agna);--"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited
wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once
there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for
the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset
and smashed,--as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was
frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the
road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that
comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand
too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery
stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds
did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the
skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient
Muscatelli."--Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost,
and care: and trains now go _through_ the Simplon, instead of "good
horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us
steadily and slowly _over_ it: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed
by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's
Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made
at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal
to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely,
who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought
it "the best book of travels he had ever read."

Guernsey.

Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and
written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an
ancient Sarnian family, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine
about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are
confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other
poems, as one given below--"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"--and
in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most
picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery
engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it:
especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall
& Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition
of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de
Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":--

"Haro, Haro! a l'aide, mon Prince!
A loyal people calls;
Bring