DREAM CHILDREN; A REVERIE.

CHILDREN love to listen to stories about when she came to die, her funeral was their elders, when they were children; to attended by a concourse of all the poor, and stretch their imagination to the conception some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts; till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how,

for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer - here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocent would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she-and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holy days, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken pannels, with the gilding almost rubbed out

sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless

when now and then a solitary gardening man | when he was impatient, and in pain, nor would cross me and how the nectarines and remember sufficiently how considerate he had peaches hung upon the walls, without my been to me when I was lame-footed; and ever offering to pluck them, because they how when he died, though he had not been were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, - dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died and because I had more pleasure in strolling a great while ago, such a distance there is about among the old melancholy-looking yew-betwixt life and death; and how I bore his trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at —or in lying about upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells around me or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings, I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L-, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the country in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any outand yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy-for he was a good bit older than me - many a mile when I could not walk-for pain; - and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him

death as I thought pretty well at first, but
afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and
though I did not cry or take it to heart as
some do, and as I think he would have done
if I had died, yet I missed him all day long,
and knew not till then how much I had
loved him. I missed his kindness, and I
missed his crossness, and wished him to be
alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for
we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not
have him again, and was as uneasy without
him, as he their poor uncle must have been
when the doctor took off his limb. Here the
children fell a crying, and asked if their little
mourning which they had on was not for
uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed
me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell
them some stories about their pretty dead
mother. Then I told how for seven long
years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in de-
spair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair
Alice W--n; and, as much as children
could understand, I explained to them what
coyness, and difficulty, and denial, meant in
maidens - when suddenly, turning to Alice,
the soul of the first Alice looked out at her
eyes with such a reality of re-presentment,
that I became in doubt which of them stood
there before me, or whose that bright hair
was; and while I stood gazing, both the
children gradually grew fainter to my view,—
receding, and still receding, till nothing at
last but two mournful features were seen in
the uttermost distance, which, without speech,
strangely impressed upon me the effects of
speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee,
nor are we children at all. The children of
Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing;
less than nothing, and dreams. We are only
what might have been, and must wait upon
the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages
before we have existence, and a name"
and immediately awaking, I found my
quietly seated in my bachelor arr
where I had fallen asleep, with '
Bridget unchanged by my side
(or James Elia) was gone for

DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS.

IN A LETTER TO B. F. ESQ., AT SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES.

MY DEAR F.-When I think how welcome | is natural and friendly. But at this present the sight of a letter from the world where reading - your Now- he may possibly be in you were born must be to you in that the Bench, or going to be hanged, which in strange one to which you have been trans- reason ought to abate something of your planted, I feel some compunctious visitings transport (i. e. at hearing he was well, &c.), at my long silence. But, indeed it is no or at least considerably to modify it. I am easy effort to set about a correspondence at going to the play this evening, to have a our distance. The weary world of waters laugh with Munden. You have no theatre, between us oppresses the imagination. It is I think you told me, in your land of d—d difficult to conceive how a scrawl of mine realities. You naturally lick your lips, and should ever stretch across it. It is a sort of envy me my felicity. Think but a moment, presumption to expect that one's thoughts and you will correct the hateful emotion. should live so far. It is like writing for pos- Why it is Sunday morning with you, and terity; and reminds me of one of Mrs. 1823. This confusion of tenses, this grand Rowe's superscriptions, "Alcander to Stre- solecism of two presents, is in a degree phon in the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel common to all postage. But if I sent you is no more than would be expedient in such word to Bath or Devizes, that I was exan intercourse. One drops a packet at Lom-pecting the aforesaid treat this evening, bard-street, and in twenty-four hours a friend though at the moment you received the inin Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it came telligence my full feast of fun would be over, in ice. It is only like whispering through a yet there would be for a day or two after, as long trumpet. But suppose a tube let down you would well know, a smack, a relish left from the moon, with yourself at one end and upon my mental palate, which would give the man at the other; it would be some balk rational encouragement for you to foster a to the spirit of conversation, if you knew portion, at least, of the disagreeable passion, that the dialogue exchanged with that in- which it was in part my intention to proteresting theosophist would take two or three duce. But ten months hence, your envy or revolutions of a higher luminary in its pas- your sympathy would be as useless as a sage. Yet, for aught I know, you may be passion spent upon the dead. Not only does some parasangs nigher that primitive idea — truth, in these long intervals, un-essence Plato's man - than we in England here have herself, but (what is harder) one cannot the honour to reckon ourselves. venture a crude fiction, for the fear that it Epistolary matter usually compriseth three may ripen into a truth upon the voyage. topics; news, sentiment, and puns. In the What a wild improbable banter I put upon latter, I include all non-serious subjects; or you, some three years since, - of Will subjects serious in themselves, but treated Weatherall having married a servant-maid! after my fashion, non-seriously. And first, I remember gravely consulting you how we for news. In them the most desirable cir- were to receive her for Will's wife was in cumstance, I suppose, is that they shall be no case to be rejected; and your no less true. But what security can I have that serious replication in the matter; how tenwhat I now send you for truth shall not, derly you advised an abstemious introduction before you get it, unaccountably turn into a of literary topics before the lady, with a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at caution not to be too forward in bringing on this present writing-my Now-in good the carpet matters more within the sphere of health, and enjoys a fair share of worldly her intelligence; your deliberate judgment, reputation. You are glad to hear it. This, or rather wise suspension of sentence, how

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far jacks, and spits, and mops, could, with less life, so took his fancy that he could propriety, be introduced as subjects; whether imagine no place so proper, in the event of the conscious avoiding of all such matters in his death, to lay his bones in. This was all discourse would not have a worse look than very natural and excusable as a sentiment, the taking of them casually in our way; in and shows his character in a very pleasing what manner we should carry ourselves to light. But when from a passing sentiment our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall it came to be an act; and when, by a posibeing by; whether we should show more delicacy, and a truer sense of respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary chiding before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid to Becky, as to a person of great worth, but thrown by the caprice of fate into a humble station. There were difficulties, I remember, on both sides, which you did me the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, united to the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your solemn pleadings, when lo! while I was valuing myself upon this flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in England, jealous possibly of any lie-children not his own, or working after my copy, has actually instigated our friend (not three days since) to the commission of a matrimony, which I had only conjured up for your diversion. William Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to take it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news from me must become history to you; which I neither profess to write, nor indeed care much for reading. No person, under a diviner, can, with any prospect of veracity, conduct a correspondence at such an arm's length. Two prophets, indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; the epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true present time of the receiver (Daniel); but then we are no prophets.

tive testamentary disposal, his remains were actually carried all that way from England; who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted, that did not ask the question, Why could not his Lordship have found a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as green and pendent, with a stream as emblematic to his purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or in Devon? Conceive the sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and handled between the rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians—a thing of its delicate texture-the salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid as a damaged lustring. Suppose it in material danger (mariners have some superstition about sentiments) of being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitia tory shark (spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign to the deviser's purpose!) but it has happily evaded a fishy consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing-at Lyons shall we say?—I have not the map before me-jostled upon four men's shoulders baiting at this town stopping to refresh at t'other village – waiting a passport here, a license there; the sanction of the magistracy in this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that canton; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out and jaded, from a brisk sentiment into a feature of silly pride or tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments, my dear F., I am afraid we can set down, in the sailor's phrase, as quite seaworthy.

Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that. This kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot, or sent off in water-plates, that your friend may have it almost as warm as yourself. If it have time to cool, it is the most tasteless of all cold Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, meats. I have often smiled at a conceit of though contemptible in bulk, are the twinkthe late Lord C. It seems that travelling ling corpuscula which should irradiate a somewhere about Geneva, he came to some right friendly epistle - your puns and small pretty green spot, or nook, where a willow, jests are, I apprehend, extremely circumor something, hung so fantastically and in- scribed in their sphere of action. They are vitingly over a stream - was it? or a rock? so far from a capacity of being packed up -no matter-but the stillness and the re- and sent beyond sea, they will scarce endure pose, after a weary journey, 'tis likely, in a to be transported by hand from this room to languid moment of his Lordship's hot, rest- the next. Their vigour is as the instant of

be regretted; for if they take it into their
heads to be poets, it is odds but they turn
out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists.
Is there much difference to see, too, between
the son of a th**f and the grandson? or
where does the taint stop? Do you bleach
in three or in four generations? I have
many questions to put, but ten Delphic
voyages can be made in a shorter time than
it will take to satisfy my scruples.
Do you
grow your own hemp?-What is your staple
trade,—exclusive of the national profession,
I mean? Your locksmiths, I take it, are
some of your great capitalists.

their birth. Their nutriment for their brief | scanning?-It must look very odd, but use existence is the intellectual atmosphere of reconciles. For their scansion, it is less to the by-standers: or this last is the fine slime of Nilus-the melior lutus-whose maternal recipiency is as necessary as the sol pater to their equivocal generation. A pun hath a hearty kind of present ear-kissing smack with it; you can no more transmit it in its pristine flavour than you can send a kiss. Have you not tried in some instances to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has it answered? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It was like picking up at a village ale-house a twodays'-old newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you resent the stale thing as an affront. This sort of merchandise above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its recognitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. in pump-famed Hare-court in the Temple. The one is the brisk lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's interval, and the link is snapped. A pun is reflected from a friend's face as from a mirror. Who would consult his sweet visnomy, if the polished surface were two or three minutes (not to speak of twelve months, my dear F.) in giving back its copy?

are.

I cannot image to myself whereabout you When I try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across me. Sometimes you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves. I see Diogenes prying among you with his perpetual fruitless lantern. What must you be willing by this time to give for the sight of an honest man! You must almost have forgotten how we look. And tell me what your Sydneyites do? are they th**v*ng all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such a depredation ! The kangaroos - your Aborigines-do they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short fore puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided à priori; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest loco-motor in the colony. We hear the most improbable tales at this distance. Pray is it true that the young Spartans among you are born with six fingers, which spoils their

I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we used to exchange goodmorrows out of our old continguous windows,

Why did you ever leave that quiet corner?

Why did I?-with its complement of four poor elms, from whose smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obselete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you. But while I talk I think you hear me,- thoughts dallying with vain surmise

Aye me! while thee the seas and sounding shores
Hold far away.

Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so as you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks on crutches. Girls whom you left children have become sage matrons while you are tarrying there. The blooming Miss W-r (you remember Sally W-r) called upon us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks whom you knew die off every year. Formerly, I thought that death was wearing out,-I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends. The departure of J. W., two springs back, corrected my delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. If you do not make haste to return, there will be little left to greet you, of me, or mine.