Lissoy that is far away has recalled more than his
boyish sports; it has made him look back over his own life--the life
of an exile.

"I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose:
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return--and die at home at last."

Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking? Sir Walter Scott,
writing a generation ago, said that "the church which tops the
neighbouring hill," the mill and the brook were still to be seen in
the Irish village; and that even

"The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made,"

had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and was of course
being cut to pieces to make souvenirs. But indeed it is of little
consequence whether we say that Auburn is an English village, or
insist that it is only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true
in itself. And we know that this is true: it is not that one sees the
place as a picture, but that one seems to be breathing its very
atmosphere, and listening to the various cries that thrill the "hollow
silence."

"Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
There, as I past with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind."

Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that is gradually
brought before us. There are no Norvals in Lissoy. There is the old
woman--Catherine Geraghty, they say, was her name--who gathered
cresses in the ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher
whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a portrait of their
father; but whom others have identified as Henry Goldsmith, and even
a