ol with the mania. He is a
great hand at beating a drum, which is often heard rumbling from the
rear of the school-house. He is teaching half the boys of the village,
also, to play the fife, and the pandean pipes; and they weary the
whole neighbourhood with their vague pipings, as they sit perched on
stiles, or loitering about the barn-doors in the evenings. Among the
other exercises of the school, also, he has introduced the ancient art
of archery, one of the Squire's favourite themes, with such success,
that the whipsters roam in truant bands about the neighbourhood,
practising with their bows and arrows upon the birds of the air, and
the beasts of the field; and not unfrequently making a foray into the
Squire's domains, to the great indignation of the gamekeepers. In a
word, so completely are the ancient English customs and habits
cultivated at this school, that I should not be surprised if the
Squire should live to see one of his poetic visions realized, and a
brood reared up, worthy successors to Robin Hood and his merry gang of
outlaws.

A VILLAGE POLITICIAN.

I am a rogue if I do not think I was designed for the helm of
state; I am so full of nimble stratagems, that I should have
ordered affairs, and carried it against the stream of a faction,
with as much ease as a skipper would laver against the wind.

--_The Goblins_.

In one of my visits to the village with Master Simon, he proposed that
we should stop at the inn, which he wished to show me, as a specimen
of a real country inn, the head-quarters of village gossips. I had
remarked it before, in my perambulations about the place. It has a
deep, old-fashioned porch, leading into a large hall, which serves for
tap-room and travellers'-room; having a wide fire-place, with
high-backed settles on each side, where the wise men of the village
gossip over their ale, and hold their sessions during the long winter
evenings. The landlord is an easy, indolent fellow, shaped a little
like one of his own beer-barrels, and is apt to stand gossiping at his
door, with his wig on one side, and his hands in his pockets, whilst
his wife and daughter attend to customers. His wife, however, is fully
competent to manage the establishment; and, indeed, from long
habitude, rules over all the frequenters of the tap-room as completely
as if they were her dependants instead of her patrons. Not a veteran
ale-bibber but pays homage to her, having, no doubt, been often