woful is the appearance of the avenues which lead to once Merry Wakefield.

"On one of them there frowns a Bastile so huge and terrible, and so appalling with solitary cells, that in viewing it the soul of man recoils within him, and he begins to doubt if he is in a Christian country. Things were not so in the gone-by days of once Merry Wakefield.

"On another is seen a widely spreading structure, peopled by those whom sorrow, and misfortune, and want, and wretchedness, have deprived of the choicest gift of Heaven to man. We read in their countenances the mournful history of their sad destiny, and we fancy that we can hear them say, 'You would have seen no sights so sorrowful as these in the gone-by days of once merry Wakefield.'

"On a third avenue we behold unsightly piles of buildings, granaries high and spacious, but the workings of which are diametrically the reverse of those erected by benevolent Joseph in ancient Egypt. And in passing over Calder's Bridge, we see a gem of olden architecture, now mouldering into dust, unheeded and untenanted, and with its windows broken. "Tis said to have been endowed for mass, for the

souls of the slain at the great battle in the neighbourhood. Some years ago it served as a counting-house; but probably the pressure of the times drove the buyers and sellers from its polluted walls, which were kept so pure and bright in the gone-by days of once Merry Wakefield.

66

Wakefield,

once Merry Wakefield! these sad innovations too plainly tell us that all is not right within thee. But thy cup of sorrow is not yet filled up; another bereavement still awaits thee, and it will be a final blow to the few remaining rural sports which are now within thy reach. Heath Common is to be enclosed! Then adieu, a long and last adieu, to thy delightful walks, and rides, and manly games, on the ever-enchanting wilds of Heath Common; thy unrestricted, undisturbed sojourn, time out of mind. And when the fatal day of its enclosure shall have dawned upon thee, say, once Merry Wakefield say, what is to become of thy fifteen thousand people, who will not have a yard of public land remaining, whereon to recover that health of frame, and vigour of the mind, so apt to be enfeebled when debarred from the advantage of rural air and

pastime? I myself will join thee in thy lamentations on the near approach of this great and unexpected event; for many a walk do I take on Heath Common, to hear the wild notes of birds which are strangers to my own domain; and it is on Heath Common that I always expect to hear the first song of the cuckoo, sweet harbinger of returning spring.

"Were I a Senator,-which God forbid, whilst Peel's Oath stares me in the face! - I would stand up and fight thy battle to the last.

"Wakefield,—once Merry Wakefield! - fare thee well! I would not have a hand in the projected enclosure of Heath Common, even though poor Charley Stuart himself could come back, and were to give his royal sanction to it."

* Wakefield had acquired the association with its name of "Merry" at an early period, and it may be that the exhibition of these very pageantries may have had much to do with the origin of the expression which is put by Fuller amongst the provincial expressions of Yorkshire, « Merry Wakefield.” (See preface, p. xvi., to the Towneley Mysteries, published in London by J. B. Nichols and Son, Parliament Street, and William Pickering, Chancery Lane.

THE CANADA OR CRAVAT GOOSE.

"Mopso Nisa datur, quid non speremus amantes? "

VIRGIL.

THE fine proportions of this stately foreigner, its voice, and flavour of its flesh, are strong inducements for us all to hope that, ere long, it will become a naturalised bird throughout the whole of Great Britain. I stop not to give a detailed description of its plumage; that has already been performed by many able hands. Suffice it then to say, that its beautiful black neck and white cheeks render it so particularly conspicuous, that those who have seen it once will never be at a loss to recognise it, when viewed amongst all other species of the goose tribe.

Towards the close of the last century, thirteen of these birds were to be seen on this sheet of water. My father had taken the precaution to have them pinioned, in order to insure their permanent stay with him; and they were known by no other name than that of Spanish Geese. After my father's death, and during my absence

in America, some hungry quadruped, or nocturnal plunderer in the shape of man, thinned down their number to a solitary goose; and at last, this remaining favourite fell a prey to the fox, ere all entrance into my park had been effectually debarred to that wily villain by the interposition of a wall, from nine to ten feet in height.

No more Canada geese were seen at this place for many years, until one day, when Mr. Ord, of Philadelphia, the elegant biographer of poor Wilson the ornithologist, observed a pair of them to alight on a distant part of the lake. I shall never forget with what joy and enthusiasm this worthy friend announced to me his important discovery of the long-looked-for strangers. But they only tarried for a day or two, and then they went away, and returned no

more.

In the winter of the following year, I was agreeably surprised one morning by seeing a flock of four-and-twenty Canada geese on the water. Having never heard that so large a number had been observed on any of the waters in this neighbourhood, I concluded that these birds must have come from a distance. Be this