What incomparable siestas those were, when, from between half-closed eyelids, we watched for the advent of the two horsemen--one in corselet of shining silver, inlaid with gold, and the other with hauberk of bright steel rings--slowly riding down the distant declivity, under the rays of a warm, red sunset! Then, there were abundance of gray castle-walls--ever so high, the ivy hanging deliciously about them; and there were clanging chains of draw-bridges, that rattled when a good knight galloped over; and there were stalwart gypsies lying under hedges, with charmingest of little ones with flaxen hair (who are not gypsies at all, but only stolen); and there is clash of arms; and there are bad men, who get punched with spear heads--which is good for them; and there are jolly old burghers who drink beer, and “troll songs”; and assassins who lurk in the shadows of long corridors--where the moonbeams shine upon their daggers; and there are dark-haired young women, who look out of casements and kiss their hands and wave white kerchiefs,--and somebody sees it in the convenient edge of the wood, and salutes in return, and steals away; and the assassin escapes, and the gypsies are captured in the bush, and some bad king is killed, and an old parchment is found, and the stars come out, and the rivulet murmurs, and the good knight comes back; and the dark tresses are at the casement, and she smiles, and the marriage bells ring, and they are happy. And the school bell (for supper) rings, and we are happy! * * * * * As I close this book with these last shadowy glimpses of story-tellers, who have told their pleasant tales, and have lived out their time, and gone to rest, I see lifting over that fair British horizon, where Victoria shows her queenly presence--the modest Mr. Pickwick, with his gaiters and bland expanse of figure; Thackeray, too, with his stalwart form and spectacled eyes is peering out searchingly upon all he encounters; the refined face of Ruskin is also in evidence, and his easy magniloquence is covering one phase of British art with new robes. A woman’s Dantesque profile shows the striking qualities which are fairly mated by the striking passages in _Adam Bede_ and _Daniel Deronda_; one catches sight, too, of the shaggy, keen visage of the quarrel-loving Carlyle, and of those great twin-brethren of poesy--Browning and Tennyson--the Angelo and the Raphael of latter images in verse. Surely these make up a wonderful grouping of names--not unworthy of comparison with those others whom we found many generations ago, grouped around another great queen of England, who blazed in her royal court, and flaunted her silken robes, and--is gone. FOOTNOTES [1] Robert Southey, b. 1774; d. 1843. _Joan of Arc_ (pub.) 1796; _Thalaba_, 1801; _A Vision of Judgment_, 1821; _Life of Nelson_, 1813; _The Doctor_, 1834-47. _Life and Correspondence_, edited by Rev. Chas. Cuthbert Southey, 1849-50.