wonder how any body could exist without reading Shakspeare, and at length resolved, at all risks, to make my father a sharer in my new-found felicity. Of the nature of taste I had not the least idea; so far otherwise, that I was continually revolving benevolent plans to distribute some of the poetry I most delighted in among the Bezaleels and Habakkuks of the twenty mile line. I thought this would make them happy as myself; and that when they once felt the charm of “musical delight,” the harsh language of contention would cease, and legal quibbling give way before the spirit of harmony. How often did I repeat Thomson’s description of the golden age, concluding, “For music held the whole in perfect peace.” At home, however, I was in some degree successful. My father did begin to take some interest in the roses, and I was happy, yet kept both my secret and my closet, and made more and more advances in the study of these “wood notes wild.” As you like it, and the Midsummer Night’s Dream enchanted me; and I thought the comfort of my closet so great, that I dreaded nothing so much as a flood, that should occasion its being once more set in motion. I was one day deeply engaged in compassionating Othello, sitting on a plank, added on the outside of the pile, for strengthening it, when happening to lift my eyes, I saw a long serpent on the same board, at my elbow, in a threatening attitude, with its head lifted up. Othello and I ran off together with all imaginable speed; and as that particular kind of snake seldom approaches any person, unless the abode of its young is invaded, I began to fear I had been studying Shakspeare in a nest of serpents. Our faithful servant examined the place at my request. Under the very board on which I sat, when terrified by this unwished associate, was found a nest with seven eggs. After being most thankful for my escape, the next thing was to admire the patience and good humour of the mother of this family, who permitted such a being as myself so long to share her haunt with impunity. Indeed, the rural pleasures of this country were always liable to those drawbacks; and this place was peculiarly infested with the familiar garter-snake, because the ruins of the burnt house afforded shelter and safety to these reptiles. ------- CHAP. LIX. The Swamp—A discovery. THIS adventure made me cautious of sitting out of doors, yet I daily braved a danger of the same nature, in the woods behind the house, which were my favourite haunts, and where I frequently saw snakes, yet was never pursued or annoyed by them. In this wood, half a mile from the house, was a swamp, which afforded a scene so totally unlike any thing else, that a description of it may amuse those who have never seen nature in that primitive state.