Haus-Marchen, and as many of those which are collected in the Danish Folk-Sagn. And if some zealous lover of legendary lore, (like poor John Leyden, or Sir Walter Scott) had fallen in with him, the Shakespearian commentators might perhaps have had the whole story of St. Withold; the Wolf of the World's End might have been identified with Fenris and found to be a relic of the Scalds: and Rauf Collyer and John the Reeve might still have been as well known as Adam Bell, and Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudeslie.

William had a great fondness for his nephew. Let not Protestants suppose that Nepotism is an affection confined to the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church. In its excess indeed it is peculiarly a Papal vice,-which is a degree higher than a Cardinal one; but like many other sins it grows out of the corruption of a good feeling. It may be questioned whether fond uncles are not as numerous as unkind ones, notwithstanding our recollections of King Richard and the Children in the Wood. may use the epithet nepotious for those who

We

carry this fondness to the extent of doting, and as expressing that degree of fondness it may be applied to William Dove: he was a nepotious uncle. The father regarded young Daniel with a deeper and more thoughtful, but not with a fonder affection, not with such a doting attachment. Dinah herself, though a fond as well as careful mother did not more thoroughly

delight to hear

Her early child mis-speak half-uttered words;

*

and perhaps the boy so long as he was incapable of distinguishing between their moral qualities, and their relative claims to his respect and love and duty, loved his uncle most of the three. The father had no idle hours; in the intervals when he was not otherwise employed, one of his dear books usually lay open before him, and if he was not feeding upon the page, he was ruminating the food it had afforded him. But William Dove from the time that his nephew became capable of noticing and returning caresses seemed to have concentered upon him all his affections. With children af

* DONNE.

fection seldom fails of finding its due return; and if he had not thus won the boy's heart in infancy, he would have secured it in childhood by winning his ear with these marvellous stories. But he possessed another talent which would alone have made him a favourite with children, the power of imitating animal sounds with singular perfection. A London manager would have paid him well for performing the cock in Hamlet. He could bray in octaves to a nicety, set the geese gabbling by addressing them in their own tongue, and make the turkey-cock spread his fan, brush his wing against the ground, and angrily gob-gobble in answer to a gobble of defiance. But he prided himself more upon his success with the owls, as an accomplishment of more difficult attainment. In this Mr. Wordsworth's boy of Winander was not more perfect. Both hands were used as an instrument in producing the notes; and if Pope could have heard the responses which came from barn and doddered oak and ivied crag, he would rather, (satirist as he was,) have

left Ralph unsatirized, than have vilified one of the wildest and sweetest of nocturnal sounds.

He was not less expert to a human ear in hitting off the wood-pigeon's note, though he could not in this instance provoke a reply. This sound he used to say ought to be natural to him, and it was wrong in the bird not to acknowledge his relation. Once when he had made too free with a lasses lips, he disarmed his brother of a reprehensive look, by pleading that as his name was William Dove it behoved him both to bill and to coo.

CHAPTER XI. P. I.

A WORD TO THE READER, SHEWING WHERE WE ARE,

AND HOW WE CAME HERE, AND WHEREFORE; AND

WHITHER WE ARE GOING.

'Tis my venture

On your retentive wisdom.

BEN JONSON.

READER, you have not forgotten where we are at this time you remember I trust, that we are neither at Dan nor Beersheba; nor any where between those two celebrated places; nor on the way to either of them: but that we are in the Doctor's parlour, that Mrs. Dove has just poured out his seventh cup of tea, and that the clock of St. George's has struck five. In what street, parade, place, square, row, terrace or lane, and in what town, and in what county;