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The venerable wood that had grown for centuries round the
small house called St. Herbert's Hermitage, had indeed some
years before been felled by its native proprietor, and the
whole island planted anew with Scotch firs, left to spindle
up by each other's side - a melancholy phalanx, defying the
power of the winds, and disregarding the regret of the
spectator, who might otherwise have cheated himself into a
belief, that some of the decayed remains of those oaks, the
place of which was in this manner usurped, had been planted
by the Hermit's own hand. This sainted spot, however,
suffered comparatively little injury. At the bidding of an
alien improver, the Hind's Cottage, upon Vicar's island, in
the same lake, with its embowering sycamores and
cattle-shed, disappeared from the corner where they stood;
and right in the middle, and upon the precise point of the
island's highest elevation, rose a tall square habitation,
with four sides exposed, like an astronomer's observatory,
or a warren-house reared upon an eminence for the detection
of depredators, or, like the temple of OEolus, where all the
winds pay him obeisance. Round this novel structure, but at
a respectful distance, platoons of firs were stationed, as
if to protect their commander when weather and time should
somewhat have shattered his strength. Within the narrow
limits of this island were typified also the state and
strength of a kingdom, and its religion as it had been, and
was, - for neither was the druidical circle
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