This village green is one of the true, old-fashioned, poetical sort, with its little inn, clean, cosy, and inviting, and pretty cottages, sprinkled at intervals round it, logs of wood lying here and there in pleasant confusion, sometimes a few lazy looking horses grazing on the fresh grass, and the pretty church itself at one end,-all adding to the effect, and contributing to form a cheerful rural picture.

Brockham Lodge, a pleasantly-situated house, not far from the Green and on the banks of the Mole, was the residence of Captain Morice, a lyric bard, beloved by all convivial spirits, but religiously shunned by the sober and serious portion of the community. The popularity which he once possessed, has considerably diminished of late years,and justly so, for no tolerance of feeling should ever forgive, except by forgetting, the desecration of the noble gift of poesy.

THE MOLE.

The gentle river journeyeth on,

Long time unmarked, save by the fresher green

Where thankful meads, whose thirsty sides she bathes,
Strew bright-eyed flowers along her lingering way."

M. D. BETHUNE.

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Near Brockham, the river Mole assumes picturesque an aspect as in any part of its course, and as this poetically famous, but comparatively insignificant stream merits more than a passing notice at our hands, it may be as well to give it that notice in the present place.

We said that the Mole was poetically famous, and this is so true that nearly all the reputation it possesses has been given it by Spenser, Drayton, Milton, Pope, and Thomson.

In the marriage of the Thames and the Medwayan exquisite episode in the most wonderful of all poems-Spenser introduces this river at the bridal feast. Drayton, whose poems deserve to be far more read than they are, makes old Father Thames in love with this "soft and gentle" stream. The following passage is extracted from his Poly Olbion :

The Thames it seems, has gone forth to woo the Medway, but like many other false suitors, bestows his affections elsewhere, while on the road to courtship.

First of all:

"From the Surrian shores clear Wey came down to meet His greatness whom the Tames so graciously doth greet, That with the fern-crown'd flood he minion-like doth play: Yet is not this the brook enticeth him to stay."

(This does not speak well for the taste of Father Thames, for the Wey is certainly a pleasanter river than the Mole. But to continue the quotation):

"But as they thus, in pomp, came sporting on the shole, 'Gainst Hampton-Court he meets the soft and gentle Mole, Whose eyes so pierced his breast, that seeming to foreslow The way which he so long intended was to go, With trifling up and down, he wand'reth here and there; And that he in her sight transparent might appear, Applied himself to fords, and setteth his delight

On that which most might make him gracious in her sight."

Now when Isis and Tame hear of their son's fickleness, and that the seductive charms of the Mole have allured him from the right path, no wonder that they become sad and fearful lest he might "thus meanly be bestowed." So exercising at once their parental power, they endeavour "to hasten him away."

But Tames would hardly on: oft turning back to show, From his much-loved Mole how loth he was to go."

Old Holmesdale, the mother of the Mole, is equally opposed to the match, since she considers the Thames "a flood of far more mean descent." "But Mole respects her words as vain and idle dreams, Compared to that high joy to be beloved of Tames : And headlong holds her course his company to win, But Holmesdale raised hills, to keep the straggler in ;

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