Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-04-27

villages, with its lordiy park, its stately. |
lowered church and brasscs Of 600 years |
in memory Of the noble CubhamS, and
It's "Leather Bottle" inn made famous |
in its immortal pages Of lpickwick; beau |
tful old Sharne, girdlGd with massive |
Gins and richest orchard bloom; and a
hundred more, set along the lane-girt |
downs, clustering in the woody Weld, |
or Nesting among the Kcntish orchards
and hop-gardcns, with their rows of
cottages with white-wush2d walls,
dormcr windows, matched roofs and
gardun.fronIs each maze Of fuschias,
pinks, carnations and roses; and all Of
them from hundred to thousand
years old
Who is there to lilly describe or paint
the droninG old villages Of that curious
English region yariously known as the
"N0rfolk Brouds, 1.-The Broad District"
and the Norfolk and Suffolk kcns,
where, rs ut DilhGm and Roston, many
IN old daub-and- waffle cottage may still
be seen? II is Il land Of lagoons; Of
grassy dykes; of ghostly wind-mlllS AS
huge and as numerous us in Holland; OF
rich and low lying farm steaiings inter-
spersed by 'bruads" Of sedgy, shallow
lakes; Of mighty herds Of cattle and
| sheep; Of duck, widgeon, mallard and
| CO0t; Of picturesque iuns-ul call hall
hidden among copses Of willows, OF
| ruined castles, abbcysand priolies whose
| ancient moats are now serving AS mar
| kct. gnrdnels' canals; of gray old ham
lets SET about with clumps Of pollard
oaks, and Of peasautry As simple,
| brave and true rs in good old Sir John
| Fastolf's days-not Shakcspcare's unc-
| tuous knaye Of the "Merry Wives" hut
Of the real Fastolf wlo vigorously
fought the Battle Of llerrings and
soundly drubbed the French.
The eventde pictures from some Of
these old waterside hamlet porchcs are
worthy the brush of d Turner or q
Millut, AS the sun goes down in forests
Of waving reeds, it flames the matches
Of hamlets ON opposite shore, weirdly
lights the arms OF the spectral wind
mills, bringing to q looming nearness
the grim Norman towers Of far olden
churches, Of gilds the ivied top Of some
medieval ruin as with gold. As it sinks
from sight the waters Of the Breads are
for a moment purple, then pitchY black,
when instantly the stars are shining IN
the depths above and from the waters
beneath with Il sninmcring lustcr en-.
veloping all. Then the songs and chirps
Of myriad insects; the whirr and splash
Of late-homing WATERFOWL; and the
witching, whispered soughing Of the
breeze in the PUSHES and the reeds.
Up in Cumberland and Westmore-
land, what loving wraiths of memory
are coniured when basking in the glow
ing beauty Of slnmherous, verdurc-clad,
blossom-bowered koswick, Grasmerc
Rydal, Amblcside and i5owness! Here
in old keswick town Gwelt and sang
and lies buried in Crossthwaite church
! yard, near the murmurings of the Greta
he so loved, that high-soulcd poet Of
| pensiye remembrance and meditatiye
] calm, Robert Southcy. Here, too, the
: unhappy Coleridgc passed the mos
i fruitful, though still the most miserable
years of his baleful slavery to a deadly
| drug and with his girl-wife, Harriet
| Shelley here knew the only happJ
| hours of his unfortunate life. In anCien
t Grasmere--Grasmere Of ancient "rush
a bearing" fame; Grasmere with pcrhap
/ the oldest and certainly the quaintes
+ church in England Grasmere where tn
!. brave old dame soundly walloped til
i, Prince of Wales for Charging" he
! sheep;-Thomas De Quincy lived il
v Ills dream-life madness and, in 81
Il 0swald's churchyard sleep Hartle
Coeridge and William Wordsworth
d beside the beauteous ltothay, which
q eaping from sequestering meadows
If gives back along the old church.wal
i the deathless songs they sung.
d That one whose memory gives to tn
j. organ tones Of the two cascades Of ityda