oyal men in the country, without being able to reason
about the matter. He has that admirable quality for a tough arguer,
also, that he never knows when he is beat. He has half-a-dozen old
maxims which he advances on all occasions, and though his antagonist
may overturn them never so often, yet he always brings them anew to
the field. He is like the robber in Ariosto, who, though his head
might be cut off half-a-hundred times, yet whipped it on his shoulders
again in a twinkling, and returned as sound a man as ever to the
charge.

Whatever does not square with Jack's simple and obvious creed, he sets
down for "French politics;" for, notwithstanding the peace, he cannot
be persuaded that the French are not still laying plots to ruin the
nation, and to get hold of the Bank of England. The radical attempted
to overwhelm him, one day, by a long passage from a newspaper; but
Jack neither reads nor believes in newspapers. In reply, he gave him
one of the stanzas which he has by heart from his favourite, and
indeed only author, old Tusser, and which he calls his Golden Rules:

Leave princes' affairs undescanted on,
And tend to such doings as stand thee upon;
Fear God, and offend not the king nor his laws,
And keep thyself out of the magistrate's claws.

When Tibbets had pronounced this with great emphasis, he pulled out a
well-filled leathern purse, took out a handful of gold and
silver,--paid his score at the bar with great punctuality, returned
his money, piece by piece, into his purse, his purse into his pocket,
which he buttoned up; and then, giving his cudgel a stout thump upon
the floor, and bidding the radical "good-morning, sir!" with the tone
of a man who conceives he has completely done for his antagonist, he
walked with lion-like gravity out of the house. Two or three of Jack's
admirers who were present, and had been afraid to take the field
themselves, looked upon this as a perfect triumph, and winked at each
other when the radical's back was turned. "Ay, ay!" said mine host, as
soon as the radical was out of hearing, "let old Jack alone; I'll
warrant he'll give him his own!"

THE ROOKERY.

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud;
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.

--COWPER.

In a grove of tall oaks and beeches, that crowns a terrace-walk just
on the skirts of the garden, is