How beautiful is this wild spot, with its accompaniments of lawn and thicket, with its clear stream, now prattling over a rocky bed, and now dancing in playful eddies beside the tufts of grass and yellow flowers, that skirt the margin of the water! Innumerable boughs shut out the distant prospect, and neither a church-spire, nor curling smoke, ascending from some lone cottage, betoken the abode of men. In the midst of this fair spot stands a "caverned, huge, and thunder-blasted oak;" its dry branches are white with age, the bark has long since fallen from them, and most impressive is the contrast which it presents to the lightness and the freshness of the young green trees among which it stands, as among them, though not of them. Beyond their verdurous circle are a variety of romantic dingles, covered with blackberry-bushes, with moss, and ivy. Gigantic trees fling the shadow of their noble branches over the green sward, and the spaces between them are filled, here, and there, with an exuberant growth of underwood. The music of almost every feathered songster that frequents the woods of England is heard in this wild spot; but except the buzzing of flies that rise in crowds from the copses, and the pleasant rippling of the stream, no other sound meets the ear. The old tree with its bleached and skeleton arms has a fearful name, and stout of heart must the man be who would pass within sight of it when the sun is set behind the hill, and the trees cast their lengthened shadows on the grass. It is called the 'haunted oak,' the 'spirit's blasted tree,' or the 'hobgoblin's hollow tree,' and dismal is the tale to which the name refers. Howel Sele, whose sad history is associated with this blasted oak, was lord of the wide domain which extends around it for many miles. We know not whether his heart was secretly inclined to espouse the faction of Henry IV., or whether he loved a life of ease, and preferred to dwell in his castle-hall, hoping that the storm which threatened to overwhelm his country might pass away. Certain it is that Owen Glendour thought not well of him, and perhaps with reason. He came not forth to assist in delivering his country from the aggressions of a foreign enemy; some even said that he had been induced to desert her cause, and that he only waited for an opportunity to avow himself. Others, whispered, that he looked with a jealous eye on the generous Glendour; and that he feared not to speak of him as the sole leader of a desperate faction, who, if deprived of their head, had no other hope.