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Look at the nightingale, whose callow young

Some boy hath markt, and now half nak'd hath taken,
Which long she closely kept, and foster'd long,

But all in vain; she now poore bird forsaken

Flies up and down, but grief no place can slaken :

All day and night her losse she fresh doth rue,

And where she ends her plaints, there soon begins anew.

Since the above was written I have seen an extract from a Prussian newspaper, in which it is stated that a tax has been put on persons keeping nightingales in cages, and that in future no nightingale can be caught in that country without a report of the circumstance being made to the authorities and the tax paid.

A MORNING'S DRIVE FROM UPTON

PARK.

From yonder ivy-mantled tow'r,

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her antient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

GRAY.

UPTON CHURCH.

WHILE I am writing this, I can see from my window the old church of Upton, now deserted as a place of worship, and fast falling, alas! into decay. There is its old tower, covered with a huge mass of ivy, and generally called in the neighbourhood, Gray's " ivy mantled tower." There is the fine old yew tree, which appears to have flourished through many ages, and the deep shade in the back ground occasioned by a thick grove of elms and other trees, which overhang a portion of the church yard. There, also," the turf heaves in many a mouldering heap" over what was once a

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UPTON CHURCH.-GRAY'S "IVY MANTLED TOWER."

prattling infant, or a garrulous "forefather of the hamlet"-over the honest labourer, and his wealthy landlord.

I love to stroll late on a summer's evening, when the moon is illumining the glorious vaulted arch of heaven, to the churchyard of Upton. The light and shades at this time are most beautiful and interesting, and the gloom of the ivy contrasts finely with them. "The moping owl" takes her silent flight from the clasping evergreen, and, with stealthy wing, seeks her food along the neighbouring meadows, sometimes flitting beneath the old willow pollards, and then emerging into the more open glades. Numerous bats, also, come forth, and as they pass rapidly to and fro, appear almost to touch me with their leathern wings, and to consider themselves as the guardians of

The silent vaults of death, unknown to light.

How finely does the moon reveal the little early Norman arch on the north side of the church, and the sight of which brings to the mind so many reflections on times long since passed, when all around the spot was rural simplicity and rural happiness. Here as I stroll about, I see perhaps a peasant leaning with his arms on the low parapet wall of the churchyard, his little girl seated beside him, while he is contemplating, probably, the place in which some of those he loved repose, or musing

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