hands that wont kindly to kame his dark hair; But morning brings clutcher, a' reckless and stern, That lo'e nae the locks o' the mitherless bairn. Yon sister, that sang o'er his saftly rocked bed,

Now rests in the mools where her mamma is laid;
The father toils sair their wee bannock to earn,
An' kens na the wrangs o' his mitherless bairn.
Her spirit that passed in yon hour o' his birth,
Still watches his wearisome wanderings on earth;
Recording in heaven the blessings they earn
Wha couthilie deal wi' the mitherless bairn.
Oh speak na him harshly-he trembles the while,
He bends to your bidding, an' blesses your smile;
In their dark hour o' anguish, the heartless shall learn

That God deals the blow for the mitherless bairn!

* This word not found in Burns, is the same as frack, active, vigorous.

NOTHING TO WEAR.

Miss Flora McFlimsey, of Madison Square,
Has made three separate journeys to Paris;
And her father assures me, each time she was there,
That she and her friend, Mrs. Harris,
Spent six consecutive weeks, without stopping,
In one continuous round of shopping;
Shopping alone and shopping together,

At all hours of the day, and in all sorts of weather,
For all manner of things that a woman can put
On the crown of her head, or the sole of her foot,
Or wrap round her shoulders, or fit round her waist,
Or that can be sewed on, or pinned on, or laced,
Or tied on with a string, or stitched on with a bow,
In front or behind, above or below;
Dresses for home, and the street, and the hall,
Dresses for winter, spring, summer, and fall;-

And yet, though scarce three months have passed since the day

All this merchandise went in twelve carts up Broadway,
This same Miss McFlimsey, of Madison Square,
When asked to a ball, was in utter despair,
Because she had nothing whatever to wear!

But the fair Flora's case is by no means surprising;
I find there exists the greatest distress
In our female community, solely arising

From this unsupplied destitution of dress;
Whose unfortunate victims are filling the air
With the pitiful wail of "Nothing to wear!"

Oh, ladies, dear ladies, the next sunny day Please trundle your hoops just out of Broadway, To the alleys and lanes where misfortune and guilt Their children have gathered, their hovels have built; Where hunger and vice, like twin beasts of prey, Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair; Raise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt, Pick your delicate way through the dampness and dirt; Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety stair To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old, Half starved and half naked, lie crouched from the cold; See those skeleton limbs, those frost-bitten feet, All bleeding and bruised by the stones of the street, Then home to your wardrobes, and say, if you dare,— Spoiled children of fashion,-you've nothing to wear!

And, oh, if perchance there should be a sphere, Where all is made right which so puzzles us here; Where the glare, and the glitter, and tinsel of time Fade and die in the light of that region sublime; Where the soul, disenchanted of flesh and of sense, Unscreened by its trappings, and shows, and pretence, Must be clothed for the life and the service above, With purity, truth, faith, meekness, and love; Oh, daughters of earth! foolish virgins, beware! Lest, in that upper realm,-you have nothing to wear!

WM. ALLEN BUTLER.

ALPINE HEIGHTS.

On Alpine heights the love of God is shed;
He paints the morning red,
The flowerets white and blue,
And feeds them with his dew.