horizontally on a centre-pin at the top of a single post, and which admitted a person through by passing within, and pushing about the arms. This was the Turnstile,

an ingenious contrivance, at one time in considerable vogue; and which by means of another cross lower down, and upright connecting bars, became the revolving gate, of which curious old wooden specimens may yet be seen in some country places; while the same design, much more perfectly carried out in metal, must be familiar to persons resident in London, as adopted at one of the exits from the Zoological gardens; at the town entrance to the Greenwich Railway Station; and in the ingenious journal wickets on Waterloo-bridge. The ancient existence and locality of one of the revolving barriers is still indicated in the heart of the metropolis, by the name of a well known passage out of Holborn, into the still pleasant and comparatively open Lincolns'-Inn-Fields, namely, "Great Turnstile.'

In some districts, where the importance of restraining sheep within the prescribed range, appears to outweigh considerations of regard to the convenience of over-fieldpedestrians, as in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, the stile is often merely a vertical series of short rails attached to posts at each end, and occupying an opening in the hedge, and over this barrier the foot passenger must

STILES.

climb as well as he or she can. The exploits of the mounted foxhunter are sometimes enhanced in their interest by the boldness of the style in which he clears a "five-barred gate;" and certainly it requires no small amount of courage and agility in a lady, to clear with address, one of these " five-barred" stiles! There is a pair of cheap prints, well known in the cottages of the rural districts, in which the difficulty of this same barred stile-climbing is used to illustrate man's attention to the gentler sex, before and after matrimony. In the first picture the assiduous lover is handing the lighthearted maiden over the lofty stile with most becoming care; in the other sketch the husband, having first

climbed the formidable barricade, walks on, leaving his wife to clamber over unassisted, as best she

may:"Thus wedded Strephon now neglects his dame; Tumble or not, 'tis all to him the same.' ""

In some districts, however, the scansorial difficulty above alluded to is considerably lessened by the addition of one or more cross-steps to the horizontal bars. These steps are very frequently, especially in Yorkshire, used without the rails, and thus form one of the simplest

:

descriptions of climb-stile. In most parts of that county however, where stone is abundant, and wall fences are common; these are very often passed, either by means of stones projecting from each side, or by regular steps, more or less in number, as the case may be in the immediate vicinity of Sheffield, old grinding stones are sometimes made use of for this purpose, and occasionally form very pretty accessories in the composition of those picturesque groups of ochreous stained workmen, and low roofed grinding "wheels," with which the artist delights to enrich his sketch book, during a ramble or a residence on the banks of the Hallamshire rivers.

The most complete form of wooden stile, and that which is perhaps ordinarily suggested by the term, is the chevron, or double inclined ladder.

This is either fabricated of light open carpentry, as shown in the figure; or with boarded stairs and hand-rail, the latter most complete specimen usually indicating proximity to some nobleman's residence. In the rural districts, the stile is the ordinary resting-place of the truant school-boy in his stolen rambles; of the old wornout husbandman, who still loves to look out upon the

glorious and fertile fields, where, for half a century he toiled, "through summer's heat and winter's cold;" of rustic lovers, who are then embowered from remote observation by the profuse and wide spreading branches of the "milk-white blossomed thorn." How one's imagination realizes, as it were, the very spot indicated by Montgomery in the opening stanza of his interesting ballad"The Vigil of St. Mark"-how much is told-how much more implied!

"Returning from their evening walk,

On yonder ancient stile,

In sweet romantic tender talk,

Two lovers paused awhile."

To

But it is time to conclude this desultory sketch. those readers who are resident in rural districts, the writer would hope it will not be altogether uninteresting, as calling their attention to a class of objects with which they will long have been familiar, and which, if they have heretofore only been recognised as impediments in the way of the hasty pedestrian, or regarded as obstacles by the toil-wearied homeward labourer, they may henceforth be regarded with a new and pleasant interest: while to the city rambler into the country, the various kinds of stiles which may be encountered when attention is once directed to them, and their diversified scenic and other accessaries, can hardly fail to present themselves with some claims to interest.

NEW YEARS' MORN.

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New Year,
So if you're waking, call me, call me early, Mother dear.

TENNYSON.

Awake, my gentle darling, the glad new year is come, And the sun is bursting brightly through the snow-clouds' passing

gloom,

The bells are chiming sweetly, and the music fills the air,

And I've come to call thee early as thou bad'st me, daughter dear.

The little redbreast twitters 'neath the ivy covered eaves,
And there's a fair young snowdrop just peeping from its leaves,
I've culled a ling'ring rose bud too, the last upon the tree,
But methought it drooped at parting, as I should do with thee.

Then waken up, my sweet one, the smiling morn is come
The winter's sun is peering through the curtains of thy room:
Thy mother's kiss awaits thee, and many friends are here,
To greet thy welcome presence and to wish thee glad new year!

Come, rouse thee from thy pillow, the breakfast meal is spread,
The fire blazes brightly and the morning chapter's read,
But thy father waits thy coming, dear, to join in praise with him
And blend the music of thy voice with his thanksgiving hymn.

Thou art the dove of promise and of blessing to our ark,
A star of gladness beaming where all beside is dark;
Then waken up, my beautiful, my own kind loving child,
Thy mother's heart is lonely till thou hast looked and smiled.

And yet thou look'st so sweetly, and so happy in thy dreams,
'Mid thy visions of bright flowers, sunny skies, and sparkling
streams,

That it seems a sin to wake thee from thy paradise of bliss
And a world of blessed shadows to the colder joys of this..

For so dearly as she loves thee, yet thy mother cannot fling
Around life's future autumn the joy that gilds its spring,
When I am gone, my beautiful, thou may'st have many cares,
'Tis woman's lot, and may be thine; God keep thee from her tears.

Life's future, said I? I forgot how frail a bud thou art,
But now it comes upon my soul an ice-bolt to my heart;
Oh! God, to think another year may find me here alone,
Bereft of thee, my loving child, my beautiful, my own.

Like the lily ere it open, or the dove within her nest,
Art thou, my gentle darling, in thy now unbroken rest;
But ere the lilies blossom, or the young dove spreads its wing
Thou wilt lie in dreamless slumber, a silent, senseless thing.

Sleep on then, I'll not rouse thee from thy rest so sweet and brief
To wring thy loving bosom with thy mother's tears of grief,
Dream on, my loved and treasured one, I dare not break the chain
Of slumber, and awaken thee to sorrow and to pain.