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The Hermit of the Forest.
In the romantic forest of Englewood, which formerly composed a great part of the county of Cumberland, lived a celebrated hermit, whose name was Honestus. He was once a very considerable farmer, possessed of very extensive lands, and of large flocks and herds; but the perpetual inroads of the Scots, who frequently plundered the northern parts of England, very much reduced him. At last those plunderers completely ruined him; for, in the last excursion they made on his estate, they carried off all his family, drove away his cattle, and set fire to his barns and houses, he himself escaping with great difficulty. See the representation of this deplorable scene.
Coming out of his place of concealment the next day, he had the melancholy prospect of his premises reduced to ashes, and nothing left him but a cow, two sheep, and a few farming utensils, which had escaped the hands of the plunderers; but what affected him most was the loss of his two children, who were carried he knew not whither.—Happily for him, however, his wife did not live to see this sad disaster, she having died two years before.
These misfortunes had so powerful an effect upon his mind, that he determined to take his leave of the busy world, and spend the remainder of his days in a cell, far from the commerce of mankind. He therefore drove his only remaining cow and two sheep into the thickest part of the forest of Englewood, taking with him his farming utensils.
Having pitched on the spot most suitable to his wishes, he began cutting down some trees, in order to make a proper opening for the admission of the air, and to afford pasturage for his cattle. He then built himself a hut, and was fortunate enough to meet with a spring, which afforded him plenty of sweet and wholesome water. See how hard he is at work cutting down the trees.
He passed ten years in this gloomy and solitary retreat, without seeing or being seen by any human creature. The birds of the air, and the animals that moved on the earth, were the only witnesses of his existence. The skins of the animals served him for cloathing, and the birds of the air entertained him with their harmonious songs; for, as no mortal hand had ever disturbed them in these remote and gloomy shades, they were strangers to fear, and therefore, in some degree, made themselves a part of his family. The nightingale would enter his hut in the evening, and lull him to sleep with her plaintive notes; the lark would wake him in the morning, and the robins would come and feed out of his hands; the cuckow would remind him of the approach of spring, and the thrush and the blackbird exerted themselves to amuse him.