What is the condition of the country-seat of the absentee proprietor? The mansion-house deserted and closed; the approaches to it ragged and grass grown; the chimneys, "those windpipes of good hospitality," as an old English poet calls them, giving no token of the cheerful fire within; the gardens running to waste, or, perchance, made a source of menial profit; the old family servants dismissed, and some rude bailiff, or country attorney, ruling paramount in the place. The surrounding cottagers, who have derived their support from the vicinage, deprived of this, pass into destitution and wretchedness; either abandoning their homes, throwing themselves upon parish relief, or seeking provision by means yet more desperate. The farming tenantry, though less immediately dependent, yet all partake, more or less, in the evil. The charities and hospitalities which belong to such a mansion lie dormant; the clergyman is no longer supported and aided in his important duties; the family pew in the church is closed; and the village churchyard ceases to be a place of pleasant meeting, where the peasant's heart is gladdened by the kindly notice of his landlord. It is the struggle against retrenchment, the "paupertatis pudor et fuga," which has caused hundreds of English families, of property and consideration, to desert their family places, and to pass year after year in residence abroad. At the close of each London season, the question too often occurs as to the best mode of evading return to the country; and the sun of summer, instead of calling back the landlord to his tenants, and to the harvests of his own lands, sends him forth to the meagre adventures of continental roads and inns.--_Quarterly Rev._ * * * * * SOLILOQUY. THE KING OF DARKNESS. _On the Fallen Angels._