fe; 'tis _men_ that are idle; a thousand things could be
contrived and accomplished in that space, and a thousand schemes were
devised by us, when _boys_, to prevent any portion of it passing over
without improvement. We pursued the fleet angel of time through all his
movements till he blessed us.

With these and similar thoughts in my mind, I strayed down to the banks
of the river, and came upon the very spot, which, in those long-vanished
years, had been a favourite scene of our boyish sports. The impression
was overpowering; and as I gazed silently around me, my mind was subdued
to that tone of feeling which Ossian so finely designates "the joy of
grief." The trees were the same, but older, like myself; seemingly
unscathed by the strife of years--and herein was a difference. Some of
the very bushes I recognised as our old lurking-places at "hunt the
hare;" and, on the old fantastic beech-tree, I discovered the very bough
from which we were accustomed to suspend our swings. What
alterations--what sad havoc had time, circumstances, the hand of fortune,
and the stroke of death, made among us since then! How were the thoughts
of the heart, the hopes, the pursuits, the feelings changed; and, in
almost every instance, it is to be feared, for the worse! As I gazed
around me, and paused, I could not help reciting aloud to myself the
lines of Charles Lamb, so touching in their simple beauty.

"I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me, all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

The fresh green plat, by the brink of the stream, lay before me. It was
there that we played at leap-frog, or gathered dandelions for our tame
rabbits; and, at its western extremity, were still extant the reliques of
the deal-seat, at which we used to assemble on autumn evenings to have
our round of stories. Many a witching tale and wondrous tradition hath
there been told; many a marvel of "figures that visited the glimpses of
the moon;" many a recital of heroic and chivalrous enterprise,
accomplished ere warriors dwindled away to the mere puny-strength of
mortals. Sapped by the wind and rain, the planks lay in a sorely decayed
and rotten state, looking in their mossiness like a sign-post of
desolation, a memento of terrestrial inst