of that world which he then beheld afar off. They were indeed somewhat different from those he had now brought back with him.

Other recollections of a more recent date, and from what had lately passed, not quite so happy, also mingled themselves in his mind.

The horse he rode (which had been sent over to meet him at Burton) was a mare called Beauty, who deserved her name so well, and whom he had taught so gently to canter, that she had been the favourite palfry of Constance, all the summer long. It added to his pleasure in seeing her again; he frequently patted her neck, and even talked to her of her mistress, who had rode her once on a visit to this very spot. The docile animal seemed, as he thought, to understand him, by the sensible manner in which she received his caresses; "but she will, I fear,

ride

you no more, Beauty," said De Vere, and the thought added not to his spirits.

Having now crossed the Dove, and advanced midway into the village of Tutbury, the zigzag Saxon arches, and gothic old segments of the church, half-way up the hill, arrested and pleased his eye, as they had often done before; and the castellated towers above, seemed to beckon his return to them, so much in the cha

racter of an old friend, that he could not continue his route, but delivering Beauty to his groom, "I will give one more hour," said he, "to a place which used to make so many happy."

Accordingly, he bounded up the steep, and as he traced out, (as he easily could, though ruined), the rude outlines of this great baronial residence, he fell into more precise thoughts upon such a scene, than had employed his mind in earlier days. For he had not then seen modern courtiers, or jealous politicians; he knew not then the meaning of intrigue, nor the silent and baneful machinations of a Par

venu.

His better information now drew a comparison, prompted by the place, between the modern grandee and the ancient noble; and he thought with vivid interest of the changes which time had so strongly wrought in the pride, power, and consequence of the feudal chief. I will not say that he lamented it, or preferred the lot of the lordly savage; though had he by chance been born the owner of such a castle as Tutbury, three or four centuries sooner, he perhaps would not have complained. It is certain he fell into a train of meditation upon the high

minded bearing of the old English gentleman, compared with his diminished consequence in modern days, not very much to the advantage of the latter.

We believe it is Smith who makes a comparison between the personal consequence of an old baron, and a courtier of the present day; the latter of whom, in order to shine in a drawing-room, spends that on a diamond buckle, which enabled his ancestors to maintain a thousand retainers. De Vere had not then read Smith. His feelings, however, made him jump to the same conclusion; when, contemplating the almost inaccessible fastness where he found himself, he exclaimed with the stout Earl of Norfolk

"Were I in my castle of Bungay,

Hard by the river Waveney,

I'd ne care for the king of Cockney."

In fact, the scenes he had left in London, sank almost into contempt, when he thought of that enviable independence, as he called it, which used to be asserted by the great English Thane; and it need not be wondered, that, in the present moody state of his mind, he did not

advert to the questionable nature of the independence itself. For the safety even of such a chief could not be named with the immense improvement in the lot of all, which the greater security of balanced rights, and a government by law, have since established.

He did not then think himself wrong; but looking only at the dark side of one picture, and the bright side of the other, he almost apostrophized the castle, as, with folded arms, he walked the area of its keep.

"Yes!" said he, (thinking, perhaps of the ancient earls of his own name) "there was a charm in the feudal times with all their faults! If they were insecure and ignorant, they were favourable to the manly virtues. Mansions like these, massive and impenetrable, though rude and rough, were the emblems of their lords,little refined, but hospitable, bold, and commanding. I question if they have done well to exchange their power of protecting themselves and others, (while they lived doing deeds of kindness among a devoted tenantry) for the favour of court smiles, or the ambiguous expectations kindled by a Lord Oldcastle."

We by no means give these reflections as just.

Nay, De Vere soon after himself corrected them. But they exemplified how easily, when the mind is under any commanding impression, the judgment will take its tinge from the colouring of the mind.

With these reflections, De Vere strode across the keep, now a green sheep-walk, where once the minstralx of the midland counties sang in weeds of peace, but where no sound was now heard, save that of the sheep-bell.

His object was to visit a homely old couple, who had, nine or ten years before, inhabited the great tower of the place, and had often kindly received him in his wanderings. They were a farmer and his wife, who rented the keep and other lands, turning the spacious and massive tower into an inconvenient farm-house.

De Vere remembered with pleasure the talk he used to have with the kind old man and woman, and the impression their singular habitation made upon him.

It was still the same as when he last saw it, though it had certainly undergone a strange metamorphose since the days when "time-honoured Lancaster" kept royal feasting within its precincts. There was still, however, some