northern latitudes, generally imparts a sterile and unlovely character to the contiguous shores, either preventing altogether the growth of trees, or giving such a stunted, warped, and cankered appearance to those that struggle against the chalky soil and the stormy winds, as to make them rather disfiguring than ornamental to the scenery. Such was not the case at Thaxted, which was sufficiently removed from the great landscape-spoiler to be beyond the reach of its baneful influence, and yet near enough to derive from it all those scenic embellishments which so eminently enhance the beauty of a rich land view, by affording occasional glimpses of the gleaming sea, or a white sail, caught beneath the boughs of noble trees, athwart the undulating hollows of the intervening downs, or over an enclosed and cultivated level. The village stood upon the extreme edge of a heath, not of such extent as some of those which, forming spacious openings in the interior of the New Forest, are extensive enough to deserve the name of— "Vast savannas, where the wand'ring eye, and yet sufficiently large to give breadth, distance, and picturesqueness, to the surrounding scenery. Its opposite extremity was bounded by the Forest, forming woody bays and promontories, alternately receding from, and advancing into, the heath; now opening upon some deep dark vista, athwart whose distant gloom the deer were occasionally seen to bound, or from which a timber-wain, in Hampshire called a tug, was slowly emerging, under the efforts of a numerous team of oxen;-now throwing forward some prominent grove so far upon the open land, that the tuftings of its noble trees fell into rich masses of light and shade, relieved by the umbrageous back-ground of the Forest. Nor was the heath itself by any means so forlorn or dreary an object as might be supposed. Its broken surface, tufted with every variety of furze, fern, and other wild plants, and presenting here and there the red ochreous banks of a road that wound through it, was tinted with the rich harmonious hues that a painter loves: detached clumps of trees, breaking its monotony, served to unite its woody boundaries with its area; while a large sheet of water that occu pied its centre, was nearly bisected by a long projecting tongue of land, upon which, especially in the sunny evenings of summer, might be seen groups of cattle, or forest mares with their foals, sending their long shadows athwart the golden bloom of the little lake. The view from the opposite side of the gentle eminence on which the village stood, though totally dissimilar, was scarcely less attractive--the eye passing over enclosed corn-fields, pastures, and meadows, till it reached the Isle of Wight, the insularity of which not being perceptible to the eye, gave to the intervening Channel the appearance of an extensive lake bounded by rugged cliffs and distant mountains. A clump of lofty elms and lime-trees, branchless for some distance from the ground, but tufting over luxuriously at top, formed an arch across the road leading to the village, around which numerous flights of pigeons were generally to be seen wheeling and careering; while beneath its aperture might be discerned the low spire of the church embosomed in foliage. Athwart the straggling irregular central road of Thaxted, dignified by the name of the High street, hung the sign of the chief inn, exhibiting a most bellipotent Saint George on a fiery white horse, having obviously the best of it in a conflict with a portentous green dragon, who seemed to be complaisantly opening his mouth for the express purpose of swallowing his adversary's javelin. The building to which this flaring daub was prefixed, was an ancient low edifice, constructed with solid timbers blackened on the outside, the interstices being plastered and white-washed. A sharp-pointed gable, fretted with half-decayed oak wood, crowned the front; and the roof was of large sand-stones, covered with moss and house-leek, from the midst of which issued a ponderous red brick chimney, placed edgeways, and surmounted with numerous ragged mouldings. The upper story projected over the lower, and the cornice that divided them had sunk considerably on one side, without, however, appearing to have injured the general solidity of the building, which, humble as it was, constituted the most important structure in the High-street. In passing the irregular assortment of barns, sheds, shops, and houses, thatched, tiled, and slated, that made up the straggling village, the attentive traveller might observe, from the various inscriptions, that there seemed to be but four names in the whole place, the two first exhibiting the unmeaning monosyllables of Wicks and Stubbs, and the remaining two the more rural compounds of Penfold and Haslegrove, which, with various baptismal distinctions, were perpetually alternated and interchanged; while a physiognomist would have been tempted to imagine, from the similarity of the faces surrounding him, that the owners of these four appellations had successively intermarried until the whole village had become, as it were, one numerous family. They who have derived their notions from the golden age or the patriarchal times, might dream that such a mutually connected society, inhabiting so beautiful and sequestered a retreat, would form an united brotherhood of peace and love; while they who contemplate our peasantry," as truth will paint them, and as bards will not," will not widely err in forming a very different conclusion. In most large families, indeed, the claims of consanguinity are too apt to be forgotten in op |