e which led from the Kit-Cat Club-room to
Barnes Common, the keenest emotions of the human mind were excited by
an unforeseen cause. I was admiring the luxuriance and grandeur of the
vegetation, in trees which from the very ground expanded in immense
double trunks, and in the profusion of weeds and shrubs which covered
every part of the untrodden surface--when, on a sudden, I caught the
distant sound of a ring of #VILLAGE BELLS#. Nothing could be more in
accordance with the predispositions of my mind. All the melancholy
which is created by the recurrence of the same succession of tones,
instantly controlled and oppressed my feelings. I became the mere
patient of these sounds; and I sank, as it were, under the force of
gloomy impressions, which so completely lulled and seduced me, that I
suffered without being able to exert an effort to escape from their
magic spell. Seldom had the power of sound acquired a similar
ascendency over me. I seemed to be carried back by it to days and
events long passed away. My soul, so to speak, was absorbed; and I
leaned upon a gate, partly to indulge the reverie, partly as an effect
of lassitude, and partly to listen more attentively to the sounds
which caused so peculiar a train of feeling.

There were six bells; and they rang what might be designed for a merry
peal, to celebrate some village festival; or, perhaps, thought I, they
may be profaning a sanctuary of the religion of peace, and outraging a
land of freedom, to announce some bloody victory, gained by legions of
trained slaves, over patriots who have been asserting the liberties
and defending the independence of their country. Whichever might be
the purpose, (for, alas! the latter, among my degenerated countrymen,
is as likely as the former,) the recurring tones produced
corresponding vibrations on my nerves, and I felt myself played upon
like a concordant musical instrument. Presently, however, it occurred
to me, that I was not an entire stranger to the tones of those bells,
and that part of their fascination arose from an association between
them and some of the earliest and dearest objects in my remembrance.
"Surely," I exclaimed, "they are #Chiswick bells#!--the very bells
under the sound of which I received part of my early education, and,
as a school-boy, passed the happiest days of my life!--Well may their
tones vibrate to my inmost soul--and kindle uncommon sympathies!" I
now recollected that the winding of the river must