I came hither but this day, where I find as much business aa 1 left pleasure. 1 wish it would last as short a time, that I might return to you before you quit Cirencester, but I really see no prospect of ending what I must necessarily do, in less than a fortnight. Mr, Gay is as zealously carried to the bower by the force of imagination as ever Don Quixote was to an enchanted castle. The wood is to him the cave of Montesinos. He has already planted it with myrtles, and peopled it with nymphs. The old woman of the peasantry appears already an Urganda,and there wants nothing but a crystal rivulet to purl
» The late Oliver Cromwell, of Chesunt Park, England, was the last direct male descendant of the Protector.
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through the shades, which might be large enough to allay Mr. Lewis's great thirst after water.
But, my Lord, I beg you to be comforted. Gay promises, that whatever may be said by the prose-men of this age, posterity shall believe there was water in Okely wood, and (to speak boldly) wood also.
A wood ? quoth Lewis -- and with that, He laughed, and shook his sides so fat ; His tongue (with eye that marked his cunning) Thus fell a reasoning, not a running.
Woods are (not to be too prolix) Collective bodies of strait sticks ; It is, my Lord, a mere conundrum To call things woods for what grows und'r 'em ; For shrubs, when nothing else at top is, Can only constitute a coppice. But if you will not take my word, See anno, quart of Edward Third ; And that they're coppice called, when dock'd, Witness ann. prim, of Henry Oct. If this a wood you will maintain, Merely because it is no plain, Holland (for all that I can see) Might e'en as well be termed the sea;