bandy pleasant jokes and repartees, as we sallied forth through the green fields, and along the shady hedgerows. Alas, the cold clay is thy dwelling, thy shroud the mists of the charnel, thy companions the worms and beetles. And I yet live, and a myriad insects of an hour flutter like myself in the sun! But we must banish desponding thoughts from our soul. This is the Spring Wood, and well does it deserve the pleasant name. How delightfully the fresh hues of the spring here intermingle -oak, ash, sycamore, and fir. We need none of Gilpin's Theories of Forest Scenery here-all is Nature's own handicraft, her own most precious needlework, painted by her best artist, the sun,-and fed by her own bountiful nurses, the breezes and the showers. Slow and tottering this year have been spring's footsteps —but now, how gladsome on the mountains they sound— what delicious 'greenery'-what intense hues and colours-how 'darkly beautiful' the umbrage of the woodlands and groves! Pleasant it is to walk along the shady mountain slopes, as I do now, and listen to the music of the birds. The sun cannot reach us here, so deep is the covering of green leaves,-the clouds cannot spread their shadows in so dense a foliage,—not even the heavy thunder shower can penetrate this most glorious of Nature's umbrellas, the huge old sycamore. And the bees, joyously they murmur the bliss of their little hearts among the blossoms and fruits! The soft winds of morning as they wander about, like lovers, from leaf to leaf, kissing them gently as they pass,-is that not a music sweeter than the flattery of a monarch's thronemore delightful than the most gaudy trills of all the 'signoras and signors.' They talk of London Poets, heaven bless them! what of poetry can they see there? Is there poetry in Fleet Street, the Minories, or Cheapside? At Mile End, or Wapping, or St. Giles's, or Holborn Hill? Can these braggarts who pretend poetry only flourishes in the Metropolis, deny that the sound of these moorland streams, and the shrill echoes of these woodland songsters, are far more cheering and delightful than the harsh curses of cabmen, and the heavy roar of omnibus wheels! They err who so speak of provincial writers.' Why here is nature herself,-unattired, and without robes. There she is a gaudy harlot, foul to the eye, or if fair and alluring, like the Dead Sea fruit, all rottenness within. Having traced the sinowy pathways of this famous old wood of bilberries and sweethearting, we touch the springy heath, plough along the well-worn battlements of the hill, and passing the tuft of trees, which adorns the summit, like a Chinaman's crop of hair, we stand on Highcliffe. Famous old Highcliffe! what generations gone by have gazed with joy on thy gray front and hoary temples, how often the happy school-boy hath nestled here for the raven, the daw, and the hawk,how sternly yet lovingly hast thou for thousands of years looked down in triumph over thy children below,-the fields, the groves, the villages and the sea! It is idle What mighty earthquake rear'd this remnant high? Thy ministrations more enduring stand And blessings greet thee from the Summer air, THE BARD p. 246. Without doubt the scenery is finer from Highcliffe, than any other of our Yorkshire Hills, except Roseberry. The objects are almost the same, and scarcely less extensive. There stands venerable Guisbrough, with its stately Priory and meek simple Church-there Upleatham with its healthy meadows and forest of pinethere Eston Nab, a beacon of war, with its fine Saxon Encampment-there the Park, Hutton Lowcross, Tocketts, Skelton, Marske, Redcar,-and, finest sight of all with all its lovely white ships sailing in joy and beauty, the broad, the blue, the immense, the unfathomable Sea. Yea, fresh rapture springs up, old Ocean, the |