his wife at the cottage about three years ago. Here was a spice of romance to season our walk; so we drew him out gently on various points of his history. His name was William, and his mountain bride was Mary Ann, and he spoke of her as fondly and as proudly as if she were his queen as well as his wife, and we honestly, not quizzingly, admired this sentiment. We believed it was sincere and deep within him, and the face he put upon it was a true and honest reflection of it. Indeed, my friend Capern felt his muse stirred by it, and on the spot, without two minutes' reflection, treated the blushing miller to this verse, purporting to come from the young wife:
"Your passion is strong, but the Wrekin is steep,
And the journey is double, my dear;
So, as your affection I am willing to keep,
I will now save you trouble, my dear."
The rustic husband seemed so pleased at this poetical idea of his Mary Ann's feelings towards him ere she descended from her elevated height to be his wife, that I regretted being unable to add to his satisfaction by a verse of my own. But as I could do nothing in the rhyming line. I gave him a tit-bit from Dryden's "Ode" in the two lines, slightly modified:
"She raised a mortal to the skies,
He drew an angel down."
