ecious
than the most costly gilding. Under his plastic hand, trifles rise
into importance; the nonsense of one age becomes the wisdom of
another; the levity of the wit gravitates into the learning of the
pedant, and an ancient farthing moulders into infinitely more value
than a modern guinea.

THE FARM-HOUSE.

------"Love and hay
Are thick sown, but come up full of thistles."

--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

I was so much pleased with the anecdotes which were told me of
Ready-Money Jack Tibbets, that I got Master Simon, a day or two since,
to take me to his house. It was an old-fashioned farm-house built with
brick, with curiously twisted chimneys. It stood at a little distance
from the road, with a southern exposure, looking upon a soft green
slope of meadow. There was a small garden in front, with a row of
bee-hives humming among beds of sweet herbs and flowers. Well-scoured
milking tubs, with bright copper hoops, hung on the garden paling.
Fruit trees were trained up against the cottage, and pots of flowers
stood in the windows. A fat, superannuated mastiff lay in the sunshine
at the door; with a sleek cat sleeping peacefully across him.

Mr. Tibbets was from home at the time of our calling, but we were
received with hearty and homely welcome by his wife; a notable,
motherly woman, and a complete pattern for wives; since, according to
Master Simon's account, she never contradicts honest Jack, and yet
manages to have her own way, and to control him in every thing.

She received us in the main room of the house, a kind of parlour and
hall, with great brown beams of timber across it, which Mr. Tibbets is
apt to point out with some exultation, observing, that they don't put
such timber in houses now-a-days. The furniture was old-fashioned,
strong, and highly polished; the walls were hung with coloured prints
of the story of the Prodigal Son, who was represented in a red coat
and leather breeches. Over the fire-place was a blunderbuss, and a
hard-favoured likeness of Ready-Money Jack, taken when he was a young
man, by the same artist that painted the tavern sign; his mother
having taken a notion that the Tibbets had as much right to have a
gallery of family portraits as the folks at the Hall.

The good dame pressed us very much to take some refreshment, and
tempted us with a variety of household dainties, so that we were glad
to compound by tasting some of her homemade wines. While we were
there, the son