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    metempsychoses from jovial men to jolly oak trees . There is little John ; yonder tall fellow , with his one bare arm thrown out as if he had just swung his good quarter-staff in sport only , and pitched it to his neighbour Will Scarlet , whose hand is held forth to catch it . No metempsychosis of the staff is to be

    seenit is gone the way of all staffs ; unless it has transmigrated to one of those brown ferns which are lying asleep on couches of moss . Friar Tuck is centupled . His spirit became prolific as it passed from its clay tenement into oaken frame-work , and multiplied itself . Look at his girths enormous , and the huge wens starting from every side of his bulky carcases . They are relics of the

    hogsheads of Nottingham ale that he poured down his tundish into his gulfy reservoir—laughing in the thorough base between every draught ; and every carbuncle , bursting into a mouth to let the laugh abroad , retains its thick lips in expansion of merry grin . He has literally split his sides . Harkye , jovial and venerated foresters , news for you—news at which you may start into flesh

    and blood again : there is as good ale in Nottingham now as ever was brewed when you drew long bow at the king ' s deer , or eased fat bishop of his ungodly gold . So come back : no , not you . There are now no deer to shoot , and the bishops are all too poor . Flesh and blood could not bear it . And of what race are those grotesque , fantastic , semi-monstrous forms which stand commingled among so much of the dignified , venerable , and

    jovial ? Some are huge serpents , which have twisted their vertebrae into dislocation . Some are hard-mailed , long-tailed , fierce dragons , that have writhed in fury and agony , till their necks , legs , and tails have become fixed and lignified from torture . And if yonder be not a griffin ' s head , griffin never was . Heraldic painter or carver , after a night ' s riding by a nightmare , could not cut or paint a truer one . Look at his acute nose , open jaws , and pointed tongue , and the pricked-up , fox-like ears , with an

    eye as distinct and full as ever was eye ; though , if you examine closer , it is but a hole right through the topmost fragment of a tree , which has been so carved and cut by tempests working in aid of Time . How fiery would that eye be if the moon peeped throu gh it ! Were it night now , my old nurse ' s gossip of hobgoblins and fiery fiends would be busy with me ; and nothing but a griffin ' s head would my superstitious imagination allow it

    to be . The region is full of fantasy . But turn your eye to the left , westward ; what see you there ? Is it a sun burst upon a line , a sheet , a field of silver ? or the snowy haze of a dewy exhalation floating beneath a denser and darker canopy of clouds ? Neither . What thus fixes your gase

    m admiration are the thousands of white and glistening stems of graceful birch-trees—silent spirits of beauty—sylphs in meditation—dryad damsels assembled there to dream . . Look at them , and wouderat their glory . Are you not impelled , attracted by a

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    A Peep into Skerweod Fores 4 . 4 OT

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1834, page 427, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2634/page/45/