fir has been literally twisted like a corkscrew,
from top to bottom, requiring an amount of
force scarcely to be estimated by any known
means of mechanical power. Amidst all this
quietness, how dreadful a visitation! It is
visible on all sides, and tills the scene with a
solemn melancholy weight.

But we will linger here no longer. We
take a parting glance around, at the plantations
of firs, some of them prematurely old,
and shaking their heads, while the air wafts
by, as though conscious of their defeated
youth, and all its once-bright hopes. The
dead leaves lie thick beneath, in various
sombre colours of decay, and through the
thin bare woods we see the grey light fading
into the advancing evening. Here, where the
voice of man is never heard, we pause, to
listen to the sound of rustling boughs, and
the sullen rush and murmur of water-wheels
and mill-streams; and, over all, the song of a
thrush, even while uttering blithe notes, gives
a touching sadness to this isolated scene of
human labours—labours, the end of which, is
a destruction of numbers of our species, which
may, or may not, be necessary to the progress
of civilisation, and the liberty of mankind.

LORD PETER THE WILD WOODSMAN;

OR, THE PROGRESS OF TAPE.

"PETER, commonly known as Peter the
Wild Boy, lies buried in this churchyard,
opposite to the porch,"—so saith the old
parish-clerk of North Church, in the county
of Hertford, who inscribed the same in the
parish register of this church with a
trembling hand, and after many times wiping his
spectacles, in the year of our Lord 1767. This
extraordinary wild youth was first found in
the woods, near Hamelen, by his most fortunate
Majesty, George the First, while he was
hunting in the adjacent forest. It is not with
a view of writing his strange biography, that
we now take up the pen so reverently laid
down by the old parish-clerk aforesaid, but
simply to notice several extraordinary
coincidences which exist between this denizen of
the woods and forests, and another "Peter,"
who has been discovered at a date much
nearer to our own times.

This new Peter, alias Peter the Second,
and subsequently "Lord Peter," as he was
more commonly called, was also found in the
woods, and under circumstances very similar
to those of his prototype. "How long Peter
the Wild Boy has continued in this state is
altogether uncertain," saith the parish register
previously quoted; "but that he had formerly
been under the care of some person, was
evident from the remains of a shirt-collar about
his neck at the time he was found." Some
accounts also state that he had a wild sort of
garment of skins besides his own natural wild
one. So, with the more recent Peter, who
was attired in the bristly hide of a forest boar,
girded with osiers, and a very extensive shirt-collar,
which he exhibited with a certain
barbaric pride and ostentation. Having been
discovered by a noble personage of great
experience and statesman-like insight into
individual character and future exigencies, he
was regarded as likely to be of future value
to the world and was placed to board at the
farm-house of Mr. Bull. There, every effort
was made to instruct him, but to no purpose.
Exactly so with the original Peter, who was
placed under the care of Dr. Arbuthnot, 1726,
by the Princess of Wales; "but notwithstanding
all the pains that were taken with
him," says the doctor's report, "he proved
totally incapable of receiving any instruction."
For the board of the first Peter, at the farm-
house of Mr. James Fenn, the yeoman, the
sum of thirty-five pounds per annum was
paid; the sum paid for the second Peter was
considerably more than that, but with this
curious difference, that whereas the sum in
the first instance was paid to Mr. Fenn; the
larger sum in the latter case came out of Mr.
Bull's own leathern purse, as he had to board
and lodge the second Peter at his own
expense, and to find him in pocket money; and
all this for the honour of obliging the great
personage who had placed him there—
"in the name of his country," as he gravely
said.

At this farm-house our present Peter led
a very strange life; for though all attempts
at rational instruction proved of no avail,
the office of head ranger of the woods which
had been given him, by way of "getting his
hand in," was found to afford great scope for
the display of his peculiar character. It was
in this capacity that his various pranks
acquired for him the cognomen of Lord Peter
—a title he bore to the day of his death.
He certainly did many queer things in this post
of head ranger, and inspired no small alarm
in the country round about. He would let
nobody pass in certain directions except by
creeping very slowly; in other directions he
would not let anybody pass at all; and in
some special cases, he insisted upon making
the people walk backwards,—which he said
was the wisest way for those who wished to
make any progress.

Certainly, nothing could well exceed the
annoyance his rustic lordship created. Attired
in a dress of skins—to wit, a bullock's hide,
a mole-skin waistcoat, calf's-skin smalls, with
high boots, and a foraging cap; and armed
with a long staff tipped with brass, on which
poor farmer Bull's arms were engraved; and
followed by fierce mastiffs in brass
spike-collars,—it will be readily understood that he
presented a very formidable appearance.

If the obstructions which Lord Peter offered
had been as terrible and potent as the
antagonistic front he presented, there would have
been little chance of anybody making their
way through the woods and forests at any
time. But this was not the case. Beneath
this bullock's hide and mole-skin waistcoat,