be cut for dames and knights to saunter on. Then again the undulating
ground spread on all sides, far as the eye could range, covered with copse
and fern of immense growth. Anon you found yourself in a turfy wilderness,
girt in apparently by dark woods. And when you had wound your way a little
through this gloomy belt, the landscape still strictly sylvan, would
beautifully expand with every combination and variety of woodland; while
in its centre, the wildfowl covered the waters of a lake, and the deer
basked on the knolls that abounded on its banks.

It was in the month of August, some six or seven years ago, that a
traveller on foot, touched, as he emerged from the dark wood, by the
beauty of this scene, threw himself under the shade of a spreading tree,
and stretched his limbs on the turf for enjoyment rather than repose. The
sky was deep-coloured and without a cloud, save here and there a minute,
sultry, burnished vapour, almost as glossy as the heavens. Everything was
still as it was bright; all seemed brooding and basking; the bee upon its
wing was the only stirring sight, and its song the only sound.

The traveller fell into a reverie. He was young, and therefore his musings
were of the future. He had felt the pride of learning, so ennobling to
youth; he was not a stranger to the stirring impulses of a high ambition,
though the world to him was as yet only a world of books, and all that he
knew of the schemes of statesmen and the passions of the people, were to
be found in their annals. Often had his fitful fancy dwelt with
fascination on visions of personal distinction, of future celebrity,
perhaps even of enduring fame. But his dreams were of another colour now.
The surrounding scene, so fair, so still, and sweet; so abstracted from
all the tumult of the world, its strife, its passions, and its cares: had
fallen on his heart with its soft and subduing spirit; had fallen on a
heart still pure and innocent, the heart of one who, notwithstanding all