OLD BILLS,

AND OTHER MATTERS.

BY JOVEN.

They are all gone, or going. Day by day, tickets for railway, and tickets for steam-boat are bought, and the joyous company depart-lighthearted, athletic, eager for travel and sport. To all points of the compass they go. There is Brown the lazy-he dozes with his Manillas under the green boughs of Sherwood; Smith, the enterprising, is roughing it in one of the Hebrid Isles," placed far amid the melancholy main ;" and Jones, in Robinson's yacht, scuds merrily about between Beechy Head and the Land's End. Happy fellows all! but I, miserrimus, where am I?

"Come to South Devon," writes a friend: "Come to North Devon," writes another. Dear friends, I wish I could; but a power, a spirit, withholds mee-the Genius of Circumstances over-which-I-have-no-control. The summer this year must pass away before I can stamp, with vengeful exultation, upon my black hat; before I can hang up my black coat upon a clothes' horse, and beat it soundly with my pilgrim-staff; before I can revel in extempore and vociferous ditties with shepherds and fishers, with farmers and coast-guardsınen. Methinks, I could be very melancholy to-day. I have a marvellous disposition to cry. I prythee, let us sit upon the ground,

And tell sad stories of the deaths of kings!

I shall read Blair's Grave, or Young's Night Thoughts, or Drelincourt on Death, or Hervey's Meditations among the Tombs, or Johnson on The Vanity of Human Wishes, or Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying; or, shall I make the best of a bad bargain? It is really a great deal too hot for me to tear my hair in anguish and despair. I will adapt myself to circumstances, and make myself as cheerful as possible.

quite; I take from my desk an old pocket-book, and place it exactly underneath the little nosegay. That little pocket-book is my talisman. Whenever I desire to take an imaginary journey, I get my very dingy little friend. He has seen better days; the pockets of him are rather frayed by constant use, some of his leaves are crinkled; but he contains all that I want to cheer me. What does he contain? Bills!

I repeat it bills! Not at date or at sight, not at six months or at three, not bills of exchange nor bills of the play, but bills (receipted bills, I am proud to observe!) from various hostelries in the west country and in the east. Viewed as artistic productions, they are not remarkable. Some of them have little "views" on them-those inevitable "views" which one knows so well, exhibiting a very scratchy sea in the distance, and an inn, of palatial dimensions and innumerable windows, in the foreground. Others are plainer still, with simply the touching legend, "Good Stabling."

Now, by arranging these in topographical order, I can again "wander at mine own sweet will," and fancy myself again on tramp, as in former summers, when circumstances-overwhich-I-had-no-control were not adverse to my

exodus.

"And what is the use of that, sir?" Now, I know the questioner very well: it is Brads (Brads and Burgess, lace manufacturers, Nottingham), an excellent man, but a prosaic one. Brads is emphatically a "practical" man; he is also one of the council of the Ballot Society, and was a prominent member of the lamented Administrative Reform Association. His head is crammed, and almost running over, with statistical information. He has read more bluebooks than I have read novels; he has travelled all over Europe and America to "improve his mind"-and business. And, I call him a dull, ignorant fellow as ever breathed - ignorant, though he can tell me, at two-minutes' notice, how many bales of cotton were imported in 1837; and, though with scarcely an instant's hesitation, he can inform me as to the number of pork-butchers in Cincinnati, U.S. Brads, my mechanical friend, my pity for you is deep! Unhappy man! you are rich, and yet you are miserably poor. You are acute, and yet you are singularly dull; for to you, O Brads! the universe is as a mill, your fellow-creatures are

First of all, then, I go into my little garden. Hosts of roses there to-day; pinks and carnations in full glory: I pluck some, I take a little bunch of southernwood, I tie up my treasure-trove with a little piece of string, and place it in water on my table. There, that doesn't look so bad, does it? Now for books: I take Murray's "Kent and Sussex;" I take the "Hand-book for Devon;" I take a few other guide-books, and pile them together. Next, I surround them with a few volumes of poetry; 'Percy's Reliques," of course, in the place of honour. On the extreme left, a volume of Professor Wilson; on the extreme right, a volume of Kingsley."hands," poetry is nonsense, and enthusiasm a Item, Ritson's "Robin Hood;" item, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales;" item, (for the sake of "L'Allegro" " and "Il Penseroso,") the late Mr. Milton of Bunhill Row. A few good excursion maps fill the vacant places; and then my arrangements are very nearly complete. Not

farce! Despite your banker's book, I cannot consider you as other than a pauper. The wealth of inental and spiritual enjoyment, which you have not possessed, cannot be measured or computed by any standard known to you. We hear artists and others complaining of poverty;

but would they change with Brads? Verily, not one of them. The humblest young man who is now sketching in Cumberland and Wales, is, compared to Brads, a Rothschild, a Croesus: nay, even the "Bohemian" of great cities, though he may be out-at-elbows, and not out-ofdebt, is more to be envied than Brads. Oh! the crowds of men who go through life without living! Is it not as though there were a film before their eyes, and as though their hearts were locked up in an iron box? And they think, they think that they are the wise men! they moralize! they "promote the cause of education!" Why, they have not yet an idea, even the dimmest, even the faintest, of what education should really be! They "improve the condition of the labouring classes," and "reform the institutions of their country!" They had much better sweep a chimney!

Not in harshness to Brads are these remarks made, but rather in pity for him; but you, our ideal reader, pure of heart, keen of sense, opensouled to all honest and natural delights, and sufficiently wise not to be always serious, you will understand the glee with which the old travelling memoranda are perused. Why, every happy day which I have lived I can live again. A few plain notes bring back one glorious holiday after another till the room in which I sit seems surrounded by a rushing, crowding host of pictures; and I myself have a strange sensation, as though I were at once rowing, walking, riding, and swimming, with a slight tendency to skate. I can share in the pleasure of my friends. Dear old Harry, he is off and away to the west -high on Dartmoor by this time. Talk not to me of tourists' glasses suitable for the waistcoat pocket, and by which Jupiter's moons can be distinctly discerned-I want no such glass to see Harry enter that cottage by the bridge at Dartmeet. Harry, remember me most kindly to the good dame; but, thirsty as you may be, beware of the ale which she may hospitably offer; for I have tasted it-moi, qui vous parle; and the expression of my face as I set down the blue mug was as that of Ugolino-a wondering, but intensified horror! Drink of the Dart, man, and thy thirst shall be slaked, yet thy constitution not impaired. Ah! the cheery fellow, he is in snug quarters now. This is not the advertisement sheet, and I may not name the inn, with its sanded floor and its dear little windows, where Harry stops; but he is surely in clover; soundly he sleeps (flowers in the bed-room window)-soundly as his twenty-five miles of moorland entitle him to do; and then "Cheerful at morn, he starts from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.” The lines are dear Goldsmith's, who knew all the joy of this wandering life as well as any man that ever lived. But, before Harry breasts the keen air, I infer from one of my memoranda that he will have such a breakfast as never Apicius enjoyed, or Brillat-Savarin imagined: weel befa' the rosy little maiden that brought the clouted cream from the farm this morning,

and happy be the cows thenceforth, as they (we
quote the famous French interpretation of
Shakspere's line) “show the code of sweet and
bitter fancy!" The keen air-that is the very
word-stimulating, invigorating as a plunge
from a rock. No wonder that the happy fellow
shouts away with his jolly, hearty voice. Actu-
ally he is singing that old "Tramp song" which
we used to chant together:

Though down in yonder valley
The mist is like a sea-
Though the sun is scarcely risen,
There is light enough for me!
For, be it early morning,
Or be it late at night,
Cheerily ring my footsteps
"Right! Left! Right!"

I wander through the woodland
That hangs about the hill;
Hark! the cock is tuning

His morning clarion shrill!
And, suddenly awaking
From his nest amid the spray,
Hurriedly now the blackbird,
Whistling, greets the day.
And be it early morning,
Or be it late at night,
Cheerily ring my footsteps,
"Right! Left! Right!"

I gaze upon the streamlet,
As on the bridge I lean;
I watch its hurried ripples,

I mark its golden green.
Oh! the men of the moor are stalwart,
And the moorland lasses fair;
And merrily breathes around me
The bracing moorland air.

I smoke my black old meerschaum,
I smoke from morn to night,
Whilst cheerily ring my footsteps,
"Right! Left! Right!"

Harry might easily have chosen a better ditty, but this one is dear to him, as to us, for the sake of "auld lang syne." Doubtless, before the day is out, he will be crooning over some verses of far higher quality-some of the grand old ballads which we have lately been glorifying in these columns, and apropos of which we may as well quote now (what we forgot to quote then) four lines of Molière, which lend the lustre and authority of a great name to what we have said:

sympathy grew greater, the need for envy grew less. At the present moment, I protest, that I am thoroughly enjoying a country walking-tour. It is all very well for Brads to remind me that my letters are addressed Vague Villas, S.E.; and that, therefore, I am still in the metropolitan district. I tell you what it is, Brads: if you persist in making disagreeable remarks, I shall consider myself perfectly justified in throwing Lambarde's" History of Kent" at you; which will spoil your hat, Brads !

More bills, more bills! Humph: Arundel Castle, Compton Castle, Berry Pomeroy Castle. It is rather trying to be reminded of them just now, I grant. Try as I may, it is rather difficult for me to convert this chair of mine into an old ivy-covered wall. I can't well get back into the past with this decidedly modern desk before me. I can't imagine that I see gallant knights and ladyes fair, when, looking out of window, peg-tops and crinoline are obviously in the ascendant. Very well, then, I will not look out of window, and gradually the feeling comes back with which one visits such places. Rather a dreary feeling at first: the walls crum- | bling away, the ample hearths fireless and dull, the rooms vacant, through which of old the stately forms of heroes walked-you cannot be very cheerful as you see all this. But still, | round you, the woods are as fresh and green, the waters as swift and bright, as in the old days-as when Humphrey Gilbert ("we are as near to heaven by sea as by land!") sat in Compton or as when one of the Pomeroys, having no choice but either surrender or death, mounted his grand war-horse, plunged the cruel spur deep into his flank, and leapt superbly down from the castle, crushed and dead almost before the cry of astonishment could rise from the besieging host. Oh! the grandeur of the old days! Men are as brave as ever, but we miss the royal abandon of daring. Men fight for a cause or a principle, from enthusiasm or from duty; but those old heroes ("barbarous feudal oppressors," says Brads) seemed to fight as flowers grow. Far be it from the present writer to join Brads in his sneers (indeed, to join Brads in anything!) against the feudal system, which, for its time, was doubtless noble, and, indeed, is substantially right and true; but the feudal system died away, and the new chivalry has yet to be born. Are there no signs of its birth? Perhaps I am too sanguine; but I think I do see that a grander and more catholic public spirit is rising in England than has ever been known since the Elizabethan days-a spirit less sectarian, less harsh than Puritanism; but wiser, deeper, and graver than the chivalry of the past. Of one thing I am certain: the past gets fairer appreciation and deeper sympathy now than ever before. Thanks for this, as for so many other noble services to England, are due pre-eminently to Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter it was who first made the past again live for us. We might read dusty folios, bewilder ourselves with dates, and bore ourselves with names; but not until Sir Walter wrote was there a real insight to be

Don't

got into the life of the "days that are no more."
The seed which he scattered lavishly abroad fell
into no sterile soil; it sprang up rapidly, surely,
and the fruits of it are bright and plentiful
around us to-day. The dismal, prating, pedantic,
utilitarian school may not be utterly dead even
yet; we may still hear arid talk about the "dark
ages," "empire of superstition," "feudal atro-
cities," and the like; but the old ballads and
old cathedrals remain, to teach us what our fore-
fathers were—as loving, as tender, as keen, and
quick to feel all natural beauty as we who pre-
sume to sit in judgment upon them, and to
talk glibly about their ignorance or their faults.
Ah! Brads, your "firm" is a great one; but,
my dear man, the plain, sober burgesses of the
middle ages were quite as good as you are, quite
as shrewd and quite as enterprising.
forget, Brads, that without their labour, even
you, the flower of civilization and the crown of
time, could not exist. The more lovingly we
study the Past, the more bravely shall we face
the Present. It is but the part of a fool to
decry his fathers, and I never knew that
Ingratitude was the mother of Heroism. The
study, indeed, may be pursued in many widely
different ways. There are men who devote
themselves to it in a purblind spirit, who potter
over details, and gloat over gravestones, but who
altogether miss the poetry and the life that
alone make the study worthy of pursuit. There
are others-ah, how many!—who approach the
past reverently, solemnly; and as the reward of
their pious toil they are privileged to see that
"Not rough nor barren are the winding ways

Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers!" The happy wanderers, with whose pleasures I am now seeking to identify myself, ought, if they have eyes, to learn this lesson as quickly as any one; for it is stamped plain and deep upon the face of England. Often I have felt that the whole thing was beautifully typified in some of those rough old walls of which I speak. Like the pyramids, "doting with age, they have forgotten the names of their founders;" an immense age seems written upon them; they are shattered and confused; parts lie in ruin, parts Yes, but the wall-flowers grow on them still! are almost tottering to their fall as you look. The winds of heaven have brought soil for the plants, and wafted thither the winged seeds, and so the old walls have yet a garment of beauty and a perfume of youth; and the flowers that grow on the dismantled keep of a feudal baron the peasant's garden below. Happy peasants! are as fresh and strong as those which spring in

O fortunatos nimium sua si bona nôrint.
Agricolas !

Beautiful as the Past may have been, we turn from it gladly to the living Present; and the last of the Pomeroys is faint and dim compared to the plain farmer who now tills the soil over which they bore sway. Happy, indeed, if they knew their bliss, were the country-folk! So at least we think, we people from the cities-forgetting that man's heart, with all its awful mysteries