nce of the
governors--the "lords presidents" they were called--of the Marches of
Wales, and it was in the days of its presidential splendor that Milton's
_Comus_ was acted in the great hall. Wandering about in shady corners of
the ruin, it is the echo of that enchanting verse that we should try to
catch, and not the faint groans of some encaverned malefactor. Other verse
was also produced at Ludlow--verse, however, of a less sonorous quality. A
portion of Samuel Butler's _Hudibras_ was composed there. Let me add that
the traveller who spends a morning at Ludlow will naturally have come
thither from Shrewsbury, of which place I have left myself no space to
speak, though it is worth, and well worth, an allusion. Shrewsbury is a
museum of beautiful old gabled, cross-timbered house-fronts.

H. JAMES, JR.

LITTLE LIZAY.

Alston was a Virginia slave--a tall, well-built half-breed, in whom the
white blood dominated the black. When about thirty-seven years of age he
was sold to a Mississippi plantation, in the north-western part of the
State and on the river. The farm was managed by an overseer, the
master--Horton by name--being a practising physician in Memphis, Tenn.
Alston had been on the plantation a few weeks when, toward the last of
September, the cotton-picking season opened. The year had been, for the
river-plantations, exceptionally favorable for cotton-growing. On the
Horton place especially "the stand" had been pronounced perfect, there
being scarcely a gap, scarcely a stalk missing from the mile-long rows of
the broad fields. Then, the rainfall had not been so profuse as to develop
foliage at the bolls' expense, as was too frequently the case on the river.
Yet it had been plenteous enough to keep off the "rust," from which the
dryer upland plantations were now suffering. Neither the "boll-worm" nor
the dreaded "army-worm" had molested the river-fields; so the tall
pyramidal plants were thickly set with "squares" and green egg-shaped
bolls, smooth and shining as with varnish. On a single stalk might be seen
all stages of development--from the ripe, brown boll, parted starlike, with
the long white fleece depending, to the bean-sized embryo from which the
crimson flower had but just fallen. Indeed, among the wide-open bolls there
was an occasional flower, cream-hued or crimson according to its age, for
the cotton-bloom at opening resembles in color the magnolia-blossom, but
this changes quickly to a deep crim