plete the process, as if the drum were a spell, and the tastes of ploughmen and eattle-drivers were to be refined into a love for shooting and being shot by beating the tattoo. The actual reverse is, I am told, the case. The sound of the drum acts like the tail of the rattlesnake. John Bull gathers up all his sagacity at the first tap, and flies the field. The recruiting for the cavalry is actually attempt ed by dragoons without their horses, as if a dismounted dragoon were not the very name for helplessness, awkwardness, and discontent. But, let a couple of squadrons, or even of troops of some brisk regiment, take up its quarters in the centre of some neighbourhood overstocked with athletic idlers, gallop about in all directions, keep the village alive with their trumpets, throw the rustic costume into utter contempt by their scarlet or blue, their worsted lace, and their brass, whether in countenances or caparisons, and the result would be irresistible. The possession of a horse, the wearing of a uniform, and the mastery of all female hearts, would have moved the philosophy of a Diogenes; can we doubt that it would move the passions of John Bull, who, if he is slow, is susceptible, and if he talks more solemnly than other men upon occasion, can act the fool as hotly as any Italian or Frenchman under the moon. On the retreat of the cavalry, the field-batteries advanced, and kept up a perpetual roar, till the retreat was effected, and a position, half a mile to the rear, had been taken up. The infantry were thrown into squares, to receive the attack of the supposed enemy's cavalry in pursuit. After firing from their several places, and the supposed repulse of the enemy's horse, the rifles were poured along the whole front, and while they kept up an incessant fire to mask the movement, the squares wheeled into line, and the whole force advanced. Nothing could be finer than the wheeling, the steadiness which the line adopted at the in stant, and the solid regularity of the advance. After moving some hundred yards to the front, smooth and even as a wall, they halted, and began file-firing along their whole extent. This, from its nature, was the most effective and brilliant specimen of fire, as it is the most destructive in actual use. It was a continued explosion, without a moment's pause. The blaze was perpetual; I could not perfectly comprehend what I had so often heard of the weight of the British fire in action. While the smoke still lay on the battalions, the general salute was given, the bands and trumpets of the infantry and cavalry sent up "God save the Queen" to the clouds. Marquis of Anglesea, commanding the troops, rode to the front, dropped his sword-point before the Queen, and the line presented arms. Popular acclamations followed, and the day was done. Thus finished the third ceremonial of the Coronation. The I am now writing once again at some miles from the heat and confusion of London. I have abjured half a dozen bals parés, and am trying to counterbalance the volumes of dust and smoke that I have swallowed within the last dozen hours, by the largest possible influx of air from the fragrant fields round me. My military ardour has already died away, and even Soult's ribbons and stars do not reconcile me to the thought of being hunted through life, and, like a wolf, shot at whenever I appear, simply to be huzzaed, after all, by a mob in a burning day, in the hottest metropolis of the earth. I shall end by taking a hut in the heart of the valley of Montmorenci, and extinguishing Rousseau as the tutelar deity of the place; or make a voyage to some South Sea island, sit under my own vine and my own fig-tree, and read Milton before going to bed. "Unmuffle, ye faint stars, and thou, fair moon, That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud." LOVE AND GEOLOGY. ENGLAND is the worst place in the romantic-Malvern, splendid and airy world for people in bad health. In. -Dawlish-Hastings- Shanklinother countries the invalid has as many Bowchurch-some one or all of these of the comforts of home heaped about places within easy journeys of any him as possible. Decay loses half its part of England-all of them within misery when it gradually creeps upon reach of moderate fortunes, and what him amid old familiar faces, in the is, in our estimation, the greatest rehearing of well-known voices, and in commendation of all, all of them withscenes that he has known from boy- in the sound of "the church-going hood. Fatigue and anxiety are carebell." There are some symptoms of fully avoided, and at last he is buried returning sense on this subject to be in his own parish, and wept over by perceived in the increasing size of all his own friends. But in this extraor- the villages along the southern coast. dinary country of ours things are very From Dover to the Land's-End there differently managed. A man may as are little nests of cottages studding all well commit a felony as show symp- the bays and inlets, provided with toms of a cough. Sentence of banish- wide green verandahs against the summent is immediately passed on him— mer sun, and placed in the middle of he is hurried off from his own valleys little gardens and green fields running -from his own stout walls and shel- close down to the sea. There will tering plantations to inhabit some very soon be no such thing as "a rapmarble half-furnished palazzo, in a cli- ture on the lonely shore." People mate where the winter is so short that who enjoy a sea-view must be content it has not been provided against at to do so in company of half the world; all; and where, therefore, when it for it is not to be supposed (however does come and even Naples is some- much those sheltered situations owe times deep in snow-it comes, as the their attraction to the salubrity of vulgate hath it, with a vengeance. their climate, and its adaptation to the Far away from home, with strangers cure of certain complaints), that their around him, a language he does not visiters are limited to those who reunderstand doctors in whom he has quire their assistance in restoring them no confidence-scenery he is too ill to to health. From June till the end of admire-religious comforters in whom October all the seaward roads are he has no faith-with a deep aud choked with whole families, whose every-day more vivid recollection of do- jocund faces and loud laughter show mestic scenes-heart-broken-home- that the journey forms no part of a sick-friendless and uncared for-he medical prescription-rolling downdies. And why-why, in heaven's wards in one continuous stream, in name, is a man hurried across Europe "whiskey, buggy, gig, and dogcart, for the chance of meeting with a mild curricle and tandem," not forgetting climate, when any one can see in a coaches, railways, and all manner of moment that climate alone can be of chaises, to spend a few weeks at the no possible use, but that, in order to be sea-side. Rooms are engaged for efficacions, it must have accessories days and days before-cocklofts are which the softest of Italian skies can- emptied of old potato-sacks, and fitted not compensate for the want of? But up with nice French beds—chintz-curbesides all these-and leaving out of tains are hung up at the windows, and I consideration altogether the enormous the dog-kennel in the back-yard conexpense of so long and painful a jour- verted into an arbour, with honeyney is it absolutely indispensable that suckles creeping over the roof. The the sufferer (if change of scene and habits of simple villagers are entirely atmosphere be recommended) should changed; the geography of the parish be dragged over foreign roads, and becomes a study of some difficulty to pillaged and neglected at foreign inns? the oldest inhabitants; walks are cut England has in its own boundaries through plantations where walks were varieties enough of climate and tem- unknown before; flag-staffs about ten perature to suit almost any complaint feet high are erected on hillocks, and -the coast of Devon, beautiful and ornamented with Union-Jacks about two feet square; booths are opened with a few shells appearing at the window, and dignified with the name of Imperial bazaars ;—for the nomenclature is no less changed than the topography. What used to be Bill Newnham's pig-stye is now Belviderehall; Tom Symmonde's cottage is Pomona's Bower; and for four months in the year the quiet hamlet is in a complete masquerade. As the winter approaches, a recurrence to the ordinary state of things is gradually perceived. The real invalids-these for whose ostensible benefit all these changes have taken place-stay peaceably in the warm parlours which the rioters have left-all January, February, and even in the bleak days of March, they wander among the deep lanes and scarcely leafless hedge-rows, and after their walk or their well wrapt-up ride in the donkey-chaise, they come back to their blazing fire in the ivy-covered cottage that yields their wasted form health in the breeze and shelter in the storm. Such are the transmigrations through which the villages on the south coast annually pass, and more benefit, we will be bold to say, is experienced by a winter residence in one of them than by a toilsome pilgrimage to Nice or Naples. But however desirable this influx of visiters-from whatever cause -may be to the proprietors of the aforesaid cottages, there are many occasions when this incursion of the hale and of the sick is looked upon with little less horror than would be an invasion of the Goths and Vandals. The old inhabitants of the soil are hustled aside their usual course of life interrupted-and no more notice taken of their polite intimation that "Strangers are not allowed to enter these grounds" or "Trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law," than if the said grounds were a part of the Queen's highway, and the law had no rigour whatsoever. Ten or twelve years ago any one who should have stood on the summit of the steep road or "shoot," as it is called, that conveys the wayfarer down to the lower shore about three miles to the west of the flourishing town of Nalston, would have scen before him a district of exceeding calmness and beauty. Cliffs of prodigious height, and clothed to the very top with luxuriant brushwood, which softened the ruggedness of their precipi tous face without detracting from its grandeur, seemed to inclose a rich and well-wooded valley, and to shut it out entirely from the world. The wild indentations of the bays, into which the wear and tear of the storms of centuries had wasted the rocky coast, gave a diversity to the scene by opening new views of the sea at each succeeding step; and the landscape received its crowning ornament from the old chimney of some half-hidden cottage sending up here and there its long wreath of blue smoke from among the thick foliage of the trees. An opening of the road occasionally brought the traveller in front of one of those humble dwellings; and the wonderful richness of the soil and mildness of the air gave to it a picturesqueness which the architect had never anticipated, by clothing its rough stone walls, and hiding its straw-covered roof with plants and flowers unknown to less sheltered situations. Fig-trees trellised over the door, and enormous geraniums and myrtles clustered round the windows, possessing the full vigour of health and colour which, by flower or man, can only be gained by being "A dweller out of doors;" cast an air of Italian profusion over the scene, which was only dispelled by the joyous and true English faces that peeped out on the traveller through the open casement. But, as if on the principle of adding to one's enjoyments by the difficulty experienced in attaining them, the roads seemed to be kept most studiously in disrepair; unnumbered gates spread their inhospitable barrier across the way (for in those days there were no fences sepa rating the road from the fields through which it passed), and furnished a lucrative employment to a host of urchins who hurried on to open them, as the traveller approached, and took off their caps, or smiled and curtseyed, as the case might be, as the penny was thrown to them in reward of their politeness. Occasionally a quarter of a mile of better road-fences in good orderand "trees of statelier growth," gave notice of one's approach to the domains of some gentle squire; and not unfrequently four or five mansions of this superior description, clustered together within the space of twenty minutes' walk, gave an appearance of neighbourhood which took off from the otherwise too solitary look of the manor-house or hall. A place so beautiful and so secluded realized all the fictions of the Happy Valley, except the desire to get out of it; and this was, perhaps, the reason why the roads were left to nature. No wonder, where nature had done so much, that she should have been expected to do more; but amid all the performances of nature we never heard of her filling up a rut or mending the spring of a carriage; and accordingly a wheeled vehicle on springs was a rare occurrence, and the ruts were left to the undisputed occupation of the haywaggons and dung-carts. Such was the state of affairs, and the aspect of the country ten or fifteen years ago; but, owing to the causes mentioned in the beginning of this account, a change has come over the spirit of the scene. The "Happy Valley," though difficult, according to Rasselas, to get out of, was easy enough to get in. People in good health had taste enough, and people in bad health had sense enough, not to leave such a position a monopoly in the hands of cottagers and squires. They bought or hired patches of land -they built villas -and the influx of visiters of all kinds and degrees produced the effect on the hitherto simple hamlets and straggling villages that skirt the shore which we have endcavoured to describe. In one of the mansions-forming one of a group of four or five which had stood within a couple of gun-shots of each other time out of mind-" each in itself retired," but which were now, as if by the genii of Aladdin, connected with each other by rows of houses, and, in fact, transmogrified into the principal residences of a country town; -in one of those old mansions, we repeat, the coffee had been some time poured out, the toast was growing cold, yet neither of the two gentlemen who were sitting at table seemed to be aware that breakfast was ready. The old man was deeply intent on a newspaper, while the young one had folded up a letter he had been engaged in reading, and was sunk in a reverie. "Charles," said the old gentleman, at last, throwing the paper on the sofa, and stirring his coffee, life is a burden to me; I'll go into some foreign country and die." "Did you speak sir," said Charles, after a pause, during which the old man's eyes were fixed on him with a look of ineffable rage. "Speak, sir?" he roared at the top of his voice," to be sure I did! I'm going to die, I tell you, sir!" "Have you sent for a medical man, sir?" enquired the youth, dropping an additional lump of sugar into his cup. "What for, sir? To be cheated by a silly fellow feeling my pulse and looking wise? Why should I need a medical man, sir? Never was better in my life. Give me another slice of ham, sir; and don't be so absent when you're spoken to. I tell you I am going to Swan River or New foundlaud." "I have a friend there newly appointed Chief Justice. Any introd" "Now don't be so cursedly calm and civil.—I tell you again that I can no longer live in this country. Solitude is my delight-I am made for solitude-calm philosophic seclusion from the world; The world forgetting,' as Pope says, and not at all remembered by the world;' but here! by Heavens, a man might as well live in a hackney-coach on the stand in Oxford Street. Charles !- where the devil is my gun? There's another party of fellows with sketch-books scrambling over my hedge. I'll shoot them, as sure as my name is John Wallop." Mr Wallop sprang up in a prodigious passion; and certainly there are few sights less conducive to a gentleman's equanimity than the one that now regaled him. Three young gentlemen, each in a flowing blooze, with a knapsack on his back-a sketchbook on his knee, and his head protected from the sun by an enormously broad-brimmed straw hat, had forced their way through a flourishing young hedge, and were now seated on walking-stick chairs, busily engaged in sketching the very picturesque gableend, with the fine old bow window at which the gentlemen were at breakfast. "Isn't that too bad? And Lion such a good-natured brute that he wouldn't tear them down though I let him loose-and John so confoundedly polite, that if I send him to turn intruders off, he always presents them with my respectful compliments-and you so abominably apathetic that I don't believe you would stir though a legion were sketching at the very door. I'll go to them myself." "Do take breakfast in peace, my dear uncle, and let the blockheads draw caricatures of the chimneys as long as they like; they'll soon grow tired of it. They do the same to every other house within five miles." "No, no, the dogs, they've a little more taste than that comes to," chuckled the old man, somewhat mollified in his wrath; "no, Charles, 'tis an extraordinary fact that the lovers of the picturesque pay no regard, comparatively, to any other place. Not a single gap is made from year's end to year's end in the hedges of our neighbours the Morrells." "They leave the gates always open, sir, and give permission to any one that likes". "To come gaping and gazing up to the very windows-poking their noses, over the garden wall-cutting their initials on the very handle of the pump! I tell you, Charles, I can't stand it; and if Sir Christopher Clack had held his tongue about salubrity, beauty, and all that" "He would have deprived the world of a very admirable book." "Book? Who the devil cares for a book, sir? He has deprived me of my peace of mind-he has robbed me of my neighbours." "Well, sir, he has given you a hundred new ones in their place." "I hate them-can't endure new neighbours-especially aldermen pretending to be sick. Why, there's that guttling old hobgoblin, Mr Waddle, comes here, under pretence of being in delicate health, and eats two hundred prawns and a couple of lobsters for lunch. Then there's Sir Abraham Swipes, the London brewer, has taken the Lorimers' cottage, and brings down his two carriages, six or eight horses, and five or six white powder-headed footmen. He's in bad health too, I suppose?" "Looks delicate, but, I hear, more beautiful than ever" "Who? What the deuce are you talking of? How do you know Sir Abraham Swipes is more beautiful than ever?" "I thought, sir, you spoke of didn't you say something of the Lorimers, sir?-Jane Lorimer?" said Charles, looking a little confused. "No, sir, I didn't say a word of Jane Lorimer-and never do say a word of Jane Lorimer, sir,-and you know it, sir; but you're always thinking of Jane Lorimer, sir, and it's that that makes you so confoundedly thoughtful and bashful. She is a dear, sweet girl, but what of that, sir-eh?" "Oh nothing, nothing," replied the young man, "only, as I said before, I hear she is more lovely than ever." "Ah! beauty is but a fading flower.' As the poet says What is the gilded tincture of the skin, To charity and internal peace of mind? What the bright lustre of a beautiful eye, To the soft kindness of a gentle answer?' that turns away wrath,' as Solomon says." "Well, sir?" enquired Charles, as his uncle finished his somewhat confused quotation. marry "Oh nothing; only as you are to Miss Sophronia Haggersbagge, you shouldn't trouble your head about Jane Lorimer, that's all. My friend Fuzby tells me she is astonishingly clever, and the queen of Cheltenham the last three seasons." "Ten, sir! She has reigned with. out a rival since eighteen hundred and twenty-eight." "So much the better, boy. You've disappointed me twice before; this time you shan't escape. You might have married that rich heiress from Yorkshire, who came down here by Sir Christopher's recommendation, with a feeble constitution " "And the consumptive Major in Madeira Arbour suapt her up in three weeks." "Or the nabob's daughter with the cough-Miss Ingot-six thousand a-year at the least." "Ah! but the paralytic Scotchman at Montpelier Castle ran off with her to Gretna before she had been a week here." "Confound all consumptive majors and paralytic Scotchmen-they come here, looking prodigiously interesting, and carry off all the girls they can lay their hands on-but Miss Haggers bagge, my boy, she's a sure card, with an estate, Fuzby says, of nearly two thousand a-year.' "And Jane Lorimer is worth a million of her if she hadn't a shilling!" This remark was made in an inaudible voice, and half-drowned in the sigh that accompanied it, as Charles saw his uncle rush out of the room, |