miles from Southport; and the botanist, as well as the
entomologist, would find themselves amply repaid by a visit.

Martin Meer, the scene of the following story, we have described in
our first series of _Traditions_, where Sir Tarquin, a carnivorous
giant, is slain by Sir Lancelot of the Lake. These circumstances, and
more of the like purport on this subject, we therefore omit, as being
too trite and familiar to bear repetition. We do not suppose the
reader to be quite so familiar with the names and fortunes of Captain
Harrington and Sir Ralph Molyneux, though they had the good fortune to
be born eleven hundred years later, and to have seen the world, in
consequence, eleven hundred years older--we wish we could say wiser
and better tempered, less selfish and less disposed to return hard
knocks, and to be corrupted with evil communications. But man is the
same in all ages. The external habits and usages of society change his
mode of action--clothe the person and passions in a different garb;
but their form and substance, like the frame they inhabit, are
unchanged, and will continue until this great mass of intelligence,
this mischievous compound of good and evil, this round rolling earth,
shall cease to swing through time and space--a mighty pendulum, whose
last stroke shall announce the end of time, the beginning of eternity!

Our story gets on indifferently the while; but a willing steed is none
the worse for halting. Harrington and his friend Sir Ralph were spruce
and well-caparisoned cavaliers, living often about court towards the
latter end of Charles the Second's reign. What should now require
their presence in these extreme regions of the earth, far from society
and civilisation, it is not our business to inquire. It sufficeth for
our story that they were here, mounted, and proceeding at a shuffling
trot along the flat, bare, sandy region we have described.

"How sweetly and silently that round sun sinks into the water!" said
Harrington.

"But doubtless," returned his companion, "if he were fire, as thou
sayest, the liquid would not bear his approach so meekly; why, it
would boil if he were but chin-deep in yon great seething-pot."

"Thou art quicker at a jest than a moral, Molyneux," said the other
and graver personage; "thou canst not even let the elements escape thy
gibes. I marvel how far we are from our cousin Ireland's at Lydiate.
My fears mislead me, or we have missed our way. This flat bosom