Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/259

Rh finder, and broom-maker—whose home menagerie of ferrets, and terriers, and mongrels, do really look, as his crony, the head-keeper, can't help hinting, "fitter to find Christian hares and pheasants, than rats, and such vermin." And there is Jack Hatch—as mystic a personage in some respects as Geoffirey Crayon's Stout Gentleman—whom not to know argues oneself unknown in "Our Village."—Not know Jack Hatch? the beet cricketer in the parish, in the county, in the country Jack Hatch, who has got seven notches at one hit: Jack Hatch, who has trolled, and caught out a whole eleven: Jack Hatch, who is moreover the best bowler and the best musician in the hundred—can dance a hornpipe and a minuet, sing a whole song-book, bark like a dog, mew like a cat, crow like a cock, and go through Punch from beginning to end! Not know Jack Hatch! Such ignorance is of course preposterous, and it would be equally an affectation to pretend ignorance of Aunt Martha, that most delightful of old maids; and Hannah Besit, that energetic little dairy-woman; and Lizzy, the spoiled child of the village; and the old family-servant, Mrs. Mosse, in appearanee so eminentlv "respectable" (not at all in the sense of Steerforth's Littimer); and that comely vulgarian and boisterous sportsman, Tom Hopkins; and Lucy, that wholesale coquette; and Doctor Tubb, all-accomplished barber-surgeon, with accommodations in his pocket-book for distressed man and beast; and gentle Olive Hathaway, lame and pensive, the village mantua-maker "by appointment," the sound of whose crutch subdues every rough temper, and whose fame is far-spread for begging off condemned kittens, and nursing sick ducklings, and giving her last penny to prevent a wayward urchin from taking a bird's nest. On the whole, little wonder was it that an obscure Berkshire hamlet, as Mr. Chorley says, by the magic of talent and kindly feeling, was converted into a place of resort and interest for not a few of the finest spirits of the age.

"Belford Regis" transfers and enlarges the sphere of observation from a village to a market town. There are some touching sketches—as that of "The Old Emigré," and humorous ones by the dozen, such as Mrs. Tomkins, the cheesemonger; and Mrs. Hollis, the fruiterer; and