victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to clandestine, and
almost infantile abductions; the seeds of civility and true courtesy,
so often discernible in these young grafts (not otherwise to be
accounted for) plainly hint at some forced adoptions; many noble
Rachels mourning for their children, even in our days, countenance the
fact; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable verity, and
the recovery of the young Montagu be but a solitary instance of, good
fortune, out of many irreparable and hopeless _defiliations_.

In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years since--under a
ducal canopy--(that seat of the Howards is an object of curiosity to
visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which the late duke was especially
a connoisseur)--encircled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with
starry coronets inwoven--folded between a pair of sheets whiter and
softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius--was discovered by
chance, after all methods of search had failed, at noon-day, fast
asleep, a lost chimney-sweeper. The little creature, having somehow
confounded his passage among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys,
by some unknown aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber;
and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to resist the
delicious invitement to repose, which he there saw exhibited; so,
creeping between the sheets very quietly, laid his black head upon the
pillow, and slept like a young Howard.

Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle.--But I cannot
help seeming to perceive a confirmation of what I have just hinted
at in this story. A high instinct was at work in the case, or I am
mistaken. Is it probable that a poor child of that description, with
whatever weariness he might be visited, would have ventured, under
such a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the sheets