How rich in thoughts—how fertile in fancies that quicken the brain and dally with the heart, is every footpace of the soil! Reader, be with us for a brief time at this beautiful village of Herne. The sky is sullen; and summer, like a fine yet froward wench, smiles now and then, now frowns the blacker for the passing brightness: nevertheless, summer in her worst mood cannot spoil the beautiful features of this demure, this antique village. It seems a very nest—warm and snug, and green—for human life; with the twilight haze of time about it, almost consecrating it from the aching hopes and feverish expectations of the present. Who would think that the bray and roar of multitudinous London sounded but some sixty miles away? The church stands peacefully, reverently, like some old visionary monk, his feet on earth—his thoughts with God. And the graves are all about; and things of peace and gentleness, like folded sheep, are gathered round it. There is a stile which man might make the throne of solemn thought—his pregnant matter, the peasant bones that lie beneath. And on the other side, a park, teeming with beauty; with sward green as emeralds, and soft as a mole’s back; and trees, with centuries circulating in their gnarled massiveness. But we must quit the churchyard, and turning to the right, we will stroll towards Reculvers. How rich the swelling meadows! How their green breasts heave with conceived fertility! And on this side corn-fields; the grain stalk thick as a reed; the crop level and compact as a green bank. And here, too, is a field of canary seed: of seed grown for London birds in London cages. The farmer shoots the sparrow—the little rustic scoundrel—that with felonious bill would carry away one grain sown for, made sacred to, Portman Square canary! We might, perhaps, find a higher parallel to this did we look with curious eyes about us. Nevertheless, bumpkin sparrow has his world of air to range in; his free loves; and for his nest his ivied wall or hawthorn bush. These, say the worst, are a happy set-off even against a gilt-wired cage; sand like diamond dust; unfailing seed, and sugar from even the sweeter lips of lady mistress. Powder and small shot may come upon the sparrow like apoplexy upon an alderman, with the unbolted morsel in its gullet; yet, consider—hath the canary no danger to encounter? Doth not prosperity keep a cat?