own stuff frock, with white
bib, and that gay flowered apron, with the sprig of jessamine stuck
at your side--you look so homely and comely beneath the shade of that
tall oak, that I could fancy you were only the shepherd's cottage
at the corner of the grange. Bless me--here's a modern antique,
masquerading in the country!--why a village belle of queen Bess' days,
looking as new and as fresh as the young 'squire's lodge, fresh out
of the hands of his fancy architect. More mummery! why this gentleman
looks as fine and as foolish in his affectation of rugged points and
quaint angles, as a staring, white-washed, Gothic villa with the paint
not yet dry. Oh! there is certainly no denying that thou art the
primest of Quakers, Mr. Chapel, one that will not countenance a
_belle_, but lookest right onward in smooth and demure solidity, with
that strip of white path in front of thy brown gravel waistcoat, and
the ample skirts of thy road-coloured surtout; not so your neighbour
Sturdy, him with his chimney like an ink bottle, upright in his
button hole, and his pen-like poplar in his hand; he is equally
uncompromising, but looks with an eye of stern regard upon that gay
sprig of myrtle with his roof of a hat, jauntily clapped on one side,
and a towering charming feather, streaming like smoke in the breeze.
But whither have my vagaries led me--here I am once more in the
dullest of dull country towns, over which strides the gouty old dean,
like a Gothic arch across a cathedral city; and see how the wealthy
innkeeper dangles his broad medal (sign of his having been in the
yeomanry) that swings to the wind like the banner of his troop--how
contemptuously he eyes that solid looking overseer, the workhouse,
with his right and lefthand men the executioners of the law--Stocks
and Cage--oh! turn away--there is that villanous cross barred gripe
the Jail--enough, enough, indeed.
LAVATERIELLO.
* * * * *
MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
* * * * *
CURIOUS CEREMONY OF DRIVING DEER THROUGH THE WATER (FORMERLY
PRACTISED) IN LYME PARK, CHESHIRE.
(_For The Mirror_.)
Ormerod, in his splendid _History of Cheshire_, says, "The park of
Lyme, which is very extensive, is celebrated for the fine flavour of
its venison, and contains a herd of wild cattle, the remains of a
breed which has been kept here from time immemorial, and is supposed
indigenous. In the last century
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