In rambling about, we had a good view of the former residence of Queen Adelaide, in which she had lately died. She was much beloved and respected for her unaffected piety, and her manifold good works.

In the twilight we went to church again. The service was sung to a very pleasing chant, in which all joined with heart, and then the pastor entered the pulpit, and preached, extemporaneously, on the text, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” The sermon was an allegory, of exceeding beauty, perfectly sustained throughout, and that, to all appearance, without effort. I shall never forget it, nor the powerful impression it produced at the time. I have, since, quoted it entire, in my own pulpit, (with full credit to the source from which it was derived,) and was happy to observe the effect it was capable of producing, even at second hand. I left the scene of this pleasing day’s experiences, with a sweet elevation of feeling, inspired by the solemnities in which I had engaged, and by the sermons which I had been so fortunate as to hear. Oh! lovely Church of England, how little they know thee who revile thee! how unworthy of their baptism are they who have cast themselves from thy motherly bosom!

My next excursion was into Warwickshire. I went first to Coventry, a city of which one of my humble ancestry was Mayor, more than two centuries ago, and for which I entertained a sort of hereditary respect. It retains much of the aspect it must have borne during that worthy’s incumbency; for a more mediÆval-looking town I saw not in England. Still unmodernized are its ancient streets and alleys. The houses jut out, story above story, their gables fronting the way, and so close together, in the upper parts, that neighbours may light their pipes with each other across the street, as they lean out of their windows. The famous three spires of Coventry belong to as many different churches, but seem to equalize the place in cathedral glories with Lichfield, its sister see. The spire of St. Michael’s, which is chief among them, is, indeed, singularly beautiful: and the triplet is well harmonized, and gives the town a majestic appearance as one approaches it. A town of many spires, in America, is generally a town of many wrangling creeds; and the major part of the steeples are but vulgar rivals, realizing the droll idea of Carlyle’s eel-pot, in which each individual eel is trying to get his head higher than his neighbour’s. The fact, however, is less droll than melancholy, when one thinks of the sickening results, upon a community, of so many religions, all claiming to be reputable types of Christ’s dear Gospel, although so widely differing among themselves that some must necessarily be its pestilent antagonists. Dissocial habits; cold incivilities; open wars; disgraceful rivalries; bickering animosities; and a degraded moral sentiment—these are the things signified by your poly-steepled towns in our own land, and God only knows the irreligion and the contempt for truth, which are festering within them, as the result of these acrid humours; but as yet, it is not generally so in England. The three spires of Coventry all point faithfully to the throne of the Triune God, and are symbols of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Oh, that all who dwell under their shadow knew the blessings of their ministrations, and received them in spirit and in truth!

The melodious bells of St. Michael’s rung, as I lingered about its venerable walls; but the interior was undergoing a costly restoration, and was so obstructed with scaffolding, that I could catch but little of the effect of its solemn length of nave and chancel, and of the intersecting arches of its aisles. I afterwards visited Trinity; and also the ancient St. Mary’s Hall, the scene of the civic pomps of Coventry, and filled with antiquarian interest in itself and in its contents. It was not difficult to conjure up the ancient shows of the adjoining church-yard when Holy Week was celebrated by dramatic mysteries. But what interested me more than all the rest, was the grotesque head of a mediÆval clown, projecting from an old house, with a most striking expression of vulgarly impertinent curiosity. The reader of Tennyson’s exquisite chef d’oeuvre, will, of course, recognise “Peeping Tom” in this description. Fabulous may be that beautiful legend of the Lady Godiva, but the men of Coventry believe it still: and still, on every Friday in the week of Holy Trinity, its annual fair is opened with a commemorative procession, in which a fair boy, dressed in well-knit hosiery, but apparently naked, rides through the ancient streets, with long and golden hair flowing from head to foot, and covering his body, as the representative of the sweet bride of Earl Leofric, who made the burghers of Coventry toll-free, and “gained herself an everlasting name.” They were making great preparations for this pageant when I was there, but on the whole I preferred not “to march through Coventry with them.”

From Coventry to Kenilworth, of course. It was late in the afternoon when I started the rooks in those old ruins, and sat down to watch their flight about its ivied towers. Here was, indeed, a place for thought, and for sentimentalism. How the romance of Scott, that once so bewitched me, (as I read it, stretched in boyish luxury upon the floor of the verandah of an American villa, on the dear banks of the Hudson,) now rose about me in a strange dream of reality; and how tormenting the endeavour to separate the true history from the charming fable! Here the finely wrought Gothic masonry, and delicate mouldings, and deeply recessed windows of the great banqueting-room, stand without a roof; and the ivy that climbs the solid walls, and twists among the shattered mullions and transoms, is rooted inside of the once hospitable hall, and beneath the very point in space, where once the haughty Queen Elizabeth sat in state, on a splendid dais, with Burleigh, and Leicester, and Raleigh around her, while these cold, damp walls lifted about them their magnificent tapestries, and gorgeous blazonries of heraldic honour. In that bay window she once reclined, to look over the park, and to think thoughts too deep for utterance. The rich architectural work of these chambers betrays their former splendid uses; and one grudges, to the great serpent-like convolutions of the ivy-vines, the sole proprietorship of their surviving graces. Yet there they hang their melancholy leaves; and the beautiful desolation is possibly rich enough in its moral effect on the heart of the visitor, to make one contented on the whole, that the pile was once so great in design, and so exquisite in detail, and that the ruin is now so complete. Poor Amy Robsart!

Up and down I went, thinking only of her wrongs. Now the worn steps wound up to a turret, and now descended to a secret postern. Here was the orchard, and there the lake, and there the plaisance: now you look out of a prison-like window, and now you stand in the deep recess of a lordly oriel. Going into the ancient grounds, I scattered a hundred sheep, and away they went, bounding over grass as green and velvety, as they were white and fleecy. These are the successors of those red deer, fallow deer, and roes, which once stored the chase. The “swifts” darted from bush to bush, and the thrushes fluttered in the hawthorn; and then all was as still as if the past hung over the place like a spell, and as if it were haunted with its own history. Of all this noble castle, there remains only one outer part, which can shelter a human inhabitant. The barbican, beneath which Elizabeth must have made that superb entrance, is still a dwelling; but its occupant is a plain farmer, who would, no doubt, prefer to be more snugly housed. It seemed strange to find such a picturesque abode devoted to so homely a use. How glad I should be to hire it, myself, for a summer lodge, provided I might have the range of the surrounding domains, without the annoyance of everybody’s intrusion, and provided I had nothing better to do than to read romances and history!

Here this farmer lives, in a room of panelled oaken wainscot, enclosed by walls that might defy artillery. The chimney-piece is a massive bit of antiquity, partly alabaster curiously wrought, and partly wood of rich and costly carving. The ragged-staff of Dudley is conspicuous, in the decorations; it betrays the relics of its former gilding; the speaking initials R. L. tell the story of its origin, and the motto Droit et Loyal shows itself, as if in mockery of historical justice, amid the arms and cognizances of the once proud possessor of the princely castle of Kenilworth.

The long twilight enabled me to visit Leamington Priors, and to get a very pleasing impression of its trim and fair abodes, and showy modern streets. Then away, by night, to Warwick, where I slept at the “Warwick Arms,” after such a comfortable supper, as one finds nowhere, at the close of a traveller’s day, except at an English Inn.

It proved a most beautiful morning, next day, and I was up very early, resolved, before tasting breakfast, to taste all the sweets of the hour of prime, in one of the most beautiful rural districts of England. I walked out some two or three miles, on the Kenilworth road, to Guy’s Cliff, and to the scene, beyond it, of Piers Gaveson’s murder. The beauty of the day and of the Scenery, the song of birds, and the blossoms of the hawthorn along the road, were singularly in keeping with the imagery by which the poet has pictured the early history of a reign, strikingly coincident with that in which Gaveson’s fortune was made and ruined:—

At length, leaping a slight fence, I made my way through a clovered field, and then through a pretty grove, to what was once Blacklow hill. Here is still a sort of cave, which I readily found among the hazels; and on the eminence above it, rises a strongly built and severe looking monument, surmounted by a cross of solid proportions, the whole singularly adapted to the place and purpose. It is a work of late years, and the happy thought of the proprietor of Guy’s Cliff. There was something stirring, too, in reading, in the loneliness of that morning hour, the following inscription on the face of the monument, viz:—“In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, July 1, 1312, by barons lawless as himself, Piers Gaveson, Earl of Cornewall, the minion of a hateful king, and in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.” What a picture of the ferocious past was conjured up by that expression—“beheaded by barons as lawless as himself.” The sweet Avon was flowing through the meads below; there gleamed the feudal towers of Warwick, in the glowing sunrise; and just so it was, that July morning, five hundred years ago, when this rock rang with oaths and curses, the barkings of that fierce Guy de Beauchamp, whom Gaveson had called “the black hound of Arden.” That insult was here avenged in blood; but it only served to fire the thirst of the regicide. Those features upturned to heaven, in the choir of Gloucester, and those imploring hands of poor King Edward, came back, in thought, once more.

Pictures have made my readers familiar with the scenery of Guy’s Cliff. There it stands, on the Avon—in unpretending beauty, ivied up to its chimnies, here an oriel, and there a turret, the very ideal of a fair lady’s bower, and one of the goodliest of “the merry homes of England.” There is a mill over against it, where I stood and admired its quiet romance, in the glory of that summer morning, as the gilding of the sunlight lay on the cold gray of its towers. At the mill, the farmer-lads were washing sheep, and as they plunged in the fleecy ewes, and soused them over and over again, in the sparkling waters of the Avon, I thought an artist would ask no fairer study, for his pencil, than the scene before me. I confess I could not safely look on it without repeating the Tenth Commandment, and I quite deposed my project of renting the Gate-house of Kenilworth, in thinking how much better I should like Guy’s Cliff for my habitation.

My walk into Warwick, again, was full of pleasure. I heard the clock strike in the tower of St. Mary’s, which I saw over a forest of trees, gaily lighted by the sun; and then came a tune from its chime. I paused before old houses, and stared at the curious ancient gateway, under which we had passed in the night. After breakfast I visited the Church, and especially the Beauchamp Chapel, where the ancient lords of Warwick lie on their proud tombs, in sculptured mail, beside their dainty dames, in more delicate attire. This chapel is, of its kind, the finest in the kingdom; the superb tomb of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, when I saw it at Bruges, reminded me of it, and seemed less imperial. I cannot now recall it in detail, as I wish I could, for the sake of accurate criticism; but at the time I was greatly struck with the state and splendour of such beauty—for ashes! Fulke Greville’s monument is also memorable, if only for the striking tribute it pays to private friendship; for the inscription furnished by himself ekes out the fact of his being “Councillor to King James,” by that of his claim to write himself—“The friend of Sir Philip Sydney.”

I went over Warwick Castle, of course, and surveyed the grounds from the porter’s lodge, where are shown the armour and the porridge-pot of great Guy, and fair PhÆlice’s slippers, to the garden-house, wherein is kept the gigantic vase from Tivoli. What eyes for natural beauty had those builders of old times! The Avon seems just here to be made for Warwick Castle, and Warwick Castle seems made for it. On the whole, I have seen no residence in Europe, save Windsor Castle, that seemed to me more princely than this. ’Tis not the creation of vulgar opulence, or of an Aladdin-like fortune—but it seems the growth of ages, and the natural concentration of architectural beauty and strength. From its windows such a view of the landscape—in the landscape such views of it! And then its relics and antiquities; its pictures and its portraits; its bed-rooms, and halls, and drawing-rooms; its boudoirs, and its bowers; its chapel, and its whole together—who can but wonder at them, and who would want them? Mine is not so vast an ambition—such “an unbounded stomach.” On the whole I am so reasonable a man, that to gratify my utmost longings for a home—this side “the house not made with hands”—I would take Guy’s Cliff, and leave Warwick Castle untroubled by any writ of ejectment from even a roving wish, or wild, ungoverned thought.

Stratford—Shakspeare.

Only nine miles to Stratford-upon-Avon! With what a flush of delighted expectation I climbed the coach, and left the Warwick Arms, in the hope of beholding with my eyes, in less than two short hours, the home of Shakspeare, and that world-famous church to which he bequeathed his bones! And yet there was something like a misgiving at the heart. My imagination had been familiar, for years, with a certain ideal of Stratford, that had grown into my whole structure of thought concerning Shakspeare and his times. It had been constructed from here a print, and there a traveller’s tale, and had taken life and beauty from detached anecdotes, and little inklings of historic light, that had come sweetly to me from my boyhood, in some inexplicable manner. In part the product of enthusiastic study, when college oil, that should have been burned in honour of Euclid, and Napier, and Newton, was stealthily sacrificed at the shrine of the great master of the human heart, I had possessed for years, a Stratford of my own; a pet village of my soul, such as Shakspeare should have lived in: and now—in a few hours, all this was to be deposed forever; dull realities were to eclipse the brilliant picture of the fancy, and thenceforth I must know only the Stratford of fact. Would the realization pay me for the downfall of the vision? Alas! what is life but a continual balance between loss and gain; what pleasure do we acquire, without the sacrifice of something almost as sweet? How long the boy looks at his bright penny before he gives it for the toothsome sugar-plum; and how often the bright penny comes back to him, as the substantial wealth, of which the moment’s gratification has deprived him.

As the coach began to draw near Stratford, I found myself greatly excited; and every object began to assume a sort of conscious connection with immortal genius. The very road,—but much more the trees,—and even more, those features of the landscape which might be supposed unchanged by the lapse of centuries, seemed instinct with their past communion with a great creative mind. His spell was on them. He had once been familiar with these scenes. He had gathered many an image, many a thought, and, I doubt not, many a refreshing hope, from intercourse with their spring and summer beauties; and they had been not less instructive to him, perhaps, in the season of the sere-leaf, or in that of the wintry wind. Yonder was Charlecote—beyond the Avon: its park still stretching thro’ the vale, and hiding the old historic hall. But the thought of that juvenile deer-stalking, gave speaking life to even the distant scene. There is some sensitive principle in our nature, to which such associations so powerfully appeal, that nothing is more real, for a time, than the communion we hold with departed greatness, through the medium of objects with which it was once conversant. This reality I never felt so strongly as now. At last we came in sight of that “star-ypointing pyramid”—the spire of Stratford. The gentle tumult of feelings with which it ruffled my inmost nature, for a moment, and the calm enjoyment that succeeded, were enough to pay me for crossing the Atlantic.

I was duly set down at the Red Horse Inn, and ushered into the trim little parlour, and even into the elbow-chair, of which I had read, aforetime, in the pages of Geoffrey Crayon. Mine host readily recognizes an American, and never fails to produce, on such an occasion, the “sceptre” of the said Geoffrey, wherewith he once poked the coals, in the smoking grate of said parlour, and, for a tranquil moment, was “monarch of all he surveyed.” Indeed, if Shakspeare reigns in Stratford, it must be allowed that the Red Horse is, nevertheless, the principality of Crayon, and that it is rapidly rising into a formidable rivalship of New Place, and the Guildhall, on the strength of Crayon’s reputation, to say nothing of the landlord’s ale. In short, no visitor to Stratford has ever left there such a lasting impression of his footsteps, as our own delightful Irving: and it was pleasant, indeed, thus, at the very threshold of my visit, to find, even in the broad glare of Shakspeare’s glory, the star of our countryman revolving steadily in its own peculiar orbit, and shining as no mean satellite of that great central sun of Anglo-Saxon literature.

I should be a bold man, indeed, to attempt to add anything to Irving’s description of Stratford-upon-Avon. I have only the adventures of my day to tell of, and they were few and simple. I followed in the beaten track to the old tumble-down cottage, which is called the birth-place of Shakspeare, and which was doubtless the scene of his infancy. I recognized at once, the original of many a well-thumbed print, and of many a descriptive page. Timber from the forest of Arden; clay from the bed of the Avon; sticks and mud at best compose the nest in which the Mighty Mother brought the immortal Swan to light. It was once a better nest than now. A butcher has degraded it to serve as shambles, and it has yet the appearance of a stall for meat, although it is no longer used, except as a relic, the show-woman being its only tenant. Here, in spite of its transmutations, you cannot but fancy the elder Shakspeare, “with spectacles on nose,” sitting in the spacious chimney, and teaching little Will his alphabet, or telling him, beside the winter’s fire, of the “mysteries” he had seen played, near by, at Coventry, when he was a boy. Through the door, you seem yet to see the marvellous urchin, with his satchel, creeping unwillingly to school: or, back he comes, with shining face, to tell that the Queen’s players have just arrived from London, to play “Troy-town,” at the Guildhall! Here, at all events, day after day went over that mysterious young head, filling it with impressions, not one of which ever seems to have escaped it, and preparing its tenant genius to be the great bridge between old and modern England, by means of which, feeling, as well as fact, runs on continuously, in the line of English History, and gives it a unity and a vitality which the annals of other nations lack. Oh, strange, immortal, universal Will! How supernatural the interest that hangs about thine every step, from the cradle to the grave.

You ascend a few creaking stairs, and you are in the very room where the first of his Seven Ages was, no doubt, duly signalized by himself, “mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” How many lives have been the mere pendants of the life that here flickered in its first lighting, and which a puff of air might have put out—the world none the sadder for its loss! Yet now, how supreme the dominion of that one soul, these scribbled walls attest; where vulgar enthusiasm is not more legible, than that of the worldly great, of foreign scholars and sovereign princes, and of intellectual autocrats scarce less imperial than Shakspeare himself. How powerful the inspiration of the genius loci, is best proved by the fact that among the scribblings one reads the autograph of Walter Scott. Verily, there is no fame like Shakspeare’s! Subduing, as he does, the instincts of all classes alike, and entering as he does, into the sympathies of all nations, he must be regarded less as a man of genius, than as a noble instrument of God, for subordinating human passions and affections to some superior purpose of His own, perhaps not yet conceived. The rise of a Christian literature, and that the purest which the world has ever possessed, is dated from the age of which he was the bright peculiar star; and the whole Anglo-Saxon race must ever recognize in him the original master of many of its forms of thought, a rich contributor to its idiom and language, and the constructor of some of its strongest sentiments of civilization, of morals, and of religion.

The site of the New Place is occupied by a solid mansion, which, devoid of interest in itself, commands a moment’s attention, as occupying the spot on which Shakspeare’s prosperous days were passed, and which was emphatically his home. All that remains of him, in this place, and its immediate neighbourhood, is nevertheless soon seen and dismissed, as nothing but the enthusiasm of an idolator would detect anything specially attractive in a statue set up by Garrick at the Town Hall, and a few other memorials, too minute, or too modern, to deserve much delay in their inspection. I reserved my raptures for the walk to Shottery. Striking into the fields, I pleased myself with the conviction that air and earth are still very much the same in them, as when the boy Shakspeare played truant, and sported among their sweets. The birds and the flowers are still as gay as when he preferred to learn their lessons, rather than the schoolmaster’s; and when I turned into a shady lane, all green and white with hawthorn, or plucked the peas’ blossom in the upland, or the buttercup and daisy in the meadow, I felt sure that his foot had fallen where they grew, and that they had given him pleasure, and taught him morals, which the world has willingly taken at second-hand, and will never “willingly let die.” Yes, the very labouring oxen, and the pasturing cows, seemed to me of a superior breed. Short-horn, or Devonshire, or whatever they may be to the farmer, they were, in my esteem, not less than Shaksperean beef fed on the grass of Stratford, and feeding my imagination with images of the animated nature of the same scenery, as it was three hundred years ago. I came to several pretty farm cottages, with shrubbery in their little door-yards, and at one of these I knocked, thinking it must be Anne Hathaway’s; but the damsel who opened the door seemed not much flattered by the inquiry, for Anne, though she was Shakspeare’s wife, was not an honest woman, by the parish register, and has little honour in her own village. However, the damsel pointed out my way, with milk-maid courtesy, and away I went with traveller-like apologies. Here, then, at last, was the scene of Will’s discreditable courtship; and here, if they deceived me not, descendants of the Hathaways live still. The house is in two parts, like nave and chancel in ecclesiastical architecture; timbered and plastered, like the birth-place aforesaid, and thatched in the picturesque style so dear to Crayon artists and sketchers; its little windows peeping out of the straw, like sharp eyes under the shaggy brows of an old pensioner, sunning himself in front of an ale-house. I am glad to say that roses, and other flowers, were duly set about the cottage, as one which I plucked, and brought away, bears witness. They showed me some old Hathaway furniture, and among others an enormous bedstead of Elizabethan date, on which, they would have me believe, that many of the poet’s dreams had visited him. There was also an ancient oaken chair: and finally, some bed and table linen was taken out of an old chest. It was evidently homespun, and they believed it to be Anne’s work, as well as property. With this view of the matter, however, the initials E. H. did not entirely agree, and although I was inclined to yield this objection at the moment, when credulity was allowable, I do not now flatter myself that I have seen the bedstead or the bed-clothes of Shakspeare. It is something better that I have seen the Church in which he was christened, and where he now lies, under the chancel; and where he was taught to pray; and where he often knelt, one would fain believe, in true contrition; and where he learned, from some lowly parson, unknown to fame, many of those sublime and gospel verities, which have given, even to his poorer themes, their savor of immortality.

The avenue of limes which leads to the church-porch, is rather stiff than otherwise. The “way to Parish Church” was probably unpaved, and perhaps unshaded, when Will tottered over it, to be catechised; or when, in maturer years, he sought the House of God with reverence, among the multitude that kept holy day. The Church itself is of Anglo-Norman date, and was originally such in its architecture, but has frequently been altered and repaired, at various periods. It is cruciform, and would be not unworthy of a visit for its own sake. The churchyard is full of graves, and the Avon flows under its walls. I sat there, for nearly an hour, quite alone, trying to grasp the full idea of the spot. A lubberly scow came paddling along on the turbid river; and the rooks started up, and then lighted upon the old gray tower; and some sheep came nibbling among the graves; and finally, two or three children ran about me, and kept me company, for awhile; but oh! how unconscious seemed all these of the great reality of the place, and how still and solemnly the poet slumbered on, in his sepulchre, unconscious of this prosy nineteenth century, which thus wags on without him. I took out my tablets in a sort of reverie; wrote down the date, and scribbled on at random, as follows: ‘Here, in the churchyard of Stratford, I am sitting on the stone-wall, which defends it from the Avon, and at the foot of which, its fringe of flags grows rank, amid the slime. The sun, through the half-misty atmosphere, is falling tenderly on the limes; birds are singing; a rook cawing; nobody is near, but the breeze whispers, socially, through the elms overhead. How still the old spire points up to heaven! How dearly the grass clings to the tower and belfry, growing there in every “coigne of vantage!” And this quiet old chancel, too! Within these walls was Shakspeare made a member of Christ, and here he waits the Judgment. Oh, Will! how much for thee imports the Scripture, “by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned!”’

The old legendary sexton of Irving’s visit has passed away, and another reigns in his stead. Availing myself of his keys, I excused him from any further effort of his tongue, and surveyed the solemn interior in peace. Here, too, the hand of restoration has been freshly at work, and has set the holy house in order. The Church which enfolds the tomb of Shakspeare is dedicated to the Holy Trinity—the God who made him, and whom he adored. The meagre god of unbelief would never have filled such a soul as his, or moved him to kneel down; but how often that overwhelming Mystery of Faith must have thrilled him here, as he repeated the creed, or chanted the Te Deum! At last I stood before the famous bust, and looked upon that sublime forehead, and those composed features, and said to it silently those brotherly lines of Milton, which the sight brings naturally to mind. Then I read the inscription, and spelled out, letter by letter, the words of that imprecatory verse, in which Shakspeare’s self is as legible as anything else. “Good friend, for Jesu’s sake,” etc.—Amen, was my response. It was a moment to remember, but not to describe.

I next tried to satisfy myself as to the sense of Mistriss Hall’s epitaph, which is ambiguous; and on which the inspection of the original throws little additional light. It tells us first, that she was “witty above her sexe,” and second, that she was “wise to salvation,” and then adds:

Now, of course, this him must mean her Saviour, with whom she is in Paradise; yet, it may mean, for all that, her father Shakspeare; and the question is, was not the ambiguity a quaint conceit, and intended to be a doublet? If so, as it has often struck me, whatever we may think of its taste, it is an important testimony to the maturer character of the poet; since its secondary meaning would be, to give it in paraphrase—that her wit had something in it of Shakspeare, but that her piety was wholly learned of her father, with whom she now reaps its reward. Now if we exclude this idea, it would almost seem to force us into the sad reverse; for certainly, as it is first read, it seems to imply that she was not indebted to her father for any of her religion, though she was for her wit. Of course, it may be answered, that wisdom unto salvation is so exclusively from Christ, as its meritorious cause, that nothing else is to be taken into account, as its instrument; but is this the sole idea of the verse? Very likely; and yet after all, I wonder that its ambiguous character has never attracted the attention of the many who have raked and scraped the very dust of Stratford for something rich and strange. Certain it is, that, like many readings of Shakspeare himself, it wants but a change of emphasis, from word to word, to give two or three different senses, any one of which is tolerable, although it is an intolerably bad epitaph, after all.

I believe the droppings of this Church of Stratford bedew the works of Shakspeare, from the first sonnet to the last play, and that here he was schooled to that strict law of his dramas, which runs through all, and by which he always “shows virtue her own feature, and scorn her own image,” instead of fitting the mask of propriety upon the front of shame. More than all, it was here that he learned that reverence for the name of Jesus, with which he so often embalms his pages, and which so often makes them melodious to a believer’s ear and heart. How much, too, the first and second lesson out of “the Bishop’s Bible”—how much the Epistle and Gospel, and the Psalter, taught him, not only of sonorous English, but of Christian doctrine and morals! I am sure these influences may be detected in his works; and as I looked at the very spot where his young idea was taught to shoot toward heaven, I felt that this was the sublimest association of the place. Here once (my fancy suggested) he may have heard in the lesson for the day—suffer chyldren to come unto Me, and then, a few verses afterwards, he must have been struck with the contrast, when the parson read on—it is easier for a camell to go thorow a nedle’s eye, etc. He was now a prosperous man, and had just purchased New-Place, and obtained a grant of Arms. His conscience therefore pricked him with the question—Was he one of the rich men for whom admission into heaven was to be so hard? The parson mounted the pulpit, and quoted much learned stuff out of Sir John Maundeville, to explain the orientalism of the lesson: and among other things, he threw out the idea that the postern gate of an Eastern city was so small, that it was impossible for a beast of burthen to pass through it, and was usually called “the needle’s eye,” and hence the force of the comparison. All this, Shakspeare, who was thinking his own thoughts, heard only incoherently, and he got a somewhat confused idea of the postern and needle; but being, just then, at work on his Richard the Second, he goes home, and puts his Sunday reverie into the mouth of his hero, thus:—

Such at least is the story, which this passage suggests to me as, very possibly, the way in which it came to him. I often trace to a similar source, that is, to the open Scriptures, and the vernacular services of the Church of England, the innumerable Siloan streams which freshen and even sanctify his verse. The great themes of redemption may be found richly illustrated in many passages; and I think I could select from his works enough of sacred poetry to fill a little volume, and one fit to be kept as a companion to the Prayer-Book and the Christian Year. I cannot credit the scandal that Shakspeare died of a debauch, nor do I believe he was less than an ordinary Christian. While the secrets of his heart are with his God, we may at least, in Christian charity, believe that the friend of publicans and sinners may have seen in him a practical dependence upon that Atonement which, by the mouth of Portia, he has preached so well:—

As I departed, I plucked a branch of ivy from the Church wall, near the spot where his dust awaits the resurrection. It was brought home with me to America—the land in which he has more readers than anywhere else in the whole world. How little he foresaw this, when in compliment to James the First, he recorded (if the passage be his own) the prediction that James should “make new nations;” adding—what proves rather true of himself—

A threatening rain prevented my walking to Charlecote, but I went away contented. I was inclined to indulge a little in Jacques’ vein, and the melancholy clouds began to favour us with congenial tears, as—reduced to sober prose—I made my way in the storm, on the top of a stage-coach, through what was once the Forest of Arden.

Haddon Hall—Chatsworth—Shrewsbury—Chester.

After renewing my acquaintance with the hospitable friends at B——, with whom I had passed my Easter, I made an excursion into Derbyshire, with an episodical trip to Nottingham. My chief attraction to this latter place was that of an invitation from sundry relatives of my B—— friends to visit them, though the town is certainly well worthy of being visited for itself. For the sake of poor Kirke-White, one would wish to hunt up his lowly birth-place, and some would say that Newstead Abbey deserves a traveller’s homage. In fact, the Park and Abbey are the great charm of the neighbourhood, to most visitors; but I must own that I could not bring myself to make a pilgrimage to the scene of those orgies for which it is chiefly distinguished. On making some such remark to a worthy ex-magistrate of the borough, I was struck with the downright English common sense of his reply,—“You are quite right”—said he—“no one thinks much of Lord Byron, in these parts, where he was known; he cheated the tradesmen with whom he had dealings, and made himself so odious, that when his remains were brought through Nottingham, to be buried, we could not make up our minds to pay him any honours!” So much for romance and misanthropy! Genius, without honour and morality, is despicable indeed: and one even doubts the sentimental refinement of the man, of whom an intimate friend and companion could say, with anything like epigrammatic truthfulness, that “he cried for the press, and wiped his eyes with the public.”

A visit to the castle, and its caves, to which my reverend friend from B—— conducted me, well repaid us for our walk to the eminence on which it stands in ruins. It belonged to the late Duke of Newcastle, and was burned, as I remember very well, during the Reform riots, by an infuriate mob: but it is supposed, that the stiff old aristocrat whom they meant to injure, was very well pleased with the outrage. He did not inhabit it; he was well reimbursed for his loss; and was relieved from the tax of keeping up an unnecessary residence. The caves which undermine the castle, are famous for their historical connection with the story of the “She-wolf of France:” for through them was made the entrance into the fortress, which resulted in the arrest of Isabella and her paramour. They still point out a certain cave, as Mortimer’s; but the whole rock is riddled by fissures and loop-holes, and appears to be very soft and friable. From the summit one gets a beautiful view of Clifton-grove and the Vale of Trent; and on another side of Belvoir Castle, (pronounced Beaver,) the seat of the Duke of Rutland. The “Field of the Standard” is near the castle, and I surveyed, with deep feeling, the spot where King Charles set up his ensign, to be torn down by the storm the same night, and to be even more unfortunate, in the issue, than the omen seemed to require. After a visit to a few of the churches and public buildings, and a single night under one of its roofs, I was off to Derbyshire.

With Derby itself I was not long detained, though I cannot but remember, with pleasure, the acquaintance I formed there with several very agreeable persons. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Derby is the historical reminiscence, that here the progress of the Stuart standard was finally, and forever arrested. It is surprising that “Royal Charlie” ever succeeded in pushing his invasion to this point: but thus much he effected, in the fatal ’45, and the spot where he was lodged, in Derby, is still shown by the townsfolk, with interest, if not enthusiasm.

Even railway glimpses of Derbyshire give one many pleasurable emotions, abounding as it does in beautiful valleys and streams, and in abrupt rocky hills—jocosely described by Walton, as frightful and savage, to such a degree that he affects surprise at the sight of a church among them, and asks whether there be verily any Christians in such a country. When, at last, I found myself strolling along the Wye, and conversing with an angler, in the green mead, just within sight of the battlements of Haddon Hall, all the delicious nature and good humour of old Izaak came upon me, and observing that nothing near me seemed to be of modern fashion, I was almost transported back two centuries, and fancied myself for a moment at his side, learning, like Venator, to love angling, and so to weather the evil days of Cromwell—studying to be quiet in that vocation, and to mind my own business, as the apostle doth enjoin. It had been my purpose to visit Dove-dale, in honour of Walton, but this I found impracticable, and the nearest I could come to it was now realized. Blessings on his worthy memory! for though I be not an accepted brother of the angle, having never enjoyed great luck when I have gone a fishing, yet do I allow the art all honour, and do consider it the becoming recreation for a Churchman; admitting its connection with the catechism, and saying Amen to divers other postulates of Walton, of like grave and self-evident character.

I must own that I found Haddon Hall of considerably less dimensions than I had foreshadowed to my fancy. I had supposed its smallest chamber one of those gigantic apartments, in which candles and fire-light must strive in vain to throw their illumination from the chimney-piece to the opposite wainscot; or in which a nocturnal guest might find the freest exercise of imagination, in looking after noises, towards the dark distance, from the lamp at his bedside, of the waving hangings and creaking doors. It is not altogether such a house as that; and yet if there be a better site for the residence of a ghost, or a troop of them, I have never seen it. Your nervous man should never try to lodge there. It is stripped of nearly all its furniture, save only such as is requisite to give full effect to midnight sounds and mysterious moanings. Its history is lost in that of the dim and traditionary ages of the Plantagenets; the windows of its lonely chapel bear the date 1427; and the last touches of the builder were given to it at least three hundred years ago. There it stands—a relic of the domestic architecture of feudal England. Here are turreted and embattled gate-ways, and quadrangular courts, enclosed as if to stand a siege. The kitchen is designed for the largest hospitality; spits, dressers and chopping block, all speaking of the bountiful housekeeping of the olden time—to say nothing of the vast chimneys, which seem made to roar with Christmas fires perpetually. You ascend a great stair-case, on which it seems almost profane to set a modern foot, so entirely does it bespeak its ancient right to be trodden by the doughty and dainty steps of lords and dames, in the attire of by-gone centuries. You enter a room hung with antique tapestry, now ready to drop into tatters. You push-to the old squeaking doors, and drop these hangings, and it no longer appears how you got in, or how you may get out. You understand at once the allusions of many an old play, and almost expect to find some thievish figure lurking behind the arras. Hangings they truly are, for hooks are built into the wall, and to these the arras are attached. But the “Long Gallery” is the place in which a ghost would naturally air himself. It is wainscoated and floored with oak, and ornamented with various carved devices and emblems, such as the rose, and the thistle, and the boar’s head; and then it has deep recessed window-seats and oriels; and some of them look out on the sunny terraces of the garden, and suggest vague ideas of romance, and create phantom ladies of olden time, to fill up the scene, and rich illustrative stories to make them interesting. No doubt real hearts have throbbed here with high and tender emotions: and events which we know only as the dry details of history, have filled these silent chambers with notes of joy or sorrow, with the wail of the widow or the forlorn maiden, or with the voice of the bridegroom and the bride. The stately Elizabeth is said to have once figured in this gallery, at a ball.

The architecture of the great hall is severely antique, and suggests a rude and uncivil age, in spite of its air of dignity and hospitality. The men who dined here evidently wore swords, and the loving-cup and health-drinking were no mere ceremonies; the party who drank, as he lifted his arm, looking narrowly at the friend who stood up to guard him. A hand-cuff which is fastened to the wood-work seems to hint that guests were sometimes troublesome after taking plenty of sack. I could think of nothing but Twelfth-night revels in this curious old place, adorned as it is with the antlers of stags that were hunted long ago, and whose venison once smoked on the board.

The terraced gardens, with their shades, and balusters, and steps, and walks, and portals, are in keeping with all the rest, and the tale of the Lady Dorothea Vernon, and of her mysterious elopement, is enough to fill them with the charm of romance. From one of the towers you look down upon the whole range of roofs and courts, and then gaze far away over a beautiful view of the vale of Haddon. Before you depart you are shown some ancient utensils belonging to the place, such as jack-boots, and match-locks, and doublets. These are kept in the apartment of my reverend brother, the domestic chaplain, whoever he may have been; but whether he had any use for such things I cannot bear testimony. The adjoining chapel in which he officiated is very small, and quite plain. The ancient piscina, beside the altar, tells its simple story of the rites which, according to the mediÆval liturgy of England, hallowed it of yore. It conjured up before my fancy the midnight mass of Christmas, as described by Scott—

“That night alone, of all the year,

 Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.”

It was, at any rate, no Tridentine Eucharist, though it was a mutilated one; and sad as were the scenes of debauchery with which those solemnities are associated, I could not but trust that, even here, Christ crucified had been truly worshipped, of old, on the solemn feast of his Nativity, and on many other occasions of Christian joy or penitence. Who would not cling to such communion with ancient piety? And yet this natural sympathy, when morbidly developed, has done more than all things else together, to bewitch the imaginative with Romanism, and to make them slavish captives to a Church which has retained nothing mediÆval except that newfangled creed, to which the departed spirit of MediÆevalism has bequeathed none of its poetry, and which only exists as the inanimate slough of its superstition.

A Trip into Wales.

From the walls of Chester, one has a very tempting prospect before him in the mountains of Wales. To Wales I now took my way, and first of all alighted at Holywell station, to visit the wondrous shrine and fountain of St. Winifred. A Welsh lady had advised me, by all means, to pay this homage to her native place, and had sportively prepared me to see something very strange, indeed, in the legendary well of its tutelar. The story which she told me was this, in short: that the well had sprung from the earth, in the olden time, just where the head of the Holy Winifred, fair and lovely as it was, touched the earth, when her barbarous lover, Caradoc, smote it off, to revenge his disappointed passion. Be this as it may, I found, in Holywell, a very remarkable pool and fountain, by which lay a great number of impotent folk, as formerly they did at Bethesda, in Jewry, waiting for the moving of the waters. But no—these waters always move. The fountain gushes up with violence, and runs with a full tide. Whether it cures or not, I cannot say. It is supposed to do so; and is used for healing purposes by hundreds. The crutches of many of those who have been healed, are reverently hung up over the well; and several inscriptions have been cut, deep in the stone walls and pillars of the Church which rises above it, expressive of gratitude for cure. Here James the Second came to worship, in his dotage, in 1686. The Irish Romanists, and modern converts, consider it a sort of duty to uphold the miraculous reputation of the well, and are very zealous in such tributes to the legend and the saint. One may certainly believe that it is a healing spring, without swallowing the whole story about St. Winifred; and for one, I am far from unwilling to see such springs resorted to, and used, in a religious spirit, as the gift of God. Nay, if we might but have the truth, and not a “superstitious vanity,” I should rejoice to see them connected with the memory of God’s saints; and, as I washed in the crystal waters, I allowed myself to believe that the spot had indeed been famous for some holy martyrdom, which perverse ingenuity has distorted into the fable aforesaid—of which I have only given the least ridiculous part. A fine and fragrant moss, which grows about the well, and some red spots in the stone, have furnished additional material to the fabulists, which tradition has not failed to preserve; but the light and graceful temple which rises over it, with a figure of the saint, and which is ascribed to Margaret, the mother of Henry the Seventh, is its most substantial monument. It is now a chapel of the adjoining parish church, and I found it filled with plain benches, and used for a Sunday-school room, and for service in the English tongue.

But I was en route for the vale of Clwyd, (pronounced Clooyd,) and so landing at Rhyl, I took a Welsh jaunting-car to St. Asaph. At the very entrance of the vale stands an old historic castle, in utter ruins, but overhung with ivy, and nobly bastioned, and presenting a very venerable appearance. It was built before the Norman invasion, and stands near the scene of that ancient battle, still commemorated in the national air—Morva Rhuddlan—which is full of traditional melancholy and plaintive sweetness. Near Rhuddlan Castle a bridge spans the Clwyd, adding a very picturesque feature to the scene; and just as you descend to the bridge, you observe, on the projecting wall of a mean cottage, the following inscription: “This fragment is the remains of the building in which King Edward the First held his Parliament, A. D. 1283.” Oh! what a romantic land is Wales. England is fine prose; but Wales is all poetry. Even here I fell in love with it; for Rhuddlan is a truly historic pile. Almost its meanest memory is that of the progress of the second Richard, who tarried here on his way to Flint, to be deposed by Bolingbroke. Its latest memory, however, is that of the national Bardic Festival, called an Eisteddfod, which was celebrated here in 1850, with sad if not fatal results. A staging gave way, during the performance, and several of the fair and noble received severe contusions.

I enjoyed a pleasant ride to St. Asaph, which finally disclosed to my view a cathedral of very unpretending dimensions, on a pretty hill, with a few houses grouped under its shadow, and a sightly bridge of stone. This the City of St. Asaph! Even so—for it is an ancient Episcopal See, and therefore it is a city, while Liverpool is but a town. Therefore do I love St. Asaph, because, of all cities I ever saw, it looks most like a village. Indeed, as a village it would be much to my liking, as still and quiet above most villages, and sweetly embosomed among trees, over which the solid tower of the ancient church presides with a motherly air, and ticks a sleepy time from its solemn clock. It was Saturday night when I reached the Mostyn Arms, and ordered my supper, and my bed-room. ‘Here then,’ said I, ‘I will spend a Sunday in supremest loneliness; here I know nobody and am known of none; I will be a mystery to mine host of the inn, who seems to have no other guest, dropping nothing of mine errand in these parts, but going my way on Monday morning, with an air of dignified secrecy, and leaving him to imagine, as he may, what could have brought me to St. Asaph.’

A quiet breakfast at the inn was served with such noiseless neatness and despatch, at the appointed hour, that I grew sad with my bachelor comfort, feeling first, that I ought not to enjoy so much, except at home, and then longing to be there. It was not my hostess’s unimpeachable fare; bread all crisp without, and all snowy sponge within; butter golden and fragrant; prawns, gathered freshly from the clean sands of Rhyl; eggs, that were never cold, and that now were hot to the very second of culinary time; and divers varieties and fruits that feasted the imagination even more than they gratified the taste; it was not this substantial and meritorious breakfast that made the Mostyn Arms a delightful resting-place; but it was that entire order and decency that invested all, and that forbade the idea of a hotel, and seemed to remind me that it was Sunday; it was this that first charmed me, and then made me lonely, and then positively sad. There is often a domestic character about such an inn, in England and Wales, that is positively religious. I remember one, in which the innkeeper always invited his guests to family prayers.

The cathedral is the very plainest of its kind, but the choir is not without effective dignity and beauty. I attended the morning service, which was that of Pentecost, with exceeding pleasure; and yet I observed with pain, that except the children of the Sunday-school, there were few present, who were not, unmistakeably, of the higher classes, or at least of those which are considered very respectable. Where were the poor? The liveried servants of the neighbouring gentry, in their powder and plush, were perhaps of the humblest class represented; but, of course, they are not the people. I was pleased, however, to see several of them kneeling with their masters’ families at the Holy Communion.

After service, I was lingering among the tombs, in the churchyard, and had particularly observed that of the excellent Bishop Barrow, when one of the clergy approached me, and said, “You are a clergyman, I’m sure; I beg you’ll come home with me to dinner!” Never was I so much surprised, in my life, by such a salutation. Welsh hospitality was proving more than a Highland welcome! I expressed my scruples to accept an invitation which was probably based on the idea that I was an Englishman, and a clergyman of the National Church; but only so much the more did my new acquaintance press me to dine with him, offering to take me, after dinner, to a little Welsh parish, in the mountains, where he promised that I should hear the service in Welsh, and also a Welsh sermon, from himself. So very attractive a bill it was impossible to resist, and presenting my card, I promised to be at the appointed place, at the proper hour. But I little knew how great a pleasure was in store for me.

I easily found my way to the house, which stood back from the road; a modest mansion, encircled with trees and shrubs. My friend himself opened the door, uttering a Welsh salutation, which he interpreted to me by a warm grasp of the hand, while he pointed me to a Welsh inscription on the wall—that text of the beloved disciple, which enjoins him who loves God to love his brother also. I was yet in the first flush of grateful excitement, when I was ushered into a small drawing-room, where a lady advanced and gave me a cordial greeting. The clergyman introduced me to his wife, and to another lady who was with her, and pointing to a portrait on the wall, which I immediately recognized, said, “you will perhaps be glad to know that you are in a poet’s house, that this is the poet’s likeness, and that my wife is the poet’s sister.” I started and said—“Can it be that this is Rhyllon?” I saw, in an instant, that I was so happy as to have found my way, in this manner, to the residence of the late Mrs. Hemans, and to an acquaintance with that sister, of twin genius, whose music is as widely known as some of the most popular of Mrs. Hemans’ delightful lyrics.

I was made to feel at home, without further preface, and the dinner-hour passed delightfully, in conversation suited to the day and the services of the morning, with many recognitions of the power of our holy religion to obliterate differences of nationality and of education, and to bind entire strangers in practical brotherhood. The hour came to repair to the mountain sanctuary, which proved to be several miles distant, and the whole party of us went together, in a Welsh vehicle of peculiar shape, but well suited to the road. As we began to ascend into the hills, a fine view of the vale of Clwyd presented itself. From the great mountain ranges, on the north and west, to the crowned crag on which rises the Castle of Denbigh, the eye took a majestic sweep, over one of the loveliest valleys in Great Britain, and one full of romance and poetry. At last we came to the Church, a most primitive little structure, of ancient date, with a mere bell-gable, instead of a tower and spire, but of a most ecclesiastical pattern in every respect. The villagers of Tremeirchion were crowding the doorway, and on entering, I found a large assembly of the Welsh peasantry, neatly attired, and exceedingly intelligent in their appearance. A Welsh Prayer-book was put into my hand, which, being a strict translation of the English, I was enabled to use very profitably, in following the service. The whole was novel and attractive. I observed some old tombs and monuments, and was particularly pleased to find the altar, the candlesticks, and other parts of the Church, garnished with Pentecostal flowers—alike fragrant and suggestive of festive emotions, in harmony with the blessed day of the Holy Comforter. But the sweet and simple worship of the villagers absolutely enraptured me. Their responses were given in earnest, and their chants were particularly touching. I was especially pleased with the Gloria Patri, which, as perpetually recurring, I soon caught up, and was able to sing with them, in a language of which, in the morning, I had not known a word. Even now it lingers in my ear, with all the charms of that plaintive intonation which seemed to me characteristic of the Welsh tongue, and which singularly comports with its prestige, as the language of an ancient and romantic people, whose nationality has been never subdued, notwithstanding the ages of its absorption into that of a stronger race.

The sermon was delivered with emotion, apparently extemporaneously, and was heard with fixed attention throughout. From the text, which I picked out in a Welsh Testament, I was able to gather some of its drift, and frequently to detect a scriptural quotation. It was evidently a Whitsuntide sermon, and the Holy Ghost, his gifts and consolations, were the blessed theme. A sweet hymn concluded the service; and then, in the churchyard, this excellent pastor presented me to several of his worthy parishioners. How was I surprised when one of them asked me, in English, if I had ever been at Nashotah! A friend and relative of his had emigrated to Wisconsin, and had there been taken up by the brethren of that Mission, concerning which he had sent home many interesting accounts. I can scarcely do justice, with my pen, to the thrill of feeling inspired by finding that the blessed influences of Nashotah were felt, by brethren of a diverse tongue, far away over sea and land, in that lonely nook of the Welsh mountains.

Deep in the wall of Tremeirchion Church is set the ancient tomb of an old priest of Llanerch, who was once its pastor. He was the wonder of his age for wisdom, and especially for the lore with which, like Solomon, he spake of trees and of plants. It was he who first translated the Te Deum into Welsh, and such was his sanctity that Satan could gain no advantage over him, except through his love of science. So then, as the story goes, Satan promised to reveal to him some mighty secret of nature, on condition that, after death, he might claim him; and that, whether buried in the Church, or without, there should be no release from the bond. The wily clerk accepted the bargain, and became so wise that all the land confessed his astonishing attainments, as beyond comparison, in their day; but Satan, for once, was outwitted. The sage took good care that his body should be buried neither without nor within the Church; and accordingly it is shown to this day, as part of the wall itself, and jurists are agreed that Satan must be nonsuited whenever he ventures to set up a claim against the holy clerk of Llanerch.

When I ventured to contrast, in conversation with my friend, the delightful fervour of this service, with the coldness of that which I had attended in the morning, at the cathedral, he answered, with feeling:—“We Welshmen love our own language; we talk English in traffic and in business, but Welsh is the language of our hearts. The Church has too generally neglected or even outraged this principle. Our Bishops have been seldom able to address us in the speech of our affections; the dissenters have earned many captive, merely by employing the tongue of the people, in their exciting harangues. Where the Welsh are served in their own tongue by their hereditary Church, they seldom forsake her, and my little parish is but a small example of what might be universal, if the Welsh were but considered worthy of being conciliated, by a tribute to their hereditary feelings, and their unconquerable nationality.” These appeared to me the counsels of truth and soberness. The Welsh are truly a people, in spite of their ancient subjugation, and deserve to be treated as such, all the more for their loyalty to the British Crown, and for the remarkable partiality which they seem to entertain towards the Prince of Wales, whose dignity I discovered to be something more, after all, than a mere fiction of heraldry.

Our drive home was full of beautiful views, and after descending into the valley, we pursued our way through Llanerch park, a fine estate, with which I was much pleased, although the agreeable company into which I had fallen might have made me satisfied with a scene far less lovely in itself. I spent a long evening at Rhyllon, restrained from departing by their kind importunities, and not unwilling to prolong a personal interview which must necessarily be the last, as well as the first, of what I could not but recognize as an enduring friendship. Conversation very naturally turned upon the departed glories of Rhyllon, as the nest of that tuneful nightingale, who filled up a most brilliant era of British poesy, by the graceful addition of a genuine female genius. I had always admired Mrs. Hemans, chiefly because of her truly feminine muse; because, in other words, her poetry is such as man can never produce. Unlike others of her sisterhood, she seems to have been unambitious of masculine effort, content to be her own fair self, and to give utterance to the delicious sentiments, the gushing affections, and the rapt enthusiasm which belong to the heart of woman. Delightful songstress! it was happiness, indeed, to linger for a moment in her charming abode, and to gather from the conversation of those who had known and loved her, such hints of her life and character as a delicate fondness for her memory was not unwilling to drop in conversation, for the benefit of a sincere admirer. It was all the more valuable, too, as mingling with many personal recollections of Bishop Heber, whose connections with St. Asaph made him very frequently a guest at Rhyllon. It may be imagined that I was loth to say farewell; but at last I tore myself away with those pains of parting, which are the penalty of a traveller’s friendships. The clock of the old cathedral tolled eleven as I passed under its aged tower on my return to the inn.

In the morning I rose early, and took a walk down the vale, some two or three miles, to a secluded spot, where ancient piety had erected a chapel over a fountain, and where it now stands in one of the most picturesque piles of ruin I ever beheld. This was a favorite haunt of Mrs. Hemans, and one to which she has devoted some sweet verses. It goes, among the English, by the title of “St. Mary’s Well,” but the Welsh call it Pfynonver CapÉl, a very musical and pleasing name, as they pronounce it. There it stands in a green mead, under the shade of a tufted hill, enwound with ivy and covered with venerable moss; you enter the door, and in the sacred floor you behold a pool of lucid water, encompassed with an ancient kerb of stone, which preserves all the grace of outline of the base of a massive column in a Gothic cathedral. The old architect has shown, in this peculiarity of his pool, a truly inventive genius. I am sure the legends of the sacred spot must have been many and most romantic.

A hurried walk back to St. Asaph, concluded my sojourn in the vale of Clwyd. Verily, “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps;” my plans in visiting this retired spot had all been frustrated; but so happy a disappointment has seldom fallen to my lot. The very slender enjoyment of puzzling mine host, with surmises as to my mysterious errand, had been lost in one of the richest pleasures of my life, and I went my way from a place which I had sought a few hours before as containing nobody to whom I could make myself known, feeling that it would be dear to me till death, as the home of beloved friends.

I continued my journey by railway towards the Menai Straits, catching pleasant views by sea and land, especially those of Abergele and Gwyrch Castle. At Conway I stopped for an hour to survey the interesting ruins of its castle, into which the railroad has made its way, piercing the ancient walls, after spanning the river with a tubular bridge, and thus adding the utilitarian wonders of modern architecture to the decaying splendours of the mediÆval builder. The castle is a mass of ruin within, but retains all its external form and comeliness of tower and battlement. It was built by Edward I., and was the scene of many of the gayest revelries of his court, during the period in which he forged the chains of the Principality. I found the descriptions of my guide-book so literally correct, with respect to its present condition, that I need only transcribe them. “The walls on all sides are covered with a green drapery of luxuriant ivy, and a meadow of grass lies in the open area of its courts. The warden’s duty is supplied by a whole tribe of crows, whose solemn parley is heard the instant that a stranger’s foot approaches, and the towers are all alive with blackbirds, and birds of all colours, whose notes resound the livelong day, throughout the deserted domain.” From the summit of one of the towers I had a fine view of the Conway, and of its widening entrance to the sea. A fisherman’s boat, left on the sands by the receding tide, added to the spirit of the scene, which in every respect was worthy of an artist’s study.

Welsh Scenery and Antiquities.

The railway between Conway and Bangor runs along the sea-shore, close under the lee of the bold and rocky promontories, that defy the waves, on this imperial coast. Often indeed we found ourselves plunged into the black night of the tunnels which become necessary, in many places, from the precipitous nature of these cliffs, but, in general, I found even the distasteful confusion of a railway train incompetent to detract much from the emotions of sublimity inspired by the passage along such a shore. On one side, the sea was foaming under us, and on the other Penmaenmawr lifted its gigantic bulk to the clouds. Occasionally, as at Aber, we passed a beautiful glen, descrying waterfalls and other picturesque scenery; and by keeping a good look-out, I had a full view of the cavern called Ogo, which opens to the sea, high up in a calcareous cliff, with a mouth, singularly like the arched entrance of a gothic minster. It is said to have afforded a retreat, in ancient times, to the invading army of England. At last, we descried the baronial towers of Penrhyn Castle, beautifully situated, on the foundations of an old Welsh palace, the fame of whose bold chiefs has, for ages, been the theme of bardic eulogy in Wales; and soon after, we were set down, at Bangor. It is a city in a vale, enclosed by an amphitheatre of hills, and opening to the sea, with a fine view of the Menai Straits, and of the very striking water-front of Beaumaris, on the opposite shore of Anglesea.

I found the cathedral, though an important feature in a view of the town, a very humble specimen of its class; and the service which I attended, during a pouring rain, was indifferently performed. I retreated to the finely-situated hotel on the straits, and near the Menai Bridge, where, in the company of many other disappointed tourists, I was forced to grumble away an afternoon, from which I had expected no little pleasure. An angry wind was chafing the surface of the Menai water, and the little steamers, and other vessels, that went furiously by, were the only objects to animate the otherwise gloomy spectacle, on which I gazed listlessly, from the windows of the George Hotel.

The next morning, though with an unsettled sky, gave us better weather, and I went forth to view the scenery, and to cross the Menai Suspension-Bridge, which, though now eclipsed by its neighbour, the far-famed Tubular, is to me much the more interesting of the two, as really a beautiful specimen of art, and not unworthy of the surrounding scenery. Crossing this bridge, and finding on the other shore of Anglesea a little steamer, with a load of Whitsuntide excursionists, going down to Caernarvon, I lost no time in getting on board, and soon had the satisfaction of passing under both the chain-bridge and the tube, and of realizing, from that position, the immense height at which they overhang the tides of the Menai. As creations of genius, they are indeed sublime; and when a coach is seen creeping over the one, in bigness as it were a fly; or when a railway train thunders through the other, and yet seems in comparison with it a mere toy, as it emerges and smokes along its way, one gets an idea of the immensity of each conception, which invests mechanic art with something like the attractive splendours of the painting and the poem. In the evening, as the sun was near its setting, I surveyed the great tube at my leisure, and walked over its roof, while a train was passing under me. It was surprising to observe its untrembling strength, and its security at so great a height, and with a span so vast: but I was even more delighted with the views it afforded me, of the glorious scenery, mountain and marine, with which it is encompassed. They are singularly enriched with the charms of art and nature. The shipping, the suspension-bridge, with its arches and festoons; the towns of Beaumaris and Bangor; the tall column of the Marquis of Anglesea, and many pleasant villages and seats, as you look towards Caernarvon, afford a pleasing addition to the richly wooded shores, the flowing waters, the indented line of coast, the swelling hills, and last, but not least, the glorious succession of peaks that stretch along the eastern background from Snowdon, to the Great Orme’s Head, which rises like a wall from the sea.

But I must not forget my excursion to Caernarvon, through these straits, which resemble so much the picturesque rivers of my own land. Many objects of interest enlivened the trip; but when, at last, the old walls of Caernarvon Castle rose before my sight, in all their feudal grandeur and historic dignity, I felt like one inspired with rapture, though not the less impressed with a sense of something awful and august. The character of Edward as a tyrant and a conqueror, seemed to stand before me in monumental gloom and massive solemnity—and when I thought of the feeble cries of the first Prince of Wales, as he came to light in this stronghold of feudal tyranny, and coupled them with those midnight shrieks, at Berkeley, on the Severn, in which his inglorious life was extinguished, I realized afresh all those creeping chills of terror, with which the wildest imagery of romance affects the sensitive imagination of childhood. There it stood, magnificently irregular in outline, frowning over the little town beneath, like a coarse bully domineering over a timid boy. Its towers are really stupendous, and the aspiring parapets and embattled turrets, that bristle up from their grim summit, make a strangely confused, but self-consistent figure, against the mountain back-ground, or the clear blue sky overhead. With such a fortress in full sight, it was most thrilling to give its history a mental review. Piled there by a cruel conqueror, to overawe the Welsh people, six hundred years ago, it seems less terrible with regard to them, than with reference to the story of his Queen, and his child. Such a nest for a new-made mother, and her babe! In the depth of winter, the stern husband sent Queen Eleanor here, to give birth to her child. In one of its most gloomy recesses the royal infant was born; and thus the insulting victor was enabled to continue the sovereignty of Wales, in his own family, while literally fulfilling his pledge, to give the Welsh a prince—born in their own country, who could speak no English, and whose character was without fault! Such a sovereign they had promised to accept, and to obey; and hence the title of the eldest son of British sovereigns ever since. Thus, what is morally a mean and knavish fraud, is clothed, in historic narrative, with the glory of a warlike stratagem, and survives in imperial heraldry as if there were no truth in the saying of the poet, that the herald’s art can never “blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.”

I was not altogether fortunate in my holiday, for the weather was alternating, continually, between shower and sunshine, and when I was fairly on the top of a stage-coach, for Llanberis, I found, to my sorrow, that shower was about to predominate for a time. However, to Llanberis I went, reserving a close inspection of the castle to my return. At intervals, I could get some idea of the loveliness of that charming lake, and of the wild glories of its surrounding scenery; but ill-luck prevailed, and Snowdon wore his cap of clouds, nearly all the time, and I was forced to retire at last, somewhat surly with disappointment. I visited, however, the ruins of Dolbardan Castle, the central fortress of a chain of similar muniments, by which the ancient clans of Wales endeavoured to secure these mountain passes against the invaders. It stands, in picturesque dignity, upon the peninsula, which divides the waters of Llanberis into twin lakes, and is apparently the guardian of both. Here some Welsh lads, with a donkey, were sheltering themselves from the rain, and, by dint of much entreaty, and a very tempting appliance of money, I gained from them a Welsh song, which growing somewhat animated as they proceeded, cheered up the sombre scene, and gave to those antiquated ruins a moment’s restoration of the echoes of minstrelsy, and of the musical tongue with which they resounded of yore, in peace and war, when the figures of bards and heroes were the familiar tenants of the spot. As I returned to Caernarvon, the rain began to abate, and gradually the clouds withdrew, to my great satisfaction. The castle again rose before me, reviving the impressions with which I had first beheld it, but less stern, perhaps, from the land side, than when beheld from the sea. I was soon beneath its walls, which I first surveyed, in circuit, with increased astonishment and pleasure. The materials for this vast structure are said to have been furnished, in part, by the ruins of Segontium, the neighbouring station of the ancient Roman army; but the feudal character now impressed on the old stones is, to me, far more interesting than their primitive history. The eagle-tower, in which the young Prince is said to have been born, is itself a fortress of massive solidity, and presents to the waters a front of bold defiance; while on the other side, now blocked up and forlorn of aspect, beneath a lofty arch, is the gate, by which the expectant mother entered the gloomy hold, and which still goes by her name. The remains of a moat and drawbridge are visible, and so are the grooves in which the iron-toothed portcullis once rose and fell. I entered by a gate which looks toward the town, and over which is sculptured a rude effigy of the royal builder, deeply scarred by time. Within, the huge walls appear as an empty shell; they rise, like those of the great Roman amphitheatre, around an area of desolation. Here and there, indeed, are the remains of state apartments, and of royal chambers, still marked by delicate architectural tracery and handsome enrichment; but you tread on hillocks and grassy verdure, which swell above their buried splendours, and everywhere the ruin appears absolute and complete. By time-worn and dangerous stairways of stone, you wind up to the summits of the towers, and your guide constantly cautions you to beware of slipping, or of setting foot upon treacherous places. To me, the greatest interest was presented by the narrow corridors, which run between the inner and outer walls of the entire circuit, lighted only by the loop-holes, through which the signal horn was once sounded, and the arrow shot forth, and which open into embrasures that were filled of yore with armed men. Here is the projecting battlement, by which they protected the gateway below, its floor is perforated for the discharge of missiles, and to enable the defenders of the castle to pour down scalding water, and melted lead, upon the heads of its assailants. In perambulating these gloomy recesses, I gained distinct ideas of mediÆval life and warfare, from which my knowledge of history, such as it is, received a vast augmentation of freshness and reality.

Dismissing my guide, I sat down on the summit of the eagle-tower and lost myself in revery. The daws, chattering amid the battlements, alone interrupted the solemn stillness of the moment. Before me was Snowdon, now disrobed of the clouds he had worn through the day, and lifting a bald crown of snow to the skies. The serried outline of his dependant mountains beautifully varied the scenes toward which they stretched away on every side. I turned, and there was the broad glare of the descending sun upon the sea: I was looking towards my own dear home. In the midst of meditative pleasures, I longed for the companionship of many, between whom and me there rolled a thousand leagues of ocean; and, for awhile I forgot, in the melancholy of that reflection, the romantic impressions which are peculiar to the spot. When I recovered my thoughts, it was only to feel more forcibly the solemnity of the short life, in which we stand between so dread a past, and so momentous a future; and before I descended from that lofty station, I knelt and worshipped Him who, alone, is Everlasting.

The weather increased in serenity as the day declined. I heard the clatter of hoofs, and a coach-horn sounding in the streets, and hastily took my seat, for a drive to Bangor, relinquishing a projected tour through Beddgelert and Tremadoc, which I had found impracticable, with reference to other plans. My drive in return was not less agreeable than my sail in coming. Everywhere the scene was beautiful, and I was amused with the chatter of a couple of Welsh peasant women, in short petticoats and men’s hats, who had mounted the coach-top and sat by my side.

We had bright moonlight that evening, on the waters of the Menai, and a band amused us, with music, in the grounds of the hotel. I was agreeably surprised to hear, in close connection with the national air of England, the sprightly strain of “Hail Columbia,” which, however inferior as a musical composition, had a strong power over me, as I heard it then, and I breathed a warm aspiration to God for a blessing on my native land.

We were favoured with a glorious morning, and I took stage-coach, soon after breakfast, for a drive through North Wales. After whirling through the suburbs of Bangor, and traversing the “Bethesda slate-quarries,” we entered the terrific pass of Nant Ffrancon. On a reduced scale, the scenery here is quite Swiss. The rains had swelled the mountain torrents, and everywhere they were leaping down the steeps, in beautiful threads of silver, which terminated in fine cascades. The road wound along the side of a mountain, with a deep descent beneath; and there was spread out a broad green valley, level as a floor, with a river winding through, and the figure of an angler stalking along its bank. On the further side of the vale rose another mountain, abruptly, to the skies. I was reminded of Nant Ffrancon afterwards, in the Swiss Oberland, after crossing the Brunig into the Vale of Meyringen, as I was making my way towards Interlachen. These Welsh Alps are indeed destitute of snowy tops and descending glaciers. Yet they are full of sublime features; and the flocks which climb their sides, with fleeces of milky whiteness, give a pastoral air to the solitude, which subdues the otherwise repulsive aspect of some of their features.

It is vain for me to attempt a minute description of the pleasures of this day’s drive. The scenery was richly varied, and after seeing the finest scenery of Savoy, and of the Swiss Cantons, I still recall it with satisfaction, and long to go through it once more. Our way lay along the skirts of the dreary Lake Ogwen, and then over its desolate heath; from which our emerging into the enchanting Yale of Capel Curig, was like turning from a page of Dante’s Inferno to a passage in his description of Paradise. Here majesty and loveliness indeed combine, in the sweet diversity of woods and waters, and vales and mountains, to furnish an ideal of natural beauty, which might satisfy a poet or a painter. Amid all, rises the glorious summit of old Snowdon, of which I obtained my finest impressions from this spot. The scenery of the river Swallow, by which our way continued, is marvellously picturesque, and its waterfall is admirable, even to the eye of an American. Near Bettws-y-coed, the panorama assumed a more pastoral character, and gave us a glimpse into the Vale of Llanrwst; and then, for a long time, every turn opened new scenes of beauty and delight. At Cerrig-y-Druddion, if the scenery was distasteful again, not so were the trout from the mountain streams, on which I made a delicious repast. It was from this place, to which the poor prince had made good his retreat, that the primitive Caradoc, with his family, were carried prisoners to Rome, where he made that famous speech, which is the memorial of his name. Through various scenes of interest, which I might be more willing to enumerate, were only their names pronounceable, I reached Corwen, where was the hold of Glendower, and where, in the ancient Church, I visited the tomb inscribed Jorwerth, Vicarius de Corvaen Ora pro eo. At the inn sat an old blind Welshman, playing the Welsh harp, and soliciting charity, which, for Homer’s sake, no one could refuse. Thenceforward the scenery again increased in interest.

The Vale of Edeyrnion opened into our view as we continued our journey along the windings of the beautiful outlet of the Bala Lake, and from hence to Llangollen, beauty, rather than grandeur, was characteristic of the scenery. But no every-day sort of beauty is to be imagined when I speak of this charming region, at which it was a feast to look, even for a moment. The swells and slopes of the land; the variety of the foliage; the graceful curves of the river-banks; and the outlines of the mountainous distance, with the hues which various tillage, and crops, gave to the meadows and the upland, were continual sources of delight, in which there was no monotony, and no surfeit. Nothing was wanting, but only the kindling eye of some enraptured friend to meet my own, and a voice to say with mine, “This indeed is a paradise!” Such would be the exclamation of any admirer of natural scenery, at the point where the ruinous pile of the Abbey of Valle Crucis lifts into view the arch and tracery of its great East window, amid the harmonious boughs and verdure of gigantic trees. It is a favourite view with painters, and has become familiar from the efforts of both pencil and burin. Scarcely less so is the conical hill, which overhangs Llangollen, and on the summit of which some remnants of wall that serve to give a very picturesque completeness to its outline, retain the name of Castell Dinas Bran, with the reputation of a primeval British work. At Llangollen, a handsome bridge, which spans the river Dee, blends with the prospect of the town in pleasing proportion. I climbed a little eminence, and broke through a sort of copse, into the pleasant grounds of Plas Newydd, the famous retreat of two eccentric ladies, who, not quite a hundred years ago, while Llangollen was yet unsung and unknown, became recluses of the Vale, and lived here in philosophical contempt of the world, and in ardent communion with nature. They both rest in the parish churchyard, where one stone records their several dates, and those of an humble girl, who was long their faithful servant. As they were persons who had figured in the gay world, their story has become a sort of local tradition, which is always repeated with respect; and portraits of Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, in full Welsh costume, are sold in the shops, and hung up at the inn. I could not greatly admire their cottage; but it was, no doubt, quite snug, and pretty enough for two old ladies that were of a mind to be philosophers.

The Wye and the Severn—Bristol and Wells.

The next day found me again ascending the Malvern hills, on a coach-top, the guard playing the merriest notes, upon his horn, as we rapidly trotted through the town. After another view of the vale of Gloucester, we turned into Herefordshire, and descended into the valley that spreads from the western slope of the Malverns. We had fine views of Edensor, the estate of Lord Somers, and of a monumental column, upon the crown of a hill. I was glad, too, to see on the roadside, marking some parochial boundary, a stone cross, such as is frequent on the Continent, and might, without any evil, be a familiar object in any Christian country. As we approached Ledbury, we met a band of gipsies in their proverbial rags and wretchedness, skulking along the road, and exhibiting very few of those bewitching peculiarities of appearance with which painters and romancers are fond of investing them. I had never met them before, and was sorry not to be able to stop and talk with them. An impression of awe haunted me for some time as I meditated upon their mysterious barbarism, and tried to recall the glimpse of their weird features, which I had caught as they passed by. I never saw any of their kind, on any other occasion afterwards, and think they must be growing scarce, even in England.

At Ledbury I was particularly struck with an outside view of the parish Church, which is but one of a thousand churches in England which of themselves are enough to reward a traveller for journeying through it. Sir Walter Scott has justly awarded to them the credit of being the most beautiful temples in the world, and the most becoming for their holy purposes. Our next stage brought us to Ross so famous for the memory of John Kyrle and his beneficent deeds. Its “heaven-directed spire” surmounts the hill, on which the town is built; and every where, in Ross, the traces of his good works, as well as many of the works themselves, survive to consecrate his name. The house in which he dwelt is adorned with a medallion portrait of “the man of Ross,” sunk in the wall, and visible to every passenger. He was indeed all that the poet has made him in descriptive verse; and he was something more, for he was a zealous Churchman, and a faithful attendant upon the daily service. I made my way to the Church, and was pleased to find its churchyard cross entire, and a cross upon its gable. The interior, though very old fashioned, was adorned with flowers, in honour of Pentecost, and its monuments are many and curious. Among them was one of those altar-tombs, on which lie at full length a knight and his sweet dame, the latter with her delicate hand held in his rough grasp, as if their union were inseparable by death itself. I was deeply touched by such a memorial of love, which we must believe to have been sincere, and to which fancy attributes all that is constant on the part of the lady, and all that is chivalrous on the part of her lord. But where is the monument of Kyrle? There is a bust and an inscription, but his monument, like Christopher Wren’s, is the Church itself; for he built its spire, and something more beside. There is a story, too, that when the bells were cast, he was present, and threw into the melting metal a silver tankard, from which he and the workmen had just drunk to the king’s health. As I was passing round, the sexton said to me, “you shall now see something that you never saw before,” and he pointed out a couple of elm trees, growing in the Church, and reaching to the roof. What is the more remarkable, they are growing in the pew where the Man of Ross was accustomed to worship, as if to testify the fidelity of God to the promise—“He shall be like a tree, planted by the water-side, his leaf also shall not wither.” One would almost believe that they must have been planted on purpose, but the truth is rather the reverse. They are in fact the fruit of Kyrle’s own planting; for he set a row of elms in the churchyard, which were cut down by a churlish vicar, but from which these shoots have sprung up in the house of God, as it were in silent remonstrance. It is hard not to see something providential in the coincidence, by which, what would be a curiosity anywhere, is thus connected with the blessed example of one of the most benevolent and virtuous of mankind. The trees screen one of the windows, and appear to thrive in the climate of the sanctuary, their leaves putting forth earlier, and falling later than those of the trees in the churchyard.

A fair was going on in the town, and the streets were filled with the peasantry. Everywhere pedlars were setting forth the merits of their wares, and among them was a fellow bawling—“Here’s the last dying speech and confession, &c.”—as he exhibited the doleful print of a gallows and its dangling victim. Such incidents are not rarely met in the narratives of a certain class of novelists, and I have certainly read, somewhere, of just such a market-day as I encountered at Ross. I walked slowly down the hill into the valley of the Wye, turning constantly to observe the fine situation of the town, till the coach overtook me. The country here is rich but simply pretty, and as yet it revealed none of the glories for which the Wye is celebrated. Goodrich Court, a modern mansion, is a fine object, however, and the remains of Goodrich Castle are an imposing feature in the scene; and all the more so for its association with the cavaliers, from whom it was finally taken by Cromwell, and reduced to ruins. As you enter Monmouthshire, a glorious view begins to open, and from about this point the scenery of the river increases in wildness and grandeur. I was, at first, at a loss to know why Wordsworth should have called the Wye sylvan, for such was far from being its character, in Herefordshire; but now the entire appropriateness of the epithet was disclosed, and yet I am well aware that I lost many of the finest features of the stream by not descending it in a boat. With Monmouth itself, I was somewhat disappointed, its Church having suffered many things of many churchwardens, and the remains of the priory, where Henry the Fifth was born, having become incorporated with the modern walls of a boarding-school. I left Monmouth with gratitude to Fluellyn for his idea of its wondrous resemblance to Macedon, which I should not have imagined, had he not helped the world to it. The glories of the scenery round St. Briavel’s and near the tiny little Church at Llandogo, should have had the further benefit of his minute and luminous descriptive powers, as I can liken it to nothing else in the world but itself, for its combination of simply rural features, with those which are highly picturesque. An American is struck with the charm imparted to such scenery, by a pretty church or a neat and secluded hamlet, quite as much as he is impressed by the scenery itself; and I was often led to think what the valley of the Mohawk might be, had it the advantage of that still retirement, and of those Arcadian groves, which impart a peculiar effect to the sterner beauties of the Wye. At Tintern Parva we were shown the ancestral habitation of Fielding, and passed a new church which was well worthy of note. But the neighbourhood of Tintern Abbey eclipsed every other thought, and I strained my sight for the earliest possible glimpse of the delightful vision. A storm which had been threatening, broke upon us, unfortunately, at the critical point, and I first beheld that magnificent ruin in circumstances which increased its desolation. In spite of the rain, however, I embraced an opportunity of entering its walls and surveying it for a few moments, amid the wild confusion of the elements. The rain dashing through its rich but broken tracery, and the wind tossing the gorgeous drapery of its mantling ivy, with the melancholy sighs it gave amid the columns, and along the aisles, deepened the solemn impression of the spot, and gave a heightened interest to the thoughts of its former sacred uses, when it resounded with the chant of priests and the swells of music from the organ. As I purposed a more leisurely visit in fairer weather, I was willing to have seen it thus amid storm and tempest. I resumed my journey to Chepstow; and as the storm soon abated, and was succeeded by sunshine, I had many fine views of the windings of the river, some of which are very bold, sweeping, amid precipitous banks, crowned with the richest foliage and verdure. Chepstow itself has many beauties, as seen from the Wye, and after slightly surveying the town and castle, I crossed the iron bridge, and drove to Tidenham, where a kind welcome awaited me at the vicarage, from one with whom I had corresponded long before I left America. I was sorry, however, to find myself a source of disappointment to the children of my kind entertainers, who had been unable to divest themselves, notwithstanding the benevolent dissuasions of their parents, of the romantic idea that the American visitor would present himself in aboriginal costume, and contribute to their amusement by exhibiting his red visage, and lending them his bow and arrows. Their father is now a Missionary Bishop, in Africa.

This vicarage is of modern erection, but in very good ecclesiastical style, and has a pretty garden, in which I saw my amiable friend the vicar taking the air, when I rose in the morning. I was glad that so pleasant an abode had fallen to the lot of so good a man. After breakfast, while he visited his poor and sick, I went on a little pony, with a servant at my side, to Cockshoot Hill, which looks down upon the Wye nearly opposite the Windcliff. Tidenham itself stands on a narrow peninsula, with the Wye on one side, and the broad Severn on the other, and just below Cockshoot Hill this peninsula forces the river Wye to make an extraordinary bend beneath its precipitous banks, on which stands the pretty hamlet of Llancaut. The view, at this point, is therefore peculiarly fine, and affords, in one spot called “Double-view,” the unusual spectacle of both rivers—the Wye, with its sylvan charms on one hand, and the expanse of the Severn, with its ships and steamers, on the other. I was best pleased with the Wye, the Windcliff, the projecting rocks called the Twelve Apostles, and the entire scene on that side, as far as the eye could stretch, above and below. The farms and fruit-trees of the peninsula were also pleasing in their way, and the more so, because it was now the season of blossoms, and every breeze was fragrant. My return was enlivened by views of the Severn, which were often much heightened in effect by the turns of the road, and the openings amid thick trees, through which I descried them; and I was gratified to be joined by a labouring man, who insisted on walking with us, and pointing out favourite prospects, apparently not so much in hopes of a fee, as to testify his regard for a guest of the vicar, of whom he spoke in unbounded terms of respect, as the blessing of the country round. I found the Church opened, and service going on: and when it was over, was informed by the vicar himself of the various merits of the sacred place as an architectural specimen. The font was an ancient Norman one, of lead, and is regarded as curious. So are the windows, which exhibit a semi-flamboyant tracery, by no means common. A gradual restoration is going on, at the expense of the vicar and his personal friends; but I was amused by the white-washed tower, which remains thus disfigured, while the rest of the Church has been reduced to its natural color. It seems that this white tower has long been a landmark of the Severn, and serves a useful purpose, in the piloting of vessels. With an interference which would strike us Americans as very arbitrary, the Government, therefore, forbade that the tower of Tidenham Church should be made to look any less like a whited sepulchre; and so it stands, as a pillar of salt, to this day.

The rest of the day was devoted to an excursion to Tintern, to which the ladies contributed their agreeable society. The party proved a very cheerful one, and we encountered scarcely any fatigue of which our fairer associates did not bear their full share. In surveying the remains of Chepstow castle, only, were we without their company. I found it a noble ruin, even after my visit to Caernarvon. It was reduced to ruin by Cromwell, after a desperate fight, but one of its towers was long afterwards—for twenty years—the prison of Henry Marten, the regicide. It must once have been a splendid hold of feudalism, and its halls and windows still retain many traces of the Saxon and Norman richness of its original beauty.

We climbed the Windcliff, and thence surveyed the combined glories of land, and sea, and of inland stream, which are its peculiar charm. Where else can be seen such a prospect: such inland river scenery, blended with the view of a broad arm of ocean, side by side, and apparently not united? It would be vain for me to attempt description, but I found it all I could ask; and on that breezy height recalled to mind those incomparable lines of Wordsworth, composed upon the spot or near it, in which he exhorts the lover of Nature to store up such scenes in memory, and thus make “the mind a mansion for all lovely forms.” There are caves below, through which one of my female friends led me like a Sybil; and then I went under her kind escort through a wild American-like wood, to rejoin our carriage. Two miles more of delightful scenery, and I stood again in Tintern Abbey, and wandered through its holy aisles, and climbed to its venerable summit. Here, over the lofty arches of the transept, I walked, as in a path through a wood, the shrubbery growing wildly on both sides, as on the brow of a natural cliff. White roses flourish there in abundance; and it is only at intervals that you can get a glimpse of the Abbey-floor beneath. Around you is a beautiful prospect of the river, and of an amphitheatre of hills; and when you stand in the aisles below, and view these same hills through the broken windows, you feel that they should never have been glazed, except with transparent glass. On the whole, when the beauty of its situation is fully taken into consideration, in addition to the original graces of its architecture,—its graceful pillars, its aerial arches, its gorgeous windows,—and when we observe the fond effect with which nature has clothed the pile in verdure, as if resuming her power with tenderness, and striving to repair the decays of art, with her own triumphant creations; when all these, and other attractions which cannot be enumerated in description, are united in the estimate, I cannot but give to Tintern Abbey the credit of being the fairest sight, of its kind, which ever filled my vision. I have since seen many similar objects, combining architectural beauties with those of nature, but were I allowed to choose one more glimpse of such a picture, among all, I think I should say to the enchanter—“let me have another look at Tintern.”

Crossing the broad mouth of the Severn, in a little steamer, we entered the Avon, of a fine afternoon, just as a fleet of similar steamers, taking the tide at flood, were hurrying out to sea. It was a most animating sight, as one after another chased by—this for London, that for Dublin, another for Glasgow, and so on; all flaunting the red cross of St. George, and displaying a full company on deck. I was agreeably surprised by the beauty of this river, which is varied by woods and cliffs, and many striking objects, among which a little ruinous chapel, upon a verdant peninsula, particularly struck me, and the more so, as having been formerly used by fishermen, before going upon their voyages in the channel, as a place of prayer for protection and success. But this river has an historical claim upon the affectionate regard of America, as having sent forth two expeditions to our shores, of the greatest consequence to our whole continent. Upon these waters crept forth to sea, in 1497, the little “Matthew,” on whose deck stood Sebastian Cabot, “uncovering his fine Venetian head” to take a last farewell of his native city, as he boldly stood out to the ocean in search of the New World. Upon that expedition depended the discovery of the mainland of America, and the occupation of the northern half by the Anglo-Saxon race. To this glorious reminiscence has been added the fine contrast presented by the “Great Western,” as she launched forth, in this same river, only a few years ago, in her majestic strength, to inaugurate a new era in the art of navigation, and to unite the Old World and the New by bonds of intercommunication, which imagination itself had never ventured to portray in their present stage of wonderful development. “Upon no waters,” says a popular writer, “save those of the winding Avon, have two such splendid adventures as these been enterprized.”

Passing under the heights of Clifton, and landing in Cumberland basin, I climbed the steep, took my lodgings at Clifton, and then went on foot into Bristol, over Brandon-hill, enjoying the magnificent panorama which unfolds on every side, and comprehends the finest features of town and country, of water and of land. My first thought was the famous Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, and thither I took my way. The poetry of Chatterton was the delight of my boyhood, and this Church I had long desired to see. I found it undergoing restoration, but not the less open to inspection. It is indeed a masterpiece of architecture; its clustered pillars, and the fan-like spread of its vaulting, with its fourfold aisles, and rich quatrefoil windows, affording the keenest satisfaction to the artist, and affecting every man of taste with overwhelming emotions of religion, which may well be made salutary to the soul. Here are some pictures by Hogarth, of a character superior to his general efforts; one of which, representing “the Ascension of our Lord,” shows him to have possessed fine sensibilities, and a delicate appreciation of the more poetical provinces of his art. The monument of “Master Canynge,” the Mayor, who figures so richly in the “Bristowe tragedy,” attracted my profound attention, as did also several others less mentionable, though very interesting. Of Chatterton himself, no monument is to be seen, save the old muniment-room, and the chests, from which he fished his bold idea. The monument, which was erected a few years since to his memory, has for some reason been removed, and now lies dishonoured in the crypt. It is impossible to think of that marvellous boy without pity, in spite of his moral delinquencies; and I can scarcely read the ballad of Charles Bawdin without tears, excited as much by the fate of its author, as of its hero. His moral perceptions must have been of a fine cast, or he never could have conceived that poem; and who would not choose to believe that had he encountered mercy and loving-kindness from those who ought to have befriended him, his splendid genius might have been made a rich blessing to himself and to the world?

As the solemn twilight was coming on, I visited the cathedral. I had not promised myself much from such a visit, for ’tis a mutilated pile, of which the entire nave is lacking. Yet, whether it was the effect of the dim and dying daylight, or whether the architecture and the sepulchral charms of the holy place overpowered me, I left it with the profoundest impressions of awe and tender emotion. The old Norman Chapter-house is an architectural gem, with its intersecting arcades, its rich diapering, and nail-head ornaments, its twisted mouldings, and spiral columns, and the zig-zag groinings of its roof. In the vestry I was shown a curious Saxon carving of Christ saving a soul. My attention was also directed, by the sub-sacrist who attended me, to the ruins of the Bishop’s palace, which fell under the violence of the mob, in 1831, when good Bishop Gray so beautifully distinguished himself and his Order, by exhibiting an apostolic harmony of meekness and resolution. But it was in walking the aisles of the cathedral itself, under the deepening shadows of the evening, that I experienced the full effects which such a place should inspire. From the old and decaying monuments of knights and their dames, I passed with elevated feeling to the modern achievements of Bacon and of Chantry. A kneeling female figure, reflecting the faint light from its pale features and white drapery, and standing out of the darkness, like a pure soul emerging from the valley of the shadow of death, gave me a sensation of unspeakable reverence. Hard by, a chequered day-beam played on the fine outline of a bust of Robert Southey, and this apparition also affected me; but when I came to the little tablet which marks the grave of Mrs. Mason, and spelt out, word by word, the incomparable tribute of conjugal love which it bears, I was overwhelmed; and as I read (I am not ashamed to own it) my tears dropped upon the marble floor. There was barely daylight enough for the effort, but I had known the poem from my earliest childhood, and possibly to this fact I must attribute its overpowering effect upon my feelings. It is to be condemned perhaps as an epitaph; but who can think of criticism when borne along on such a tide of heavenly affection and triumphant faith? I trembled to think I was standing upon the relics of so much loveliness and purity.

She must have been an angel, to have inspired so much feeling as agony has compressed into that one line! and then, what an image of more than mortal beauty rises before us as we read—

And did ever love paint such a portrait, in a few touches of passionate apostrophe, as in those in which the heart of her husband speaks on?

Never was the glory of true female character so enshrined in language before; but this is not all! The ideal of the Christian woman is brought out in its completeness in what follows:—

Here is the tender form, and timid step, with all the heroism of the female saint, descending into the dark valley: and at the same time here is the transcendent tribute—

And now comes triumphant faith:—

I am probably failing in my desire to carry my reader along with me in my own conception of the exceeding merit of these verses, as embodying some of the sublimest, and some of the tenderest affections of the regenerate heart, with the smallest possible sacrifice of that eloquence which is generally mute, in proportion to its expressiveness: but I cannot deny myself the pleasure of recording the fact, that their power over my own feelings, as I read them on the spot, and in the circumstances which I have hinted, was such as beggars description.

A moonlight ramble on the heights of Clifton, and another in the early morning, next day, concluded my rapid visit to this region; and I took the top of the coach soon after to the city of Wells. This little journey over the Mendip hills, which gave me frequent opportunities for walking, was enlivened by the conversation of a sharp-featured little dissenting minister, who volunteered his opinions upon all subjects, and who seemed peculiarly anxious to give me his own opinions of the clergy of the Church. “There are,” said he, with an oracular look, and the keen expression of a desire to know how the fact might strike me, “there are 18,000 Church clergymen in England: of these, there may possibly be 4,000 who are in different degrees evangelical; 4,000 are vicious and idle; and 10,000, including all the young clergy, are Puseyites, who neither know how to teach the Gospel, nor what the Gospel is!” He thought there was no prospect of any disruption between Church and State; and, at last, whispered in my ear, that he had serious thoughts of emigrating to America. I was amazed at this little man’s utterly unconscious lack of Christian charity. Of the 10,000 clergy whom he thus denounced in the gross, as evil-minded men, I had myself been for weeks closely associated with many, in whom I had seen exemplified every Christian grace, and from whom I had gathered lessons of practical piety, for which I had reason to bless God. For patience in tribulation, and for pastoral fidelity; for lives devoted to the good of men, and fervent with zeal for the glory of God, I had never seen their equals; and now, to hear them stigmatized in a manner so cool and professional, by one who soon betrayed his personal animosity by adding—“and us, dissenting preachers, they treat as a race of upstart tinkers”—made me lament for poor human nature and its deceitful workings even in good men’s hearts! I consoled my friend by hinting that, in America, the Presbyterian and Congregational pastors had long professed a somewhat similar contempt for the clergy of the Church, having for nearly two centuries been the religious chieftains of our country; but I ventured to intimate that we did not on that account feel the less respect for ourselves, or think it right to deny them the credit of many estimable qualities, and the right of being judged by Him who alone searcheth the heart. I believe it was after this, that the worthy man proposed adding himself to our population; a scheme in which I could not discourage him, convinced, as I was, that a taste of our religious condition might perhaps change his views as to the comparative evils of the English Church, and those of the Saturnalia of unbelief which are fast developing under the influences of our illimitable sectarianism.

Glastonbury—Wells—The Jubilee.

I found in the ruins of the abbey at Glastonbury a full reward for my efforts to pay them a visit. The architecture of these ruins is of a character widely different from that of Tintern; and the surrounding scenery, though marked by one bold eminence called the Tor, is that of a fat agricultural region, wholly unlike the romantic valley of the Wye. Yet the old wattled church of the early Britons which once stood here; the tradition that Joseph of Arimathea proclaimed the gospel on this spot; the legendary interest that attaches to the memory of St. Dunstan, and the superb remains of what was once the richest monastery in the kingdom, invest the now silent precincts of the Abbey with peculiar charms. The chapel called St. Joseph’s is still an exquisite specimen of art, and in its crypt is a spring reputed to derive extraordinary virtues from some association with his visit. A huge stone coffin, lying empty and dishonoured in the aisle of the Abbey Church, was shown to me as having once contained the corpse of King Arthur. Here again was the figure of an old abbot; and as I strode over the clovered floor of the holy place, amid broken corbels and shattered columns, I found an artist seated among them, at his task, sketching the beautiful remnant of an old turret, which rises amid the surrounding wreck, almost the only uninjured memorial of the former glory of the pile. At a distance, which gives one an idea of the great extent of the old establishment, stands the kitchen of the monastery still entire. It is an octagon, of vast circumference, and contains several curious relics of the Abbey. I next visited St. Benedict’s Church, which disputes with several others the claim of being the oldest in the kingdom; and so, taking a post-chaise, drove back to Wells, after a due reverence to the celebrated thorn which is said to be the lineal successor of St. Joseph’s walking-stick, and which blooms every year, at Christmas as well as in the early summer. Of its blossoming at Christmas, or Epiphany, I suppose there can be no doubt. I was assured, on the spot, that such was the case. King Charles used to make merry with the papists by calling their attention to the fact that it refused to observe the Gregorian Calendar; and when, in 1752, New Style was introduced into England, some two thousand of the neighbouring peasantry assembled to watch this thorn on Christmas-eve, who, when they found it stubbornly postponing its homage, but punctually putting forth blossoms at Old Christmas, as usual, refused to recognize the novelty, and kept their holidays accordingly. It must be supposed, therefore, that Twelfth day is the real festival which it honours with its strange efflorescence.

The cathedral of Wells struck me as surpassing all that I had yet seen, in its way. The exterior view is fine, and the front is enriched with the most lavish display of sculpture, kings, queens, and saints, each in an embellished niche, and all together conveying a most gorgeous impression to the beholder. But the interior was far more impressive. Its nave was fitted with a pulpit and benches, and had the appearance of being used and frequented. But the choir and Lady-chapel were in process of restoration, on a magnificent scale, and appeared, indeed, quite new. Here was a modern work, not inferior to the old: and when I observed the rich effect of the creamy Caen stone, contrasted with the dark and polished pillars of Purbeck marble, and marked the effective introduction of colours and gilding, amid the delicate foliations and tracery of stalls and tombs, then, first, I understood what must have been the magnificence of these cathedrals, when new and entire! It was pleasing to see such proof that the Church is still instinct with all the spirit of mediÆval taste, under the influences of restored purity of religion; and that all the cunning of Bezaleel can be still employed by our reformed ritual, though the craft of Demetrius, in making shrines for idolatrous services, is no longer required.

I will not weary my reader with the numerous details of this glorious pile, nor with those of the Bishop’s palace, its moat and drawbridge; nor yet with memories of the blessed Bishop Ken, which still linger in fragrance about these holy places: but I must observe, that the present Bishop has done a good work in restoring to his cathedral the important feature of a theological school. In his palace is their chapel, a most appropriate one; and as I went through the cathedral, it was pleasant to see several students in their gowns, lingering here and there in the aisles, and vanishing and re-appearing amid the columns.

A romantic drive from Wells, full of interesting views, brought me to Bath. Here, too, was much to see; but its Abbey is a poor object after Wells, and the town of Beau Nash need not long detain an ecclesiastic. I left, in the night, for Berkshire; and next day, which was Sunday, was present at an Ordination, held at Bradfield Church, by the Bishop of Oxford. The Church, and neighbouring College, at which I was a guest, are well worthy of description; but I have only space to add, that the ceremonial of Ordination differed from our own only in the minute particulars of the oath of supremacy, and in the Bishop’s sitting in his chair while administering the imposition of hands. Thirteen priests, and a larger number of deacons, were admitted to Orders. The preacher was the estimable Sir George Prevost; and at Evening Prayer, I had the great satisfaction of addressing the newly ordained clergy, by appointment of the Bishop, and afterwards of dining with him, and them, at the College, where I am happy to testify that all things were done unto edifying, until the close of the day. I was charmed with the Bishop’s manner in private intercourse with his younger clergy; and not less gratified to learn that the Ordination had been preceded by his personal conference with each individual, in which the awful responsibilities of the ministry had been freely enforced, and fully recognized. Those whom I had seen ordained, had come to that solemnity, therefore, with the fullest sense of its unspeakable consequences to their souls; and, so far as could be ascertained, with holy resolutions to be faithful unto death.

The solemnities of the Jubilee of the Venerable S. P. G., now called me back to London, and to a renewal of its social pleasures. On the morning of the 16th of June, I attended, at Westminster Abbey, with a large number of the clergy, the opening services. It was a memorable occasion; the choir of the Abbey being filled with a dense crowd of worshippers, among whom, to judge by their looks and complexions, were men “out of every nation under heaven.” The Bishop of London was the preacher, and gave us an appropriate sermon, characterized by the finish for which his performances are noted, and not deficient in feeling or fervour. It contained gratifying allusions to the American Church, one of whose prelates, Bishop Otey, was present, in the sanctuary, and assisting in the services. A large number of communicants knelt at the altar; and while several of my English friends made an effort to receive at the hands of the Bishop of Tennessee, in gratifying their feelings of Catholic intercommunion, I found an equal satisfaction in receiving the Holy Sacrament from the Archbishop of Canterbury. During the whole solemnity, which filled up several hours, my mind was powerfully impressed with the historical spirit of the place; and while I listened to the sermon, glancing occasionally upward to the vaulted roof, or allowing my eye to wander away among the columns of the nave or choir, it was impossible to divest myself of associations the most sublime, that seemed to swarm around me, like “a cloud of witnesses,” blending the interminable past with the momentary present. Here we were, in our turn, upon the stage, the great actors of past centuries lying all around us! Through yonder gate, beneath the great rose-window, pomp and procession have entered this holy place, age after age; and here, one after another, each as real in its time as that which occupies us now, have the great solemnities of the nation been celebrated. These arches and aisles looked just as they look this minute on the day when Laud ushered in King Charles to receive his crown, and when, just here, he was presented, to the Lords and Commons assisting at that pregnant moment, as their anointed Sovereign. The thought of all that has since passed on the same spot, seemed to compress into the mere drama of an hour, the mighty history of which such was the opening scene. Then the thought of the entire ignorance of futurity, by which such a pageant was made real in its time! Imagination places us back among the men of a by-gone age; but we cannot strip our individuality of its historic knowledge, and we behold their doings with the eyes of a seer. I seemed to be listening to the shout of “Long live King Charles”—and at the same moment foreseeing the scaffold at Whitehall. I seemed to wonder that others could be ignorant of what was coming: and to feel compelled to forewarn the King of the dreadful future. Just so the jubilant coronation of Charles the Second, and the melancholy inauguration of his successor, flitted before me, with the events of years condensed into a moment: and then again I found myself going back to the days of Elizabeth and her hateful sire; and so mounting to the Plantagenets and Normans. It is said that we cannot think of two things at once: but certainly, while I was absorbed in the sermon, I was yet occupied with such thoughts as these, and, in fact, was giving the preacher the full benefit of all this as a background, while I looked on him as the prominent figure of the picture. The psalms for the day had been exceedingly suggestive and appropriate; they were the Deus venerunt, the Qui regis Israel, and the Exultate Deo; and all the while I was mentally contrasting 1851 with 1651, and saying, “What hath God wrought!” That day, two hundred years ago, the Puritans were in the Abbey, making havoc of its holy things, and exulting over the annihilation of the Church of England. They supposed her exterminated, “root and branch:” it was a felony to read one of her ancient Collects in the poorest cottage of the land. And now! I was surrounded by representatives of her communion, who had come up to keep her one hundred and fiftieth missionary festival from the uttermost parts of the earth. Beside the Primate of all England, stood before me the Bishops of Argyle, of Jamaica, and of Tennessee. Around me were kneeling Africans, Asiatics, and Americans, with the islanders of the South Seas, all partakers of her holy fellowship: and passing from such a past to such a present—what a leap my spirit took into the future. Another jubilee—and another! Who shall set a limit to the ingathering of nations; to the latter-day triumphs of the Gospel!

When the services were over, it took some time to emancipate myself from the spell of the place, and I wandered to and fro in the Abbey. A dear friend, a fellow of Oriel College, caught me by the hand, and pointed to the slab beneath my feet. It covered Samuel Johnson. “Surely old Samuel’s bones must have been stirred to-day by the Church’s Jubilee,” said I, “but don’t think you have shown me his grave for the first time; I already know all the choice spots in this floor, and have knelt on that very slab, and given God thanks for his servant Samuel.”

I dined that day with a party of zealous Churchmen, and supporters of the S. P. G.; and, in the evening, went to an ecclesiastical conversazione at Willis’ Rooms. We drove, in a private carriage, through Hyde Park and St. James’s, and were set down at “Almack’s” as superbly as if we had come on as gay an errand as is the more usual one of its visitors. But those brilliant rooms were now thronged with a graver company, the object of the festivity being to do honour to foreign ecclesiastics and pastors, who might be in London on occasion of the Jubilee and the Crystal Palace. I was presented to the Primate, who conversed with a simplicity of manner the most impressive, and invited me to Lambeth with a sort of cordiality, the very reverse of that stateliness and etiquette which it was not unnatural to expect in the address of one so exalted in station. I was much pleased with his venerable appearance, and accepted the kind appointment of an hour, which he named, for my visit to the Archiepiscopal palace, with peculiar pleasure. His Grace was surrounded by his brother Bishops, among whom I saw, for the first time, the Archbishop of Dublin; a prelate of acknowledged talent, but whose gifts would have better fitted the Academy than the throne of a Primate. An Oriental Archimandrite completed the group in this quarter; and other parts of the rooms swarmed with solemn looking men, talking German and French with their English entertainers, or vainly essaying civilities in Low Dutch and Danish. One of these personages, who looked as if he might have figured, with credit to himself, at the Synod of Dort, attacked me in the dialect of the Flemings, to my utter consternation. I could only stammer out a little gibberish, as a reply, and precipitately sounded a retreat, in utter distrust of my ability to sustain a further conversation with my unknown colloquist to mutual satisfaction. I soon afterward made the acquaintance of the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom, as one of the curiosities of the age, I was not sorry to have this opportunity of exchanging a few words. The Chevalier is at home on every subject, and I found him communicative on the favourite topic which I ventured to start, by referring to a common friend, whom he had known very well in Rome. One after another I encountered, during the evening, many eminent and agreeable personages, among whom were officers of the army, dignitaries of the Church, several Bishops, and the Earl of Harrowby. The company was altogether a brilliant one, in spite of the polemical figures who constituted so important a part of it; and the stars and decorations of the nobility, and of foreign officials, were quite conspicuous, among the white neckerchiefs and black broadcloth of the ecclesiastics and pastors.

I breakfasted, next morning, with the Rector of St. Martin’s in the Fields, and then accompanied him, on a visiting tour, about his parish. First, I went to the parish-school, which had lately been rebuilt, and was deemed a model. Prince Albert, who interests himself in such things, was to visit it that very day, and I was kindly asked by the Rector to be of the company, but was otherwise engaged. One of the peculiarities of this building was its ingenious contrivance of a play-ground—if that may be so called, which was some fifty or sixty feet above the earth. Land being costly in the parish of St. Martin’s, the building was planned with a double roof, the lower one being flat, and surrounded with a high fence, affording a safe and ample space for the recreation of the children; while the roof above them served as an awning against the sun, or as a shelter from the rain. A fine view, and as pure an atmosphere as London can afford, were additional advantages of the arrangement. Next, we visited the parochial baths and wash-houses, in which the poor have the best opportunity for washing and drying clothes, and also of keeping their persons in a neat and wholesome condition, at the cost of a few pennies. The benevolence and utility of the establishment must be obvious. Next the Rector took me to see Coleman, one of his parishioners, who was then in his 102d year, and a fine and healthy-looking man at that. What is better, he is unfeignedly pious, and joined devoutly in the prayers which were offered by his pastor, responding with fervour, and saying, in reply to one of his questions—“I know that my Redeemer liveth.” This aged Christian owes his serene and consoling faith, under God, to his early training in the charity school, established in this parish by Archbishop Tennison. He was a pupil in that school when George the Second died, and remembers the tolling of the great bell of St. Paul’s, to announce the event. He also remembers the Coronation of George the Third, and the procession, which he saw as it went to the Abbey, on that occasion. Think of his living to see, as he did, the procession of Victoria to the Crystal Palace, with the same pair of eyes! It was gratifying to hear his testimony to the vast improvement in manners which has been going on in London since he was a boy. He remembers the nights and days which Hogarth has so frightfully depicted; and he says, too truly, that to be a gentleman, was to be a rake, almost universally, when he was a boy. “It was as much as one’s life was worth,” he says, “to walk the streets, at night, in those days.” The same day, I heard Mr. Sydney Herbert remark, in his speech at St. Martin’s Hall, that this age is reputed better than its antecessors, chiefly because, while it cares not what a man may be at heart, it compels him to be decent.

This meeting at St. Martin’s Hall, by the way, must not be forgotten. It was part of the Jubilee. Prince Albert presided, and did so, I must allow, in a very princely style, so far as his personal bearing was concerned. As he entered, which he did with great dignity, the whole assembly rose, and sang God Save the Queen. This struck me as exceedingly handsome and appropriate: but I was not so well pleased with the fulsome adulation with which some of the speakers, afterwards, seemed to think it necessary to bedaub him. He was himself guilty of a flagrant breach of propriety, as it struck me, in alluding to William of Orange, who happened to be on the throne when the Charter of the S. P. G. was signed and sealed, as “the greatest sovereign who ever reigned in Great Britain.” To this ill-judged compliment to one of the foreign adventurers who have succeeded in planting themselves in British palaces, a few gaping mouths in the auditory ejaculated the response, “hear, hear”—for which the sentence was evidently a studied catch: but I am glad to say that the greater part of the assembly was not such as to be so entrapped. It was a failure, absolutely, though the Times reported “great applause,” as a matter of course. When a prince condescends to set up for a critic upon royalty, he deserves no better success: and the ill taste of this particular attempt, on such an occasion, seemed to me offensive in the extreme. It is plain that the prince has learned his historical alphabet from Macaulay, and has studied no further: but I considered this straw as indicative of a coming wind, with which the founder of the House of Coburg should not have threatened the Church so soon. He may yet reap the whirlwind himself, or bequeath it to his children: for it is evident, to me, that amiable and estimable as he is, in many respects, and beloved as he is by a loyal people as the consort of their Queen, he is an alien to true British feeling, and an enemy to the Anglican Church. He would Germanize the nation if possible; above all, he longs to Bunsenize the national religion.

On the whole, I found myself too much of an American Churchman to relish this meeting. It was humiliating to see the venerable Archbishop paying such deference to one who, though so nearly allied to the throne, is in no wise entitled to especial homage from so august a personage as the Primate of all England: and I considered it insufferable that such official personages as Lord John Russell, and Earl Grey, should be chief speakers, merely because of their position, although flagrant enemies of the Church’s holiest principles. A more turgid piece of bombast than the former delivered, I have never chanced to hear, and his whole appearance was, to me, ludicrously revolting. It must not be supposed, however, that the meeting went off without effect. It was nobly redeemed by admirable speeches from Sydney Herbert, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Inglis, and the Earl of Harrowby, as well as from the Bishops of Oxford and London. Lord Harrowby, in particular, reflecting on the Walpoles and the Graftons of former ministerial epochs with just severity, gave Lord John some wise counsels, while apparently congratulating him on his widely different policy, in patronizing Missions! Mr. Sydney Herbert was truly eloquent, and threw out several sparkling abstractions, which greatly raised my estimate of his mental power; but the natural orator, among them all, was the Bishop of Oxford, whose delightful voice, pleading for the creation of a staff of native Missionaries in Africa, India, and China, infused a thrill of feeling through every heart, as he wound up with the scriptural example of those whose first transports, in receiving the Gospel, found vent in the expression—“We do hear them speak, in our tongues, the wonderful works of God.”

As duly appointed, I waited on the Archbishop at Lambeth, and was received with very little ceremony, into his study,—a spacious apartment, plainly furnished, and overlooking the garden of the Palace. His manner was, as before, extremely simple and affable; and he conversed upon divers ecclesiastical subjects with an appearance of zeal, and with a general tone of elevated churchmanship, for which he is certainly not celebrated as a Primate. It was with the profoundest reverence that I listened to the successor of Augustine and of Cranmer; and not without deference did I venture to express myself, in his presence, even on American subjects. As I rose to depart, he followed me to the door of the room, with something exceedingly winning and paternal in his farewell; and kindly invited me to dine with him, on a day which he named, as the only one when he expected to be at home for some time. This pleasure I was forced to deny myself, owing to a previous engagement; and I accordingly concluded my visit to Lambeth, at this time, by going the usual rounds in company with an official, to whom His Grace committed me. My readers may well imagine my emotions in surveying the Lollard’s Tower, the gallery of historic portraits, the library, and other apartments, of this most interesting pile; but perhaps they might not wholly appreciate the feelings with which I knelt in the chapel, and returned thanks for our American Episcopacy, on the spot where it was imparted to the saintly White. I lingered, for a long time, in the gardens, thinking of Laud, of Juxon, and of Sancroft; and dwelling, with peculiar gratification in my imagination, upon the scenes between Laud and “Mr. Hyde,” of which these gardens were the witness, as mentioned in the pictured pages of Clarendon.

The solemn octave of the Jubilee included Sunday the 22d of June, on which day special sermons were preached in many pulpits, in London, and collections made in behalf of the Society. I received an appointment to preach at Bow Church, and accordingly did so, taking as a text Genesis ix. 27, and endeavouring to show that the existence of our own Church, in the Western World, is a fulfilment of the prophecy, “God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” But a greater privilege awaited me in the evening of the same day, when it was my happy lot to perform a similar duty, in the Temple Church, standing in Hooker’s pulpit, and preaching to a congregation of the highest intelligence and character, upon the spread of the Church in America. It was a fine afternoon, and that glorious Church was filled with such an assembly as I had never before seen gathered together on an occasion of ordinary worship. Besides the Bishops of Winchester and Edinburgh, who happened to be present, with the Master of the Temple, and other clergy, the benchers were numerously represented, and the finest legal talent of the empire was undoubtedly there collected. To judge by the large attendance of ladies, (some of them of the highest rank,) the Templars were also accompanied by their families: to whom, I suppose, the music furnishes a powerful attraction, as it is justly celebrated; and the organ, though selected two hundred years ago, by the critical ear of the bloody Judge Jeffreys, is of a tone proverbially sweet. The attendance of strangers, drawn together by the same attraction, was also very large, the round church as well as the choir, being apparently filled. I was much moved by the anthem—“Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King”—and when it was time for me to ascend the pulpit, and to preach to such an Areopagus, it may be imagined that it was not without feelings of emotion, such as I had never before experienced in the performance of my official duties. That old historic spot, where Hooker had struggled to preserve the falling Church of a single kingdom, was now occupied by my pilgrim feet; and coming from a new world, I was to attest, before such an assembly, and in the presence of God, the blessings which that noble struggle had secured, not to England only, but through her to the wilds of America, and to the unborn generations of a new and mighty people in another hemisphere. The text was the prophecy of David, (Psalm xlv. 17,) “Instead of thy fathers thou shalt have children, whom thou mayest make princes in all lands:” and it was my effort, (as I trust I may say, without too free a personal confession) to improve so interesting an opportunity, in commending my country to the respect of those who heard me, while confessing the just claims upon her gratitude, of the Mother land, from which she is proud to derive the blessings of the Gospel, and the institutions of enlightened freedom, guarded by the supremacy of law. After service, the Master of the Temple, taking me into his adjoining residence, showed me a table which once belonged to his great predecessor, Hooker, and allowed me to sit down in Hooker’s chair. He also showed me some memorials of Bishop Heber, whose missionary labours in India he had assisted, as his chaplain. The evening was passed under the domestic roof of Dr. Warren, the eminent bencher, whose remarkable production, “Ten thousand a-year,” has added to his other distinctions, that of reforming the romance literature of the age, and of introducing a tone of high Christian morality, in place of that fashionable depravity which Bulwer had caught from Byron, and substituted for the decent propriety of Scott. To his polite hospitalities I was indebted for some of my happiest hours in London: and the conclusion of this Holy Day was rendered memorable by many warm expressions of regard for my country and her Church, inspired by his conversation, in the genial society of his family and friends.

Lord Mayor’s Banquet—Eton College—Hampton.

The Jubilee festival at Westminster Abbey was not allowed to supersede the annual sermon at St. Paul’s; and accordingly, on the 18th of June, I attended the service in the cathedral, and heard the Bishop of St. Asaph. The service was performed with the aid of “all the choicest music of the kingdom,” for the choirs of the royal palaces of Windsor and St. James’s were added, on this occasion, to the ordinary musical force of the cathedral, with very great effect. The clergy, with the Bishops, entered in procession through the nave, and the Lord Mayor in robes, and with the civic sword borne before him, figured in the pageant, and occupied his stall. The sermon was scarcely audible where I sat, within the rails of the sanctuary, but it seemed to be earnestly delivered. Then came the Hallelujah Chorus—which I certainly never before heard so impressively performed. “And He shall reign for ever and ever—King of kings, and Lord of lords!” The reverberations of the dome, and the long resounding echoes of those noble aisles prolonged the strain, and made it like the voice of many waters in the new Jerusalem.

and when, as one lifted his arm to drink, it was deemed a necessary precaution that one should stand up to guard him from a fifth-rib. With less ceremony, the custom still obtains in the halls of Oxford; but where the ladies take a part in it, it is certainly a most graceful embellishment of feasting.

Instead of the usual grace after meat, a party of male and female singers appeared at the foot of the hall, and reverently sang a little hymn, all the company rising. His Lordship then informed the company that “on occasion of receiving his friends at the Mansion-house, it was his privilege to dispense with all rules save those which governed the ancient entertainments of the city of London, one of which enabled him to request the ladies to remain at the table, and to hope for the continued honour of their company during the evening.” After this velvety preface, he pronounced the first toast, with a similar softness, and then the toast-master shouted—“My lords, ladies and gentlemen, the Lord Mayor has given the Queen.” All rose, and drank loyally, and then came “God save the Queen,” which was heartily sung. “Please to charge your glasses for the next toast,” was the perpetual cry of the toast-master for the next hour, and always the toast was announced with like formality, the speeches and the music, that followed, being all that could be desired. The venerable Archbishop, whose wig gave him a reverend air of the last century, was peculiarly happy in replying to the usual compliments to their right reverend lordships, who all stood while he spoke in their name. The Bishop of Winchester, his younger brother, who wore his jewel as prelate of the order of the Garter, made a very fine appearance. The Bishop of Oxford also wore his decoration as chancellor of that order; and I observed that, on such occasions, he always wore it with the rosette face displayed, while, in divine service, over his Episcopal costume, the other face was exhibited; and very appropriately, as it consists of a pearl ground, with a simple cross, as in an armorial shield. A trifling fact! and yet where one is closely observing the peculiarities of a Church, thus intimately working in with all the civil and social institutions of a mighty empire, the man is a fool who would not be willing to note it. It is with a view to a just delineation of these workings, as they are, that I often refer to incidents, of little account in themselves. This dinner at the Mansion-house was especially noteworthy, as contrasted with the spirit of a civic banquet in our own great towns; and I must own, that if it be desirable that the genius of Christianity should interpenetrate, and transfuse all the forms of civilized life, the contrast is not in our favour.

The entertainment concluded at a comparatively early hour; and then I drove to another, at the residence of the estimable Miss Burdett Coutts, in Piccadilly. Here, among other celebrated men, in the most brilliant party I ever saw, I first met Lord Nelson; and yet again next morning, I met him, before breakfast, attending the daily service at Curzon chapel. The week passed delightfully, in frequent social festivities; and I cannot but particularize a pleasant breakfast party at Mr. Beresford Hope’s—and one of those admirably contrived ones, at Sir Robert Inglis’, in which everybody is so sure to meet with everybody and every thing that is agreeable. On another occasion, at his table, I sat next to Lord Glenelg, and ventured to engage him in conversation on the subject of the hymns of his brother, the late Sir Robert Grant, which are so prominent in our Church Collection, alike for their scholarly and refined taste, and their devotional fervor. He seemed pleased to learn of the value set upon them in America; and soon after, on returning to my lodgings, I found upon my table, as a present from his lordship, a beautiful copy of his brother’s poems, which I shall always highly value.

During the week, I went up to Eton—the place of places, which I had longed to see, and where I was now invited to visit an enthusiastic Etonian. This excursion involved, of course, a visit to Windsor, whose imperial towers so magnificently over-shadow the nest of the choicest progeny of England. Never did I receive such ideas of the moral grandeur of the British Constitution, as comprehending Church, State and Society, as, when, from the fields of Eton College, I surveyed the unparalleled abode of the British sovereign; and then, from the terrace of the castle, looked back upon that nursery of British youth; its studious halls, its venerable chapel, its ample fields for sport, and the crystal waters of the Thames, flowing between; fit emblem of joyous youth, passing on to the burthen of the world and the ocean of eternity.

When Gray looked from that terrace, over the same scene, and conceived his incomparable Ode, he said all that one ought to say, and I will attempt no more. One question, however, which he could only ask, it is reserved for us to answer.

Among the boys whom he then saw running and swimming, and driving hoop and playing cricket, in the old familiar scene, was he who afterwards conquered Napoleon. I saw the name of Wellesley, with those of Fox and others as celebrated, carved in the college oak. There, too, were the busts of Hammond and Pearson, and of Gray himself. The famous men of Eton seemed to be around me in legions. Who could not catch manliness and might amid such associations? All day I loitered about those meads, and towards evening went upon the Thames with a merry party, to see a juvenile boat race, in the Oxford fashion. Oh, the sport of those happy boys! One boat swamped, but the little fellows swam lustily to shore, and ran home laughing. It was the fragrant hay-time. Every prospect—every breeze was pleasing. As the boats hurried by, and those patrician lads pulled away at their oars, like day-labourers, I saw how the mind and muscles are alike developed at Eton. How can the body be feeble, that is reared with such lusty exercise: how can the mind but conceive high thoughts, that pursues its very sports with “those antique towers” on one hand, and that stupendous castle, lifting its gigantic bulk, and stretching its majestic walls, upon the other? The boys look upon the right, and there sages, patriots, heroes, priests and princes have been bred: they turn to the left, and there their Sovereign lives in august retirement; her imperial banner waves above the keep; and beneath that solemn chapel sleeps the Royal Martyr, and the dust of mighty kings, whose names are the material of history.

I made the usual circuit of the castle; but with the details which every guide-book furnishes, I would not fatigue my readers. For the mere show of royal furniture, my mind could find little room; and mere State-apartments, as such, were even a distasteful sight. But the noble architecture, and unrivalled site of the castle; its histories, and the charm which association gives to every tower and window, and to the whole scene with which it fills the eye—these are the sublime elements with which Windsor inspires the soul, and impregns the imagination. Hoc fecit Wykeham—is the inscription one catches, deep cut in the wall of one of the towers: an equivoque which the ambitious architect is said to have interpreted, as implying that the work was the making of him, when asked by his royal patron how he dared to claim the castle as a creation, and turn it into a memorial of himself. But who can appropriate Windsor? The humble poet, by a single song, has taken its terrace to himself; and every stone, and every timber, might bear some appropriate and speaking legend. I thought chiefly of Charles the First. How he loved this castle! How he would have adorned it, and what a home of worth and genius he would have made it, had he not fallen on evil times! That truly English heart beat warmly here, a few weeks before it ceased to beat forever; and along this esplanade was borne his bleeding body, (on which fell the symbolic snow of a passing cloud,) to its last sublime repose. “So went the white king to his rest,” says a quaint historian: and when, at Evening Prayer in St. George’s chapel, I reflected that his solemn relics were underneath, I felt a reviving affection for his memory, almost like that of personal love. The dying sunbeams gilded the carvings of the sanctuary and the banners of the knights; I sat in one of the stalls near the altar, and observed near me the motto—coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. When at length the anthem swelled through the gorgeous chapel—Awake up my glory—I could not but respond, inwardly, that it was meet that the glory of God should be thus perpetually uplifted in the palace of a Sovereign, whom he has so magnified in the earth. And to which of her Sovereigns does England owe it, that she is not now either a cracked Commonwealth, without God and without government, or else an iron despotism, in the grasp of successful usurper? He who sleeps under that chapel said that he died “a martyr for the people:” and so he did. On the principle by which Macaulay attributes the liberties of England to her Cromwells, we might attribute salvation to Judas and Pontius Pilate.

In the twilight I returned to Eton, and went and mused in the chapel, after searching out the slab that covers Sir Henry Wotton. Then to one of the Dames’ houses, (a tasteful abode,) where several oppidans were domiciled, with whom I attended family prayers. These oppidans are the day-scholars of Eton: having no rooms in the college, and sharing none of its funds. They are the greater part of the Etonians, the sons of gentlemen and of the nobility, who, of course, do not require the scholarships. After a sweet sleep, interrupted by hearing the clock strike and the chimes playing at Windsor, I rose to another delightful day, and soon after breakfast attended the service in the chapel. Five hundred and fifty boys were here gathered as worshippers. The service was an hour long, it being the Anniversary of the Queen’s Accession. Yet, for the whole time, did those youths maintain the decorum of gentlemen, and worship with the fervor of Christians. This reverence in worship is said to have greatly increased during late years among the Eton boys, many of whom are communicants. It speaks well for their homes, as well as for their college. What promise for the future of the Empire!

In short, the boys of Eton seem to study well, to play well, to fare well, to sleep well, to pray well. It was a holiday, and I went into the grounds to see the cricket match: I visited the library, the boys’ rooms, and the halls. It is a literal fact, that they still revere their “Henry’s holy shade;” for pictures of “the meek usurper,” are to be found in almost every chamber. Last of all, I went to the river with an Etonian friend, stripped, and plunged in. I could not leave that spot without a swim; and accordingly, after a struggle with father Thames, I emerged, and soon after left Eton in a glow of genial warmth and lively enthusiasm. If “manners maketh man,” Eton cannot fail to be the nursery of great men, so long as it is true to itself and to the Church of God.

My next visit was to Hampton Court, for which I found a day quite insufficient, when reduced to the actual hours which one is permitted to devote to the survey of such a wilderness of natural and artificial charms, and to the enjoyment of their historical interest. In the grounds of the palace, and in Bushy Park, I found a formal grandeur, so entirely becoming a past age, and so unusual in this, that it impressed me with feelings of melancholy the most profound. Those avenues of chestnuts and thorns, those massive colonnades and dreamy vistas, wear a desolate and dreary aspect of by-gone glory, in view of which my spirits could not rise. They seemed only a fit haunt for airy echoes, repeating an eternal Where? Nothing later than the days of Queen Anne seems to belong to the spot. You pass from scenes in which you cannot but imagine Pope conceiving, for the first time, his “Rape of the Lock,” into a more trim and formal spot, where William of Orange seems likely to appear before you, with Bishop Burnet buzzing about him, and a Dutch guard following in the rear. Then again, James the Second, with the Pope’s nuncio at his elbow, and a coarse mistress flaunting at his side, might seem to promise an immediate apparition; when once more the scene changes, and the brutal Cromwell is the only character who can be imagined in the forlorn area, with a file of musketeers in the back-ground, descried through a shadowy archway. Here is a lordly chamber where the meditative Charles may be conceived as startled by the echo of their tread; and here another, where he embraces, for the last time, his beloved children. There, at last, is Wolsey’s Hall, and here one seems to behold old Blue-beard leading forth Anne Boleyn to a dance. It still retains its ancient appearance, and is hung with mouldering tapestry and faded banners, although its gilding and colors have been lately renewed. The ancient devices of the Tudors are seen here and there, in windows and tracery, and the cardinal’s hat of the proud churchman, who projected the splendors of the place, still survives, in glass, whose brittle beauty has thus proved less perishable than his worldly glory.

Yet let no one suppose the magnificence of Hampton Court to consist in its architecture. One half is the mere copy of St. James’s, and the other is the stupid novelty of Dutch William. The whole together, with its parks, and with its history, is what one feels and admires. I am not sure but Royal Jamie, with his Bishops and his Puritans on either side was as often before me, when traversing the pile, as anything else: and for him and his Conference the place seems fit enough, having something of Holyrood about it, and something Scholastic, or collegiate, also. Queen Victoria should give it to the Church, as a college for the poor, and so add dignity to her benevolence, which has already turned it into a show for the darling “lower classes.” I honour the Queen for this condescension to the people; and yet, as I followed troops of John Gilpins through the old apartments, and observed their inanimate stare, and booby admiration, it did strike me that a nobler and a larger benefit might be conferred upon them, in a less incongruous way. Perhaps the happiest thought would be to make it for the clergy just what Chelsea is to the army, and Greenwich to the naval service.

A grateful feeling comes over me at every remembrance of my visit to Hursley, for I felt all the time like an intruder, receiving privileges beyond my power to repay, while my kind entertainer seemed as one who desires no such tribute to his genius as mere tourists are wont to afford. An inferior character might be flattered to find himself sought out, of every traveller; but all the heartfelt kindness of the vicar of Hursley was no disguise, to me, of a spirit that loves the Paradise of a blessed seclusion from the world, and which nothing but benevolence can prompt to welcome the stranger, that desires to see him face to face, and to thank him for the soothing influences and inspiring harmonies of his perennial songs.

At Winchester, there are three great sights, besides several of minor interest: the hospital of St. Cross, the college of Wykeham, and the cathedral. Let me first speak of the school, a sort of Eton, but less aristocratic, and certainly far less attractive in its site and circumstances. It glories, nevertheless, in its founder, and in his fellow-architect, Waynflete, and in many eminent names in Church and State. Enough that it bred Bishop Ken; and that his initials may be found, cut with his boyish hand, in the stone of the cloisters. In the chapel, what chiefly arrests the eye, is the gorgeous window, with its genealogy of the Saviour, displayed in the richest colours and designs. The library, within the area of the cloisters, was an ancient chantry, designed for masses for the dead in the surrounding graves: and, I confess, I wish it were still a chapel, in which prayers might be offered, and the dead in Christ commemorated, although not as aforetime. Without particularly describing the hall, or refectory, I must not omit to mention the time-honoured Hircocervus, or picture of “the Trusty-servant,” which hangs near the kitchen, and which emblematically sets forth those virtues in domestics, of which we Americans know nothing. It is a figure, part man, part porker, part deer, and part donkey; with a padlock on his mouth, and various other symbols in his hands and about his person, the whole signifying a most valuable character. This for the college menials; but the boys also are made to remember by it, that, for a time, “they differ nothing from a servant, though they be lords of all.” In the lofty school-room, they are further taught, in symbols, the Medo-Persian character of the laws of the school. A mitre and crosier are displayed as the rewards of scholarship and fidelity; an ink-horn and a sword intimate that a blotting-out and cutting-off await the incorrigible; while a scourge suggests the only remedy, known to the school, short of the final penalty. Under these salutary emblems, the Wykeham boys of many generations have read and pondered the legends, which explain them severally, thus—Aut disce—aut discede—manet sors tertia cÆdi! Tables of the college laws are set up with like publicity, after the manner of the Decemvirs. It is evident that the Wykehamists are in no danger of forgetting that “manners maketh men.”

Through a pleasant meadow, and by a clear stream, I made my way to the hospital of St. Cross, founded by Bishop De Blois seven hundred years ago: yet, in conformity with the will of that prelate, when I knocked at the porter’s lodge, I was duly presented with a slice of bread and a horn of wholesome beer, which I was just then quite thankful to receive, and to despatch in honour of his memory. To such a dole is everybody entitled who applies in the same manner: and a larger charity is, at stated times, distributed at the same place, to the neighbouring poor. The establishment to which I was admitted, after such an introduction, is one of the most interesting objects I ever saw. Its old courts and halls reminded me not a little of Haddon; a pair of leathern pitchers were shown me, as vessels which once held ale for Cardinal Beaufort: but its chapel is indeed a relic of surpassing interest. It is built in cathedral form, and combines both Saxon and Norman details, with the first formal step towards the pointed arch. From the intersection of two of its circular arches, according to some, sprang Salisbury cathedral—the whole idea, from crypt to the vanishing point of its spire. And from this last remnant of conventual life, why should not the true idea of such establishments be in a similar manner revived throughout Christendom? Here live some dozen poor and aged men, who else would have no home on this side heaven. Each wears a flowing garment of black, with a silver cross shining on its cape: they call one another brother; they study to be quiet; prayer is their only business; and order and neatness reign throughout the holy place. No one can visit St. Cross without praying that the Church of England may be blessed with hundreds more of just such homes for aged poverty, and that wherever wealth abounds in her communion, it may be devoted to erecting them.

Winchester Cathedral—Relics—Netley Abbey.

In Winchester Cathedral I attended Morning Service, on the feast of St. John Baptist. I am sorry to say that here, too, the service is ill-performed; not that there is nothing to enjoy in it, even now: but that when one reflects what ought to be the daily worship of such a cathedral, and what it might be, if the laws of the cathedral were enforced, and if a holy zeal were more characteristic of its dignitaries: there is nothing to say but—shame on things as they are. When will the conscience of England clamour against such disgraceful poverty of cathedral worship; and when will the brain of England wake up to a sense of what these churches might do for the nation, if rightly served and administered? The feature of this cathedral which most impresses the stranger, is its far-sweeping length of nave and choir, with the light or shadowy vistas, through columns and arches, which seem to multiply its interminable effect. In its details it is also very rich, and several of its monuments are of unequalled magnificence. Here lies, in his superb chantry, William of Wykeham, whose mitred and crosiered effigy, stretched at full length upon his sepulchre, seems sublimely conscious of repose, after a life of vast achievement, in rearing schools for youth, and colleges for the learned, and palaces for princes, and hospitals for the poor, and temples for God. Bishop Wayneflete is not less superbly sepulchred in a small chapel, or chantry, of elegant design, beautifully enriched, and gilded, and kept in complete repair by the Fellows of his College, at Oxford. His effigy bears, in clasped hands, a heart, which he thus uplifts to heaven, as it were, in fervent response to the Sursum Corda of the Liturgy. Over against this chantry rises, in twin magnificence, that of Cardinal Beaufort: but in spite of its placid air, beneath those solemn tabernacles one looks upon his figure with painful remembrances of the death-scene which Shakspeare has so powerfully depicted. “He dies and makes no sign,” is the awful thought that haunts the mind, as one lingers about this perpetual death-bed; and yet it is not difficult to conclude the inspection with the more charitable ejaculation of King Henry—

But Bishop Fox’s monument and chapel are even more affecting than any of these, from its peculiar combination of ingenious sepulchral devices, with elaborate graces of architecture. It is overpowering, after examining the splendours of its canopy and fretwork, to descend to the little grated recess beneath, where the subject of all this monumental glory is represented in the humiliation of death and the grave. It seems like looking into Hades. One sees a ghastly figure of emaciation and decay; the eyes lying deep in their sockets, in a frightful stage of decomposition, and the whole frame exhibiting the power of death over the flesh of the Saints, but suggesting that, while patiently submitting to the worst that worms can do, it rests in hope and speaks out of the very grave—“I know that my Redeemer liveth.” In a corresponding chapel, but of low architectural character, on the other side of the choir, lies the cruel Stephen Gardiner, the unfortunate son of an adulterous Bishop, and the fitting purveyor of fire and faggot to the Bloody Mary. The nuptials of this sulphurous sovereign with Philip of Spain, were celebrated, by-the-way, in the Lady-Chapel of this cathedral. Strange that the same Church which entombs her favourite Gardiner, should also contain the sepulchre of that bloated Hanoverian, the notorious Hoadly, surrounded with such emblems as the cap of liberty, and the Magna Charta, in close juxta-position with the crosier and the Holy Bible! The character of the Bishop would have been better symbolized by some ingenious device illustrative of the truth, that—“the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.”

One cannot but hope that the superb altar-screen of this cathedral will be more fully restored than at present, and that a proper altar, or Holy Table, will be added, such as may illustrate the true spirit of the Anglican Liturgy, and the richness of its Orthodoxy. A poverty-stricken altar is surely no recommendation of reformed religion; and were I only an ecclesiologist, it would delight me to show that such a Holy Table as even the Court of Arches could not presume to desecrate, might be erected, in strict conformity with the Anglican ritual, and in perfect keeping with such a choir, that should put to shame the tawdry Babylonianism of the Romish altars on the Continent.

While speaking of the choir, let me not forget the little chests which surmount the screens of the sanctuary. Who can look at them without emotion, when informed that they contain all that remains of princes and priests, and of mighty kings, and fair ladies, their queens. There are the remains of Canute and of Rufus, of “Queen Emma and the Bishops Wina and Alwyn.” On one may be read the inscription—“King Edmund, whom this chest contains, oh, Christ receive.” Another, marking the era of the Rebellion, with a striking trophy of its infamy, bears the legend—“In this chest, in the year 1661, were deposited the confused relics of princes and prelates, which had been scattered by sacrilegious barbarism, in the year 1642.” The havoc made by the Puritans in this holy place is everywhere painfully visible. The beautiful chapel, in the rear of the choir, is filled with fragments of carved work and mutilated sculpture, which bear silent witness against the “axes and hammers” of the Puritans: while many a corresponding “stone out of the wall” seems to cry shame, and “many a beam out of the timber, to answer it.” The noble figure of a knight, in bronze, upon an altar tomb, bears the marks of their indiscriminate violence, in deep cuts or hacks made by a sword, apparently in a spirit of wanton brutality. It was refreshing to turn from such Vandal tokens, to the simple memorial of one who lived in the age that produced them, but whose character furnishes altogether as striking a contrast to the turbulent spirit of his times, as the still waters and green pastures of his native land afford to the elements of the Lapland storm. In Prior Silkstede’s chapel, I paid a parting reverence to the slab that covers the honourable remains of Izaak Walton. Verily, he served God in his generation: for when they knew not how to sport at all, he spake of fishes, and when again they sported like fools, he spake of men.

After a walk through sweet meads, and by a clear stream, I climbed St. Katherine’s hill, and took a full view of the city and its suburbs; and soon after left for Salisbury. It was, indeed, a feast day, that day of St. John the Baptist, on which I saw two such cathedrals as Winchester and Salisbury: the former, characterized by all the grandeur of the long-drawn aisle—the latter, by all the glory of the culminating spire. The emotions inspired by the one were those of a well-chanted service; but I found the effect of the other like that of a rapturous anthem. I speak now of the external views only: and certainly my first view of Salisbury, that fine midsummer evening, was as a vision of Paradise. The heavenward shooting of all its parts, and the consummate unity of effect with which they all blend in the sky-piercing pyramid, around which they are grouped, exceeds all that I ever saw of the kind. I only grudged to the levels of Salisbury, what ought rather to crown such a sovereign hill as that of Lincoln.

This Church is familiar to the architect as the full-blown flower of his art. It stands in a lonely retirement from the town, and, sitting down in its precincts to enjoy the view, I found myself uninterrupted in my meditations for a long, delightful hour, the only intruders being some nibbling sheep that pastured under the walls, and the chattering rooks, that seemed to amuse themselves in making a spiral flight round the spire, and so winding up from its base to its tapering point. Beautiful for its figure and its decoration, is that spire, and so is the incomparable tower, from which it springs like a plant; and wherever the eye rests in wandering over the splendours of its surrounding walls, buttresses, pinnacle, arches, and gables, all is in keeping, and one spirit seems to animate the pile. I am sorry to confess disappointment as to the interior. It is so neglected, and has been so much impaired. The clustered columns that support the tower have yielded to its weight, and are visibly bowed and sprung from their piers. The chapter-house exhibits a shameful neglect, and its beautiful decorations have suffered from violent abuse. The present Bishop is exerting himself effectually, however, in the work of restoration: and one cannot but hope that the next generation will see this cathedral the seat of a living and working system of diocesan zeal, and the centre of Gospel life and influence to the surrounding rural district, and its many needy souls.

A series of altar tombs, in the nave and aisles, gives a peculiar effect to the spaces between the columns, and to the arches above. Among them is the tomb of an unfortunate nobleman, who was hanged for murder some three hundred years since, and over which was, for a long time, suspended the silken noose which suspended him. The tomb of a boy-bishop, marked by a little figure in pontificals, is a curious relic of mediÆval mummeries; and not less so is the sepulchre of Bishop Roger, a Norman, who first attracted the admiration of King Henry I., by the galloping pace at which he contrived to get through a mass. I paid a more reverent tribute to the plain slab that covers Bishop Jewell, who, with all his faults, deserves the rather to be reverenced, because this age has bred a set of men, who seem to take pleasure in spitting upon his memory, while defiling, with equal insolence, the face of their Mother the Church.

As evening came on, I took a post-chaise for Amesbury and Figheldean, where I had been invited to visit that interesting personage, Mr. Henry Caswall, a clergyman who has done, perhaps, more than any other man, to make known, in England, the history and peculiar characteristics of the American Church. He is by birth an Englishman; he is nevertheless in American orders, and thus, in his person, unites the Church in which he ministers to that in which he received his commission. The interest with which I now sought his acquaintance may therefore be imagined. After a pleasing drive over the downs, and a rapid inspection of the curious remains of “Old Sarum,” I found myself in a small, but picturesque hamlet, in which almost every house was thatched, clustered at the foot of a knoll, on which rose the parish Church of “Filedean”—for so it is pronounced. In a few minutes I was Mr. Caswall’s guest, and, for the first time since leaving home, I was able to talk over American subjects with one who entirely understood them. After a cordial reception by his amiable family, a long and cheerful review of American matters closed this very happy and memorable day.

I was much entertained to observe in Mr. Caswall many of those traits of enterprise and efficiency which seemed to me to be developments of what we should call Western life, though the English would consider them simply American. That he is naturally enterprising and ingenious to a great degree, I am sure no one can doubt: it was probably this characteristic which originally led him, though a nephew of the Bishop of Salisbury, to seek the wilds of Ohio, and to become a Missionary under Bishop Chase. But who, that had not been disciplined to invention in our Missionary field, could exhibit, as he does, the fruits of this faculty, in an exuberant degree, amid all the comforts of an English vicarage! A river runs near his Church; he has boats upon it of his own construction, and one has paddle-wheels. In the tower of his ancient Church, there ticks a clock of very curious mechanism: it is entirely of his own manufacture; he cast one of its wheels in Kentucky, and bought another in New-York! So, too, he has lately built an organ, which discourses excellent music; and his other ingenuities are innumerable, to say nothing of his very able works, in which he always contrives to tell what is worth knowing, and to say what is just to the point.

In his neighbourhood is Milstone, the birth-place of Addison, to which he conducted me with obliging enthusiasm. The native nest is a modest parsonage, hard by the Church, which is one of the very humblest of its kind, and has no tower. I peeped in at the windows, and saw where Addison was baptized. Our walk was extended to Durrington, where a fine Church was re-appearing on the foundations of a very ancient one. In the afternoon of the same day, this kind friend took me to Amesbury, where the remains of a Roman encampment are still visible in some trenches and hillocks, which were made by the soldiers of Vespasian. Thence we went to see the grounds of the once celebrated Duchess of Queensbury, and a grotto, which was formerly frequented by the poet Gay. We passed an old lodge upon this estate, which gave shelter, during the Reign of Terror, to a community of French nuns. Next, we drove to the famous Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain. To me, these gigantic remains of Druid superstition were of surpassing interest: and while my friend explained to me the various theories of their origin and use, I found the actual inspection of this old scene of horrible idolatry, the rather fascinating, because from its still existing altar, one can just descry over the hills in the horizon, the needle-like point of the spire of Salisbury. I never felt before, that England had once been Pagan, and that the Gospel had conquered it, and made it all that Salisbury is, as compared with this accursed temple of the idol Bel. The Chaldean Shepherds seem indeed to have shared their superstition with those of Salisbury.

We drove over the plains, so called, to visit Wilton, and my attention was continually attracted by the shepherds and their flocks, not unlike, in some respects, to those who are seen on the Roman Campagna. Their dogs, who do the work of men, in searching stragglers, and in driving and tending the sheep, are interesting objects. Of course the story of Hannah More came often to mind as we encountered these sights. But other interesting associations were excited by the evident remains of old Roman roads, which traversed these pasturages in ancient times. There were, besides, some strange circular hollows, in form like saucers, of undoubted Roman origin, which lay on either side of our way as we drove over a sort of ridge-road. As we left the downs, we had a fine view of the surrounding country, and descried Trafalgar House, the seat of Lord Nelson, at a distance. We passed a noble estate of the Pembroke family; and visited the magnificent Church, at Wilton, reared by Mr. Sydney Herbert, at his personal expense of sixty thousand pounds. It is a superb Anglican basilica, a curiosity in England, as departing from the historical architecture of the realm, and closely resembling the finest churches of Italy. It is, however, a blessing to the place, and is largely frequented by the poor. From this splendid Church we drove to a still more interesting one, although a church as remarkably poor as this is costly. The smallest and plainest little Church I had yet seen in England was reached at last, and reverently entered. A few pews, a chancel and Holy Table of starving plainness, and a pulpit to match! This was holy Herbert’s Church—this was Bemerton! I climbed, and then crawled into the little box of a belfry, to see the bell which he tolled when he was instituted; and then I went outside, and looked in at the window, through which he was descried tarrying long at prayer, on his face, before the altar. How a good life can glorify what otherwise would be utterly without attractions! Even in America, I have seldom seen a church look so mean as that at Bemerton: yet few places have I ever visited with more of awe and affection; and verily, all the embellishments of the Sistine Chapel failed to produce in me such a sense of the beauty of holiness, as did the sight of the humble altar, at which ministered before the Lord two hundred years ago, that man of God, George Herbert.

Reaching Southampton early in the evening of a mid-summer day, I had time enough, during the long twilight, for an excursion to Netley Abbey, which I made in a boat, rowed by an old waterman and his son, a lad of twelve years. The descending sun threw its radiance over the bright Southampton water, as we left the pier, and a pathway of burnished gold seemed to lie in our wake, as we glided rapidly along. The boy volunteered to sing a little hymn which he had learned at Sunday School, and, accordingly the praise of God was sweetly wafted by the sunset breezes that played about us; and if I have heard more romantic strains on the Venetian waters, since then, from the gondoliers, I can testify that they were no sweeter, and not half so inspiring to a devout disposition. This beautiful bay was filled with many sails, and the neighbouring shores, on every side, were highly picturesque. We reached the “glad nook,” whose corrupted Latin name survives, in Netley, just in time to disturb the composures of the rook and owl, as they were congratulating themselves on the close of the day, and settling for the night, the one in his dormitory, and the other in his watch-tower. There was enough of day to display the entire beauty of the ruins, and enough of melancholy night to give them a mysterious solemnity. Here I stumbled over piles of rubbish, overgrown with grass and wall-flowers, among which slender trees have sprouted side by side with the branching columns of the architect; while through graceful tracery, and broken vaulting, I looked up into the deep heaven, and descried the first stars as they began to twinkle in its unfathomable azure. I fancied I could hear the gentle sigh of the waters on the pebbled beach, which spreads hard by beneath its walls, and the charms of the spot, as a home of religion, became very vividly impressed on my mind as the soft susurrations appeared to bewail the loss of responsive vesper-songs from the consecrated pile. It was a bewitching hour for such a visit: and when I went down into crypts, and gloomy vaults, which were barely light enough to enable me to feel my way, and to descry the surrounding outlines of Gothic ruin, through loop-holes and doorways festooned with luxuriant ivy, all that I ever read of romance, in its wildest forms, seemed conjured about me. It was quite dark as we returned, but the waters glittered with tremulous reflections of many lights on the shore; and our little pilot sung—“There’s a good time coming, boys!” with a sort of pathetic thrill, which made me love him, and I prayed that he might live to see the good time which he so feelingly promised himself. I conversed with him freely, and found that he had been taught of God, in the bosom of the Church.

St. Augustine’s Chapel—St. Martin’s—Addison—Thompson.

In the chapel of St. Augustine we kept St. Peter’s Day, and commemorated the benefactors of the college. It was a cheering spectacle to behold around me those missionary youths, devoted to the noblest warfare which can enlist the energies of man, and destined, as I could not but pray, to see and to achieve great things in the extension of the kingdom of Immanuel upon earth. And how inspiring to them the associations with which they are surrounded! On the very spot which they inhabit, the Missionary Augustine preached the Gospel to their ancestors, when Anglo-Saxons were but pagans, and now they go forth from it, as from the very centre of Christian civilization, to bear the precious seed to the uttermost isles of the sea, so that what England is, Australia may become.

In the afternoon, I preached in old St. Martin’s, which probably is the very oldest Church in England. Its name of St. Martin is probably a second designation, given to it when it was fitted up for the use of good Queen Bertha, before the conversion of her husband, Ethelbert. Such a Church is spoken of by Bede, as having been built before the Romans left the island; and as Roman bricks, of unquestionable antiquity, are a large portion of the material of this Church, it is on this and other accounts generally dated from A. D. 187, and supposed to have been originally erected by some good Cornelius of the Roman army. Be that as it may, Queen Bertha’s tomb is in the choir to this day: and the ancient font is with good reason supposed to be that in which Ethelbert was baptized. What hoary antiquity, what venerable and august dignity invest this sacred place! It is of humble dimensions, and both without and within bears the marks of its primitive character, in its plainness and simplicity, but it is kept in good repair, and regarded with the affectionate reverence which is so becoming. The yews and the ivy which adorn it with their shade, are, apparently, almost as old as the Church: and the church-yard gently slopes from the church-door to the road-side, giving a beautiful elevation to the old pile, and presenting a highly picturesque effect to the passer-by.

But how shall I describe the cathedral, whose huge bulk everywhere lifts itself into sight above this curious and reverend old town? The metropolis of the Anglo-Catholic communion is graced by an Archiepiscopal church, every way worthy of the majestic relations which it bears to Christendom. There it stands, like the Church of England itself, worthy to be “the joy of the whole earth,” and not more magnificent and imposing, than harmoniously chastened throughout with an air of sovereign splendour subdued by solemn propriety. There is about it, as compared with other English cathedrals, a sort of aggregated look, strikingly significant of the massively conglomerate body which the Anglican Church has already become, and something of which has characterized her from the beginning. The double cross, in form of which the cathedral is built, very appropriately, in view of its primacy, heightens this effect: and the result is, that its prestige is well sustained, when the pilgrim sees before him the head church of his religion. A blessing on its ancient towers, and may it more and more become “dear for its reputation through the world.”

On Sunday and the day following, when I attended service in the cathedral, I had the best opportunities for surveying it throughout, under the attentive guidance of Lord Charles Thynne and the estimable Archdeacon Harrison. I am glad to say that the service here was very effectively celebrated, though a larger force would have been more worthy of the place and of the work. The organ is quite concealed in the triforia, and its sound is somewhat peculiar as it issues from those high cells, in perfect unison with “the full-voiced choir below.” As to the effect of the cathedral upon the eye, I remember no interior, save that of Milan, which can compare with it for impressiveness; and if, from general effect, we descend to details, this cathedral is vastly the more solemn and magnificent of the twain. Its altar, for example, is one of the most lofty in Christendom, the choir rising from the nave by a long flight of steps, and the altar being elevated, in like manner, very high above the level of the choir. The several ascents and various levels of the Church, instead of too much breaking its whole, seem to add an air of vastness and sublimity to the general design. But when one surveys, now the nave, and looks upwards into the tower, and along the far-sweeping vaultings, and now the choir and its intersecting arches and vistas; or descends to that varied undercroft, with its chapels and sepulchres, and twisted columns, and French inscriptions; or mounts to make circuit of the tombs and chapels, pausing within “Becket’s Crown” to admire its unique and anomalous elegance; and then makes his way through the cloisters into the chapter-house, and finally escapes into outer day, and looks up again at the vast pile, through which he has been wondering and wandering so long—the impression left upon the mind is one of astonishment, like that of the Queen of Sheba, when “there was no more spirit in her.” I had seen the spot where Becket fell beneath the stout blows of his murderers—the marble floor which received his blood still exhibiting a speaking memorial of the tragedy, in a small mutilation which was made in sawing out the bloody block, to be carried to Rome as a relic; I had seen the remains of the same prelate’s shrine, where his sovereign submitted to flagellation, where princes presented so many costly oblations, and which once glittered with such gorgeous wealth before the eye of Erasmus; I had seen the stone-stairs leading up to his sepulchre, worn away by the thousands of devotees, among which I reckoned those of certain Canterburie pilgrims, accompanied by Dan Chaucer himself; I had seen the tomb of the Black Prince, with his lion-like effigy—over which dangles his surcoat, a thing of tatters, but which no one can behold without emotion, when he reflects that it once encased the beating heart and chivalrous breast of that gallant Plantagenet. I had beheld the recumbent effigies of the usurping Lancaster, Henry IV., and his Queen, Joan of Navarre; and I had surveyed the memorial works, or sepulchres, of the primates of all England, from Lanfranc to Chichely; but after all, I bore away no remembrance more pleasing than that of the monumental window and tomb of the late Archbishop Howley, commemorating, as they do, a most worthy prelate, and marking the great epoch of a revival of theology, and of practical faith, throughout the Church of England. This tomb is surmounted by the recumbent effigy of the Bishop, and presents a most graceful specimen of reviving art. He is habited in his sacred vestments, to which the addition of the cope gives completeness and effect; and as the Archbishop wore that vestment at the coronation of Queen Victoria, there was reality to justify its use. In short, I was glad to see that even in the cathedral of Canterbury, and without servility in copying the antique, our own age can erect a monument, and surmount it with a figure, literally true to its original, which is worthy of the place as a work of art; and which, if it is more modest than the mediÆval sepulchres which surround it, is still in perfect keeping with all their splendour; while it tells the simple story of a primacy the most brilliant in its contemporary achievements of any that has ever blessed the Church of England, since the days of Augustine. It will be forever celebrated as distinguished by the rapid extension of Anglican Catholicity in all quarters of the globe, and by a holy effort for the restoration of unity to the Church of God.

The city of Canterbury abounds in quaint nooks and corners—old gates, and fragments of wall;—and, in particular, is marked by an ancient mound, or artificial hill, called the Dane John, which is much reverenced as a work of the aboriginal Britons. Some will have it that it was raised against the Danes, as its name appears to import; but it strikes me as something of religious origin, and not unlike those mysterious tumuli which abound in our own Western country. If truly British, indeed, who knows but some primeval Madoc built both it and them?

It was my fortune to hear in the cathedral, as an anthem, that chef d’oeuvre of Sternhold and Hopkins, which must have been written in some fit of poetical inspiration, vouchsafed to them for those two verses only—

The extract has been set to noble music, but who was the composer I cannot say. After a visit to the Deanery, and a gratifying survey of its long gallery of ecclesiastical portraits, I was shown into the surrounding gardens, and conducted to almost every part of the cathedral precincts, and finally dismissed by an ancient gate, which, owing to some tradition, retains the romantic name of Queen Bertha’s postern. But let me not conclude my remembrances of Canterbury without a warm tribute to the delightful society to which I was introduced at St. Augustine’s, and among the dignitaries of the cathedral. The esteemed Warden, who received me as his guest, and who so kindly entertained me, deserves my most grateful acknowledgments.

On the morning of my departure, rising very early, and accompanied by a friend, to whom I had become warmly attached since my arrival in England, I drove out, through pleasant Kentish scenery, to the parsonage of Borne, which is from Canterbury three miles distant, according to Izaak Walton; following the example of the many, who once did so, to see the face of the venerable and judicious Richard Hooker, though I could only hope to see his tomb, and the church in which he ministered. I shall never forget that morning drive, nor the reverence with which, at length, I beheld Hooker’s own church, and the parsonage in which he so loved to see God’s blessings spring out of the earth about his door. I entered the holy place, and there was his bust, coloured by the old artist to represent life: and looking at it, through my hands, so as to shut out the surrounding parts of the monument, I was verily able to conceive that I beheld good Master Hooker in his pulpit, about to speak. It imprinted a live idea of the man upon my memory, which I would not lose for many costlier things. The place called up many of those graphic anecdotes which his quaint biographer has chronicled concerning him; but I was especially reminded of that scene between the Puritan intruders and the old parish clerk, who, when they sat down on joint stools to partake their communion, said, as he resigned the keys with a heavy heart, “Take the keys and lock me out, for all men will say Master Hooker was a good man and a good scholar, and I am sure it was not used to be thus in his days.” I could not but remember, moreover, that within those walls Hooker had passed many a lonely Ember-day, locked up for fasting and prayer; and ‘who knows’ said I to myself, ‘but we are even now realizing the blessed answers to those intercessions for the Church, in all parts of the world?’

On my way up to London, I paid a visit at S—— Park, the residence of a young country squire, who had lately taken his degrees at Cambridge, married, and settled here on his hereditary estate. The life of an English gentleman, of this degree, has always struck me, as nearly the most perfect realization of sublunary bliss, which the world affords. Nor did the glimpse which I thus gained of such a life, in the least disappoint me. The young mistress of the mansion, in the momentary absence of her husband, kindly made herself my guide, over a portion of the estate, in search of him. No ceremony—and no attempt to appear fine. In a moment she was ready, and as she led me hither and thither, she was not above taking me to her poultry-yard, and her dairy, and showing me her amateur farming. We entered a fine field of standing corn—the golden wheat of Kent—and as we passed through the narrow foot-path, my fair guide informed me ’twas their way to parish church, and just then I descried the church itself, at a little distance, in its modest beauty, at the foot of a hill. A lark flew up, and she pointed at the little fellow, as he mounted the skies, and poured out his song, reminding me of a remark I had made to her, that we have no sky-larks in America. She entered a pretty farm-house, where a decent-looking family were just taking their tea: they treated her as they would have done a descended angel, while she, in the prettiest tones, inquired whether they “had seen their Master thereabout,” and so, thanking them, departed. We soon encountered the young “Master,” who gave me a kind welcome, and showed me the further attractions of the estate. Then home, and soon to dinner, and after that, a pleasant summer evening sauntering about the doors and under the old trees of the park, where the rooks kept up a great cawing in consequence of our intrusion. In many respects, the place did not differ much from many American residences that I have visited; but in others it did, and chiefly in the entire ease and nature with which everybody, from the squire to his humblest menial, nay, even the house-dog, fitted his place, and seemed to enjoy it. We have no servants in America, though we have slaves. All white-complexioned people scorn to obey. Hence the misery and the stiffness of housekeeping, and the deplorable multiplication of those vulgar establishments called “fashionable hotels.” Let me add, concerning this happy abode of unostentatious English comfort and refinement, that what especially pleased me was the devout appearance of the household servants at family prayers. They all joined in the devotions, and each had a Prayer-book in hand, which appeared to be a cherished companion of their daily routine. Happy the household where all the inmates, from the least to the greatest, have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

The ancient castle and the cathedral of Rochester were taken in my way up to London; but, interesting as they are in themselves, I might fail to make them attractive, in a description so vague as I should be obliged to give them, and so, with a passing tribute to their merits, as religious and feudal monuments of the past, I must again return to London.

In frequent visits to Westminster Abbey, I had become familiar with every portion of it, including cloisters, chapter-house, and library. In the library, by the politeness of one of the dignitaries, I was favoured with a minute inspection of some of its most precious historical deposites. Such were the dies from which were struck the coins of Henry Fourth, and many succeeding sovereigns, rude works of art, depending upon blows of the hammer to produce their impression. In the chapter-house is the original Domesday-book, and many other historical documents. I was shown the instrument by which Edward I. was authorized, by twenty-three competitors, to settle the Crown of Scotland upon one of their number. The seal of Bruce’s father is very distinctly visible. Here are Henry VII.’s very minute instructions to his commissioners to examine the personal claims to his choice, of a young princess, whom he proposed to marry, with their not over-gallant reports. A superbly decorated instrument, dated at Amiens, August 18, 1527, and signed by Henry VIII., and Francis, was also a great curiosity. It has a golden seal, with the legend—Plurima servantur foedere, cuncta fide. Among other parchments, one signed by Mary, as Queen of France, with her husband Francis II., was interesting. I saw also the stamp, used by Henry VIII., to affix his signature to parchments, in his dying days; a prayer-book of Queen Elizabeth’s; and a fine old Missal of 1380, from which some zealous reformer had erased the service for Becket’s-day, and several prayers for the Pope.

But all these were inferior in interest to the tombs and chapels of the Abbey. Many of the monuments are in wretched taste, and a general banishment to the cloisters, of those which are not in keeping with the architecture of the church, would be a great improvement. The residue should then be repaired and decorated. But even as they are, they present a most interesting epitome of history, and a most affecting commentary on the vanity of worldly grandeur and greatness. With Henry VII.’s chapel, and its royal sepulchres, I was greatly impressed, and the near neighbourhood of the tombs of Mary and Elizabeth, struck me as forcibly as if I had never heard of the strange proximity, in which they, who once could scarcely live in the same world, here mingle their dust with the same span of earth, and side by side, await the judgment. Oh, what pomp of sepulture attests the universal reign of death in this ancient temple! Here, in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, stands the throne, which has been the glory and the shame of so many who lie sleeping around it. The rough old stone, inserted in its base, is the Scottish palladium; and the old monkish fable makes it one of the stones of Jacob’s pillow, at Bethel. The monuments of Edward III., and Queen Philippa, and that of Henry V., commanded my especial attention. Above the latter, are preserved the saddle, shield, and helmet, which he used at Agincourt. The body of Edward I. rests beneath a plain altar-tomb. In the centre of the chapel is the shrine of St. Edward: and it is as near as possible to these relics of their predecessors, that English sovereigns are still anointed and crowned in the adjoining choir. At such times, if these silent tombs are startled by the shouts of the multitude that cry—Long live the King, how much more forcibly they must speak to him, in their mute expressiveness, reminding him of his nothingness, and calling him to prepare for a long home in the dust!

To the reflections of Addison and of Irving, in this consecrated pile, I shall not attempt to add my own. The sweet interpreter of the moral of this wonderful place, sleeps appropriately under its tutelage, and few are the graves within it, which more affect a kindred heart. To see the grave of Addison, which was lately marked by a small white stone, in the pavement of one of the chapels, suggests a kind of postscript to his own musings; and, as I stood, thoughtfully, over it, I seemed to hear his voice, out of the sepulchre, confirming his living words. I thought, moreover, how much has been done, since his day, to add to the interest of the holy place—even in addition to his own grave! How many tombs I saw, which he did not—his own among them! Addison knew nothing of Johnson’s sepulchre; stood not by the rival relics of Pitt and Fox; thrilled not as he approached the resting-place of a Wolfe, or a Wilberforce; and little dreamed how much more than the shrine of Kings, his own last bed would impress a stranger from America, in the nineteenth century. How transcendant the enchantment with which genius invests its possessor, where it is paired with virtue! With what refreshment I often turned from the royal tombs to the Poets’ Corner; and there, with what reverence did I turn most frequently to the monuments of those whose high artistic inspiration was characterized by the pure spirit of love to God. It was pleasing to behold the memorials of Chaucer, and of “rare Ben Jonson;” but with a fonder veneration I paused more frequently before that of the stainless Spenser. I thought of his words concerning “the laurel”—and how fittingly they apply to this Abbey, as the—

With a different sort of pleasure I surveyed the wonders of the British Museum. There, a scholar can find all he needs in the way of literary food, freely bestowed. I do not admire the new buildings; but the Institution is worthy of a great nation, and reflects eternal honour on George the Third. Will the Smithsonian, at Washington, ever rival it? Its newest and its oldest treasures, were the great stones from Nineveh, so cleverly described by the Quarterly. With what emotions I surveyed those illegible hieroglyphics; and scraped acquaintance with those “placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their rident horses, wounding those good-humoured enemies, who tumble gaily off the towers, or drown, smiling in the dimpling waters, amidst the ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα of fish.”

The English, though a proud people, are really very moderate in their appreciation of the manifold charms of their incomparable isle. When I surveyed the river-view from Richmond-hill, I recalled the glorious waters of my own dear country, and many a darling scene which is imperishably stamped in my mind’s eye, and asked myself whether, indeed, this was more delightful to the sight than those. I was slow to admit anything inferior in the scenery of the Hudson and Susquehanna, when I compared them with so diminutive a stream as the Thames, and I even reproved myself for bringing them into parallel; but over and over again was I forced to allow, that “earth has not anything to show more fair,” than the rich luxuriance of the panorama which I then surveyed. A river whose banks are old historic fields, and whose placid surface reflects, from league to league of its progress, the towers of palaces and of churches which, for centuries, have been hallowed by ennobling and holy associations; which flows by the favourite haunts of genius, or winds among the antique halls of consecrated learning; and which, after sweeping beneath the gigantic arches, domes and temples of a vast metropolis, gives itself to the burthen of fleets and navies, and bears them magnificently forth to the ocean; such an object must necessarily be one of the highest interest to any one capable of appreciating the mentally beautiful and sublime; but when natural glories invest the same objects with a thousand independent attractions, who need be ashamed of owning an overpowering enthusiasm in the actual survey, and something scarcely less thrilling in the recollection! When I afterward looked towards Rome, and descried the dome of St. Peter’s from Tivoli, I felt, as Gray has somewhere observed, that nothing but the intellect is delighted there, while on Richmond-hill, the soul and the sense alike are ravished with the view, and fail to conceive anything more satisfying of its kind. If ever, which God forbid, the barbarian should overrun this scene, and make ruins of its surrounding villas and churches, the contemplative visitor of a future generation will still linger on those heights with far more of complicated and harmonious satisfaction than can possibly refresh the eye that wanders over the dreary Campagna. Yet how few of the great and fashionable in England have ever allowed themselves to appreciate the glories of their own scenery after this sort!

But whether on those lofty banks, or down by the river-side, or wherever I wandered amid their green retreats, I owned to myself one sad disappointment. I repeated over and over again those verses, learned in school-days, in which Collins bewails the poet of the Seasons:—

Where was “yonder grave,” and where “yon whitening spire?” It was with some chagrin that I followed my directions into the dullest haunts of the town, and into a modernized church, in an unromantic street, and there soliloquized, over a miserable brass plate, amid a pile of pew-lumber—“In such a grave your Druid lies!” It is amusing, on a few square inches of worthless metal, as entirely devoid of artificial value as it is of intrinsic worth, to observe the vanity with which a man of rank has contrived to write his own name in as large letters as those of the poet’s. “The Earl of Buchan, unwilling that so good a man, and so sweet a poet, should be without a memorial, has denoted the place of his interment, &c.”—so reads the inscription. The Earl has at least the merit of having exactly expressed the character of his tribute, for it denotes the place, and that’s all. One would think a Scottish nobleman might have spared a few guineas in doing something better for the grave of his countryman.

A glimpse of Twickenham, and of the spire of the church where Pope is entombed, were all that I allowed myself, in honour of a bard whose faultless verse is no excuse for the frequent indecency and paganism of its sentiment. It is a curious and revolting fact that his skull has been purloined, and now belongs to a phrenologist. I caught a railway view of Dachet-lane, famous for Falstaff’s experiences in the buck-basket, and so once more to Windsor! I stopped, over a train, to enjoy one more walk on the castle terrace, and one more look at Eton college, and then hastened on to Oxford, to attend the Commemoration. I accepted the hospitalities of my friends of Magdalen, who lodged me in the rooms formerly occupied by the Bishop of Exeter.

During my visit I did not fail to see the celebrated Dr. Pusey, who struck me as a younger man than he is generally supposed to be. His appearance indicates nothing eccentric or ascetic, and his manners are those of a gentleman at home in the society of his fellow-men. He has friends and foes at Oxford, as well as elsewhere, but all seem to regard him with respect as a man of piety and learning. To me he was less a lion, however, because I have always regarded the application of his name to the great movement of 1833, as a mere instance of popular caprice. His share in it has been less than that of many others; neither the credit of its good, nor the disgrace of its evil, belongs to him in any superlative degree. Its progress has left him, with others, far in the rear of its existing interests; and what has been stigmatized as Puseyism is perhaps, when fairly distinguished from the extravagances of a few fanatics and sophists, the English phase of a world-wide return to principles that were the life of Christianity, long before Popery was in existence, and ages before it had bred Protestantism by its violent reaction.

Oxford and Cambridge.

Cathedral Tour—The Border.

A cathedral tour now lay between me and Scotland, to which I began to make my way rapidly. All that I had yet seen of architecture, promised to be the mere preface to what was still before me, in the splendours of Ely, of Peterborough, of Lincoln, of York, and of Durham. To my reader it will be impossible to convey the idea of variety and ever-novel delight with which these successive miracles of the builder’s art impressed me, as I passed from one to the other, from day to day; but I will touch on the more special characteristics of each, in full confidence that what is most striking in old historic monuments, like these, can never tire the head that is furnished alike with eyes and brains.

The train took me swiftly to Ely, over a fenny district, which supplied nothing of interest, except the distant view of the towers, which loomed up, more and more, as we drew nigh the little city. How different this railway approach from that celebrated by Wordsworth:—

I found this magnificent work partly in ruins—partly undergoing a beautiful restoration; and as the pavement of the choir was torn up, I beheld a stone-coffin, in which, perhaps, lie the bones of one of those very monks, who were singing in the days of King Canute. At my request, one of the workmen raised the lid of the coffin, and there lay the skull and bones of an old ecclesiastic, the former quite entire; or, perhaps, it was St. Ethelfreda herself, who began her building here in the seventh century. If so, they are repairing her works, in the nineteenth, in a spirit of nobler art, than she ever imagined. The restorations are truly superb, and a future visitor will find the choir of Ely one of the most impressive temples in Christendom. What an age of restorations this is, in the Church of England! ’Tis a nobler reformation than that of three hundred years ago—for that was, necessarily, one of haste and of overthrow. Now a calm constructiveness is at work, holding fast all that was gained before; but giving it the finish, which was impossible then. And these material restorations are but the symbol of a great spiritual awakening, concerning which, there is one painful thought which no student of English History should ever forget. It is this, that but for the Puritans, all this would have been done in the seventeenth century! Greater and better men were then on the stage than any that are now living, and all that the age of Victoria is doing for Christ, it was in the heart of King Charles to do. It is impossible to say what might not have been the blessed results for the Universe had the Church of England been in a condition to tempt the Church of France to an alliance in 1682. All we can say on the other hand, is that, let Macaulay declaim as he may, progressive freedom would have been established in England without the paradoxical intervention of a Cromwell, while there is nothing left us, as the direct results of Puritanism, except a few Socinian congregations, and the “Dissenters’ Chapels’ Bill.”

The massiveness of some portions of this cathedral, and the lightness and grace of others, are very impressive. Its length is very great, and the vista “long drawn out.” Amid its ancient monuments I spent a solemn hour of musing, while the light of the descending sun, through the clere-story and lantern, showered a soft and melancholy radiance over the whole interior, admirably harmonizing with the reflections it necessarily inspired.

I found Peterborough another sleepy little city, and the cathedral beautifully situated, with the Bishop’s palace hard by. It is a severe, but grand exterior, and presides over the surrounding trees, and roofs, like a sort of divinity. It is quite free of encroachment from other buildings; but its close, or precinct, is guarded by a circuit of prebendal, and other ecclesiastical houses, with turreted and arched gateways, which seem to command a reverent approach to the sacred spot. I omit a technical description of the architecture, but must be allowed to give some account of the Sunday I spent there, and of one or two little things that deeply affected me.

While the bells were thundering for Morning Service, I stood in the nave, wholly lost in contemplation of its plain, but massive majesty. A train of children entered, with their teachers, evidently a Sunday-school. I watched the little procession as it wound its way amid the columns, and turned to the left of the choir. Following them, I saw them enter the choir, by a small side-door, and as they stepped into it, every little foot fell on a slab of stone, in the centre of which was a little brass plate, not so large as one’s hand. When all had gone in, and were kneeling in their meek array, I drew near, and stooped down to see over whose dust they had been treading. I read a few words, but they thrilled me like electricity—“Queen Katherine, 1536!” Here, then, lies that proud daughter of Arragon, whose mournful history has left its mark upon nations, and upon Christendom! The scene in Shakspeare rose before me—Pope—Cardinals—Princes—Henry VIII. This stone covers all, and peasants’ babes trip over it as lightly as if the life that lies extinguished there, had been as simple as their own!

In the corresponding spot, on the other side, lies just such another slab, over another sepulchre. The body has been removed to Westminster Abbey; but its first repose was here. The brass has been torn out; but it once read, “Queen Mary, 1587”—for here the poor Queen of Scots was laid, headless, and festering in her cerements, six months after that fatal day, in the neighbouring Fotheringay Castle. The date of her interment offers the best apology for the severity she had suffered, although nothing can excuse the sin of Elizabeth. It was the year before the Spanish Armada; and it is now known that she had, two years previously, given her kingdom to Philip II., inviting that bloody bigot to set up his Inquisition among her Scottish subjects, and excluding her own son from his right. Such was her crime against her own people, aimed, however, more especially at England, by her fanatical zeal. Between these solemn tombs of a Queen of France, and a daughter of Spain, I worshipped that day, and received the Holy Communion, to my comfort. The anthem was a familiar strain, from Mozart, which we sing in America to the Christmas hymn, set to words from the Psalter—Quam magnificata opera tua! The Bishop of Peterborough was the preacher, and I heard him again at Evening Service. As you leave the nave through the western entrance, you see an odd portrait set against the wall, that of a grave-digger, spade in hand. Underneath, you read—“R. Scarlett, died 1594, aged 98.” He buried the two Queens, and the inhabitants of the town twice over, as you learn from uncouth rhymes subjoined. Was ever such a “king of spades?”

Next morning I saw “Lincoln, on its sovereign hill,” and heard the Great Tom—“swinging slow with sullen roar.” The restorations going on in the choir had driven the service into a little chapel, near the west end; but the singing was very sweet, and solemn, though entirely without ceremony. I devoted the morning to the survey of this model of art, which I like the better, because it is, in part, a monument of the Anglican Liberties, as they were maintained in the middle ages, against the Roman Pontiff. The central tower is the work of brave old Bishop GrostÉte, in the thirteenth century. He was the predecessor of Wycliffe and Cranmer, in defying the Pope, and in spite of papal anathemas, he died in peaceful possession of his See. All honour to his pious memory.

It is the custom to admire the west front of this cathedral extravagantly; but I confess that with all that there is to admire in its separate parts, the whole seems, to me, ill-composed. The towers, more particularly, strike me as possessing no unity with the mass of architecture, behind which they rise, as from a screen, whose broad rectangular frontage detracts from the apparent height. It is only as seen from the foot of the hill, that the whole architectural bulk affects the eye sublimely, towering majestically over the town, which crouches at its base. The whole pile affords to the architectural student every luxury of his art, both within and without; but such were the desecrations which it suffered from the Cromwellians, that few of those gorgeous shrines, for which it was formerly distinguished, remain, to delight the ordinary visiter. In the cloisters have lately been discovered some Roman remains: a mosaic pavement, in particular, such as the traveller is so often shown in Italy. “The Jew’s house,” so called, a relic of mediÆval art, was more interesting to me, as connected with the legend of the little martyr who lies in the cathedral, and who is celebrated by Chaucer, in the tale of the Prioress.

The City of York makes an imposing show, crowned by the glories of its vast minster, and walled in, like Chester, with ancient ramparts, which nearly encircle the town. How singular the reflection that Constantine the Great was a native Yorkshire-man, born in this town, in A.D. 272! Here, too, his father died, in A.D. 307, and he succeeded to the empire, going forth to reform pagan Rome, as I trust the spirit of England has even now gone forth to do the same for Rome papal. Here, too, died the Emperor Severus vainly striving to reconcile his sons Caracalla and Geta. Among the monuments of the Roman Forum, these names afterward reminded me of York; while, across the broad Atlantic, the immense city where I had been brought up, had always been to me, her memorial. How many were the reflections with which I walked the whole circuit of her walls, and surveyed the town, the ancient castle, and the surrounding scenery, and then sailed upon the river beneath! The beautiful ruins of an old abbey, near the river, still delight the antiquarian; but after cursorily surveying these, I hastened to the cathedral.

The western front of the minster is worthy of its extraordinary fame. The semi-barbarian features of many of the cathedrals are here superseded by what might seem to be the idealized perfection of their rude details. The unity which was wanting in Lincoln, seemed to be here complete and entire; and the rich and delicate tracery which invests it has the appearance of an elaborate tissue of lace, fitted over the stone after the substantial part was complete. From other points of view, the impression is less of grace, and more of majesty. The whole is sublime in its effect beyond that of any other cathedral that I ever saw; and even in Milan, I could not but say to myself, as I gazed on its wonderful Duomo—“after all, it is, as compared with York, only a beautiful monster.” There is something about it which realizes the idea of a cathedral, in its model form; and this is a charm that is wanting in many others of its class. In its ample choir, I was more affected by the service than at any other place, with the exception perhaps of Canterbury, so far as it depended on the elevating influence of mere architecture, consciously felt and employed to ennoble the sacrifice of praise and prayer. With the survey of the chapter-house, cloisters, and tombs, I was less interested than with repeated efforts to take in the vast sweep of the interior, and to animate it with visions of what it may yet become, when Deans and Canons wake up to the immense responsibility of their opportunities to work for the glory of God. The tone of the service, and the swell of the organ, even now, give wings to worship, when the anthem rises beneath this lofty vault, and dies away in the profound depth of the nave, or spreads itself amid aisles and columns, with multiplied reverberations and undulations of harmony; but oh! what might not be its heavenly effect, were the choir and nave all one, and filled with kneeling thousands, lifting up their voice with one accord in the overwhelming common-prayer of the Anglican Church! A friend of mine, who was once present, in Yorkminster, on a Sunday, realized something very near what I strove to imagine. The congregation was swelled by the presence of several regiments of soldiers, who appeared to take part in the worship, and whose gay uniforms, as they knelt on the mosaic floor, received a richer splendour from the tinted lights that flowed down from lofty windows, where meek saints and mighty princes seem to live again in the lustre of their portraiture.

“Bernard the vales, as Benedict the steeps,

 But towering cities did Loyola love.”

It was founded, in fact, in the time of St. Bernard, under the first impulses communicated to Europe by his vast enthusiasm. But it is in vain that we look for any traces of his asceticism, in the luxurious splendour of every portion of this noble pile. Here you enter the lordly refectory; you pass to the ample kitchen, and ascend to the long range of dormitories. What prince on earth is better lodged? The chapter-house is on the same scale of dignity; and the cloisters are a long perspective of pillared arches, through which the eye can scarcely penetrate to the end. But the church, with its elaborate chapels, of which nearly half the pillars are standing in their gracefulness, beggars description. Its floor is green turf, and its walls are hung with living tapestry; but it seems still a vast cathedral, and the more beautiful, for its heavenly vault, and its windows, opening in all their rich variety of form, bright glimpses of wood and sky. Everything is in keeping, and the whole is such an epitome of the monastic system as suggests alike its glory and its shame. The excavations are still going on, and like those of Pompeii, they are revealing the most minute and tell-tale particulars of monastic life. One cannot altogether regret that such establishments are of the past, and yet the experiment of their reform should have been fairly tried, before destruction made it forever impossible to restore them to noble and pious uses.

Near the Abbey is a yew-tree of great antiquity, beneath which, tradition says, the first colony of monks assembled, and planned their future home. In a secluded spot, a little further on, I came to Fountains Hall, a pleasant manorial residence. It was built in the time of the first Stuart, and, I am sorry to add, of materials, quarried in the old Abbey. Such being the case, I am glad it is not mine. Sacrilege is so fatal a sin, that I hardly dared to take away a bit of moss from the Abbey walls; and to remove a cubic inch of its masonry, was a liberty from which I shrank, as a sort of irreverence to God.

Adieu to Fountains—but the scene will never leave my mental vision, which will retain as tenaciously, also, the recollection of those whose company enabled me to enter into the spirit of the scene, as I never can when alone. Reluctantly bidding them farewell, I went by rail to South Shields, on a visit to an estimable M.P., whose acquaintance I had made in London. He is a man of great natural refinement, and of very superior accomplishments, having greatly distinguished himself in early life, at Oxford, though his retiring disposition has kept him from the ambitious dignities which he might easily have commanded. Though there are few, in England, to whom I became more attached, I must add that it was neither from political nor religious affinities. He is as much of a dissenter as a churchman can well be, and as little of a John Bull as an Englishman can well be; but it is my creed, that none but the most narrow-minded mortals limit their society to those who share their own likes and dislikes, and never has my contempt for Sallust’s rule of friendship been more richly rewarded than in the relations which I formed with Mr. I——. With his liberal feelings towards America, I was particularly gratified; and it was pleasant indeed to listen to this estimable man, as he generously eulogized several of my countrymen, whom he had made his friends. Most attractive too was his unassuming piety. His Greek Testament was his familiar companion, and he was sometimes betrayed into scholarly criticisms of its text, which I could not always adopt, but which I was forced to admire, as drawn from stores of classical knowledge and accuracy. I felt it a great privilege to be his guest, and fell asleep in my chamber, full of happy reflections on the pleasures of the day, and lulled by the sounds of the sea, which breaks on the boundaries of his demesne. The morning light came to my window over the German Ocean, for the King of Denmark is next neighbour to my friend in that direction.

I was now among the collieries, but had no desire to know anything about them. I saw the mouths of the doleful pits which descend to these human burrows, and to think of the miserable population below, was enough! There they live, and die, and are buried while they live, and are far more wretched, I should imagine, than the servile class, in most cases, among us. The amelioration of life in the collieries, is by no means neglected however. England is alive to the spiritual and temporal destitution of her poor, of every condition; and happy will it be for us, when our national evils are as deeply felt as those of England are by Englishmen; when they are as temperately and freely discussed, and as boldly submitted to an enlightened spirit of progress and reform.

With my estimable friend, I visited Durham, its cathedral and University, and enjoyed great privileges in so doing, as the result of his kindness. On our way, he pointed out the secluded and saintly Jarrow, and the tower of Bernard Gilpin’s Church. In this neighbourhood occur two names that startle an American: he comes to Franklin, and to Washington, little villages which have imparted their names to hundreds of places in America, by first giving them to two really great men. With us, places are named from individuals; but in England, the reverse is more frequently the case.

“Stupendous”—is the epithet for the cathedral of Durham. It is the poetry of the frigid zone of architecture, as Milan cathedral is of its tropics. The first impressions, on entering, were instinctively those of the patriarch—“how dreadful is this place—this is none other than the House of God.” At York, I had said—‘this is the gate of heaven.’ Here an overpowering solemnity brooded over every thought, and I less admired than wondered. One thing was most pleasing: there is no screen, and the eye ranges through nave and choir, unrestrained, to the altar itself to which a bas-relief of the last supper, gives a fine effect. Under the guidance of Canon Townsend, who had lately returned from his most primitive visit to the Pope, we surveyed the entire cathedral and its adjoining courts, all alike builded for everlasting, if the solidity and grandeur of its masonry be any index of its design. We visited “the Galilee,” and the tomb of the venerable Bede, the “nine altars,” at the eastern end, and the tomb of St. Cuthbert. Also, the chapter-house, hallowed by the names of Aidan and Finan, those apostles of the North, who came forth from Iona to illuminate our Saxon ancestors. I pity the man who claims no kin with their ancient faith and piety! They infused into the Church of England many elements of its present character, and Bernard Gilpin was their legitimate son, even more than Bede himself.

In the library, we were shown, by the polite dignitary who was our guide, many antiquarian and literary curiosities. The stole of St. Cuthbert, taken from his coffin, and some needlework of the sister of Alfred, were of the number, and divers manuscripts, on vellum, of great beauty, and one the autograph of Bede! Some modern copes, of the time of Charles First, were shown us, as having been worn in Divine Service, in the cathedral, according to the rubric, till Warburton laid them aside. We also visited the University, which now fills the old castle of Durham. This castle was built by William the Conqueror, and was long the residence of the Bishops, as Lords of the Palatinate. Its old Norman chapel is very interesting, and the modern fittings are in good taste throughout, and turn it to good account. In one of the prebendal houses, we found the Bishop of Exeter, a prelate of great distinction, and celebrated for making warm friends and bitter foes. Canon Townsend gave us our lunch, at his own table, and warmly eulogized the American Church, which he designs to visit. He also praised our country and its achievements. His burning desire seems to be to unite all Christians, once more, in one holy fellowship of faith and worship, and it was in this spirit that he visited the Vatican, and exhorted the Pope to repent. It was the last testimony to Pius Ninth, before he dared to commit that damning sin against Christian charity, on the 8th of December, 1854. In my opinion, Canon Townsend need not be ashamed of having preached the Gospel at Rome also.

I crossed the river Wear, and gained from its well-wooded bank, the best view of the cathedral. It rises on the opposite bank, high over the stream, like part of the rock on which it is built. It presents the appearance of entire “unity with itself.” Massive and ponderous dignity invests the whole pile, and with the advantage of its deep descent to the river, I know not where to look for anything that seems at once so fixed to the earth, and yet so aspiring in its gigantic stretch towards heaven. The cathedral at Fribourg, in Switzerland, not only lacks its grandeur, but is too far from the edge of the steep, on which it stands, to derive much character from it. Durham, on the contrary, grows out of the cliff itself, and it is hard to say where the natural architecture terminates, and art begins.

I heard the service, in the cathedral, and it was effectively performed. From preference, I occupied the extremity of the nave, and enjoyed its distant effect. The Episcopal throne, in this cathedral, is a great curiosity. Had I not been told it was a throne, I should have said it was a gallery, or orchestra. Its style is altogether curious, and unique; but I should think his Lordship would prefer any place in the cathedral, to such a strange eminence. I left Durham, with great regret that I could not linger for a long time, amid its venerable and sacred attractions.

A good portion of the succeeding day was given to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, its smutty old-town, and its spruce and showy new-town. Here is Norman England on one hand, and England of the Reform-bill on the other. Standing upon one of its lofty bridges, I surveyed the town, and the river, and felt more pleased with what I saw than I had supposed it possible for me to be with such a coal-hole.

Out of the hole I climbed, however, to the height on which stands its old castle, built by Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror. It is a dingy tower, at best; but massive, and full of historic interest. Its chapel, only a few yards square, and dimly lighted, is remarkable for some of the finest specimens extant, of the Saxon arch. Its parts are distinctly marked, as chancel, nave, sacristy, and the like; but it is more like the chapel of an Inquisition, than of a royal castle. Several rooms in the castle are filled with Roman relics, all found in the neighbourhood of the town; and often, when I afterwards visited Rome, and thought of this far distant place, did it give me new ideas of her ancient power, to reflect upon her identity here and there, and upon the skill in overcoming difficulties, which, in that barbarian day, made her to be felt as really upon the Tyne, as upon the Tiber. I saw very soon the same marks of Roman conquest, far away in Scotland, near Elgin, and Inverness.

And to Scotland I now made my way, without stopping. Flying through Northumberland, I caught many glimpses of its scenery and antiquities, about Warkworth and Alnwick. Far out at sea, I spied the lofty bulk of Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, the Iona of England. I instinctively bared my head to it. At length I sighted Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Amen Corner of England, where the Church ceases, and the Kirk begins. Anon, I was over the Border.

The Lakes and the Lakers.

As I am now detailing my “Impressions of England,” I must leave out my Scottish chapters, for Scotland is far too rich in material to be smuggled into the world under any cover except its own. After a most interesting visit to this romantic land, I again saw England as I approached the Cumberland mountains, at Ecclefechan, and in spite of my delight in Caledonia, I somehow felt that it was home. I reached “Gretna Green” from a direction the opposite of that which is the fashion for runaways, and hence saw nothing of “the blacksmith;” but I was informed that he duly posts himself at the station when the train approaches from the other direction, and very frequently finds customers. It is not now as in the days of posting; and if a brace of lovers can make sure of a train in advance of pursuers, they are quite safe. The next train may bring the frantic friends and parents; but the wedding is already performed, according to the barbarous law of North Britain. It has been remarked as something singular, if not disgraceful, that several who have risen to be Lord-Chancellors of the southern kingdom, were, in early life, married in this way. After a moment’s pause at the Gretna station, we were whirled across the Sark, with a glimpse of the Solway, and soon I was in “merrie Carlisle.” I entered it, thanks be to Bishop Percy, with special thoughts of “Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudeslee.” The poetry of the town is, in fact, concentrated in that ballad of ballads. As a border town, it has always been subject to those fearful scenes and tragedies, which only war creates: and its history is a romance, from the days of the Conquest to those of the Pretender, whose flag once waved on its walls. It is charmingly situated, and well watered by its three rivers; but its castle and its cathedral are its chief objects of interest, and offer little that can be described with effect, after a review of more striking specimens of their kind. Among the tombs in the latter, is that of Archdeacon Paley, the moralist, who “could not afford to keep a conscience.” I did not regard it with any great emotion. The adjacent Deanery, at one time inhabited by Bishop Percy, was more interesting to me, for whatever he may have been as a bishop, I cannot doubt that his taste and industry in literature have produced a vast result in the poetry and letters of his native tongue. I have often amused myself, not only with his “ballads” themselves, but with an effort to trace their immediate and remote effects on the taste, and even upon the genius of England. They are very striking, and prove what may be the lasting results of a very humble sort of literary enterprise, when it is founded on “truths that wake to perish never.”

I was in the region of the Lakes, and felt upon me already the powerful influences which its great poets have left it for an heritage forever. The noble range of the Cumberlands seemed to lift their monumental heads, in memory of Southey and Wordsworth. I went to Kendal, and sighted the castle where Katherine Parr was born, but was glad to take the earliest train to Bowness. Welcome was the sight of Windermere, brightly reflecting the evening sky, and encircled by an army of mountains, lifting their bristling pikes as if to defend it, like a virgin sister in her loveliness. Who can forget Dr. Arnold’s enthusiastic return to this dear spot, from the Continent: his just comparison of its charms with those of foreign scenes, and his close noting of the very minutes that lingered as he hasted to his home at Fox How? To me, there is all the heart of poetry in his honest effusion of genuine English feeling. “I see the Old Man and the Langdale Pikes, rising behind the nearer hills so beautifully! We open on Windermere, and vain it is to talk of any earthly beauty ever equalling this country, in my eyes. No Mola di Gaeta, no Valley of the Velino, no Salerno or Vietri can rival, to me, this Vale of Windermere, and of the Rotha. Here it lies in the perfection of its beauty, the deep shadows on the unruffled water; and mingling with every form, and sound, and fragrance, comes the full thought of domestic affections, and of national and of Christian: here is our own house and home: here are our own country’s laws and language: and here is our English Church!” Good! glorious! every word. I can feel it all, and the last words more than he did. It is to the Church that England owes all the rest, and yet that palladium (I hate the word) of England’s holiest, and dearest, and best peculiarities, he would fain have Germanized! I believe, in my heart, he was better than his theories, and would have been the first to shrink from his own dreams of reform, had he lived to see them coming into shape as realities. I cannot but follow his speaking memoranda:—“Arrived at Bowness, 8.20; left at 8.31; passing Ragrigg Gate, 8.37; over Troutbeck Bridge, 8.51; here is Ecclerigg, 8.58; and here Lowood Inn, 9.04 and 30 seconds!” No fast man, at the Derby, ever held his watch more breathlessly; he was speeding home, and there he was in twenty minutes more, at his own “mended gate,” wife and darlings all round papa, and so ends his journal! Oh, what so enviable as a home, just here? My own is far away—and I stop at Lowood Inn, grateful for such inns as England only affords, and proposing to spend such a Sunday as England only hallows. I am not forgetful of my own dear land; I love her Hudson, as I can never love even an English lake; but the janglings of a Sunday in America, the unutterable wretchedness of perpetuated quarrels among Christians, and all the sadness of religious disunion, in its last stage of social disorganization, take away my sense of repose, when I survey an American landscape, and the spires of our villages; and who can measure the indifference, the atheism, and the godless contempt for truth which all this breeds? Good Lord! when shall this plague of locusts disappear from our sky? When shall all Christians who love Christ in truth and soberness, agree to love one another?

At Lowood Inn I spent such a Sunday, as I had promised myself, at St. Asaph. A morning and evening walk, by the lake, was its morning and evening charm, and calm, sweet enjoyment of the service was its substantial blessing. Here, Southey’s words came forcibly to mind, as I recalled the common worship, in which my beloved friends, at home, were uniting with me; the Prayer-book its blessed telegraph!

Early on Monday morning, in a fairy-like little steamer, I made a circuit of the lake, enjoying fine weather, and delightful views. The clouds took the shape of everything beautiful during the day, now hanging over the “Pikes,” like legions of angels, and now building themselves up into domes and cathedrals, upon the summits of the everlasting hills. As for the lake itself, it is something between Lake George and Cayuga Lake: its scenery in some parts, even finer than the finest of the one, and its tamer parts, almost always equal to the best of the other. Lake George, however, in its exceeding wildness, has its own special charm for me; and Windermere is too artificially beautiful, on the whole, to rival it. Towards noon, I went, by coach, to Grassmere, passing through Ambleside, and by the late residence of Wordsworth, and enjoying the views of Rydalmere, and Knab Scaur, and then of Grassmere itself, with its sweet church, deep in the vale. The inn at Grassmere is well placed, on a slight ascent from the valley, and provides a toothsome repast for the tourist. I went on horse-back, over hill and dale, to “Dungeon Ghyll,” a cataract well known to readers of Wordsworth, but less interesting in itself, though curious as well as pretty, than the scenery through which one passes to get there. The mountain ranges, and peaks, as they come into sight, and seem to shift their positions, are sufficient, I should think, to make the region ever new in its peculiar attractions, especially when one takes into account the endless variety imparted to such scenes by the different seasons, hours of the day, states of the atmosphere, and conditions of sky and clouds. Wise poets were these Lakers! And how “Kit North” must have revelled in these palaces of nature! As I slowly returned, I caught my last glimpse of Windermere, and then saw the vale of Grassmere, in its evening beauty. Arrived at the churchyard, I sought the grave of Wordsworth. A plain grave, and his name merely. The river rushing by lulls his repose. A carriage drove up, and seeing a female mourner approach, attended by a servant, or waiting-maid, I withdrew, and pretended to be otherwise engaged. The lady scattered flowers on the grave of the poet, and stood there awhile, musing. It was his widow; and when she had left the sacred spot, I returned, and admired the fragrant and beautiful tokens of her affection, which, as I learned, she every day renews. I gathered some wild flowers, growing by the grave, and resolved to bear them to Keswick, and leave them on the grave of Southey. This pilgrimage I was determined to make, on foot; and having arranged for my luggage to be sent to a convenient point, I started accordingly, late in the afternoon, with a walk of twelve miles before me; to do which, I gave myself three hours for the walking, and one for resting and idling. I expected to reach Keswick by early moonlight, for the moon was new, and the days long. Mine host thought it too late for a start, after a fatiguing day; but I had practised in Scotland, and knew my strength, and the inspiration of the spot was such that I felt no weariness. On the contrary, it is impossible to describe the flow of spirits with which I began and ended this walk. Passing Helm Crag, I decided that the “old woman” on the top, is far more like a millenial group, in colossal sculpture, for it greatly resembles a lion with a lamb in its embrace. At every step, Wordsworth and Southey revive in memory; every pebble seems to have attracted their love, and taken its place in their poetry. After a long, but gradual ascent, we reach the cairn that covers King Dunmail’s bones, and looking back at the charming view, say farewell to Grassmere. In the distance, ahead, what looms up? The guide-book says Skiddaw. There once lived Southey; there now he sleeps. As I left this neighbourhood, I observed to my surprise, another group on the mountain, in all respects like the “old woman,” only turned the other way. Both are formed by loose rocks on the height of the mountain; but I have seen no mention of this one. And now my way lay along the base of the “mighty Helvellyn.” The road was easy to the foot, and innumerable are its charms. I came to the lovely Thirlmere, or Leatheswater: the views of the surrounding crags, and of the water itself, wearing a more beautiful aspect, for the hour and the departing daylight. Blue-bells were everywhere growing by the road, in handfulls. I stopped to examine a stone which seems to record the death of a Quaker’s favourite horse. A carriage came along, which proved to be full of cockney tourists. One of them descended and read, as follows:—“Thirtieth of ninth month, 1843;

The pathos with which these words were uttered was truly Pickwickian, and the step from the sublime to the ridiculous was so effectually taken by my feelings, that for a long way beyond, Helvellyn re-echoed to my laughter. Passing Thirlmere, the sweet vale of St. John opened a bewitching prospect, and I loved it for its name. Leaving it on my right, I then turned toward Keswick, and as the last light of day disappeared, there, before me, lay Derwentwater, the new moon shedding a tremulous light on its bosom. This, then, was Southey’s own Keswick, and Skiddaw rose over head! I slept soundly and sweetly at the “Royal Oak.”

In the morning, I took a barge, and was rowed round the lake, which did not disappoint me. One of the men had been a servant of Southey’s, and he told me many anecdotes of his master. “Yonder, it seems to me, I can see him now,” said the fellow, “walking with a book in his hand.” He described him as good to the poor, and said, “he often gave five shillings, at a time, to my mother.” In wet weather he still took the air, and walked well on clogs. I was much charmed with the islets of the lake, and the singular traditions which invest them all with so much interest. The romantic stories of the unfortunate family of Derwentwater, whose earls were attainted for their share in the Pretender’s rebellion, are partly connected with one of these islands, and the lake itself seems made for a scene of romance. Windermere is not to be compared with it. I was rowed to Lodore, and saw “how the water comes down.” Sometimes ’tis a mere burlesque of the poem; but I saw it in full force, and entirely justifying all the participles which the genius of Southey has contrived to set going, like a cataract, out of the fountain of his brain. After this, I swam in the lake, tempted to do so by the double attraction of its pellucid waters, and its Castalian associations.

I visited Southey’s grave, in Crosthwaite churchyard. ’Twas solemn to see the grass growing, and its tall spears shaking in the breeze, over the head of that fine genius, and the heart of that good and faithful man. In the church, where he so often prayed, a superb statue of the poet lies, at full length, on an altar-tomb. I placed in the marble hand the flowers I had brought from the grave of Wordsworth, a tribute to their friendship, and a token of my homage for both. Great and good men; they were the “lucida sidera” of English literature, in a dark and evil time and now that their sweet influence has triumphed over the clouds and vapours which obscured their first rising, how calmly they shine, in heaven, and brighten the scenes they have left behind!

Greta Hall, the poet’s late residence, stands a little back from the road, in the shadow of Skiddaw. I paid a visit to a daughter of the bard, who loves to linger near her father’s grave; and it was delightful to observe the simplicity with which she entered into the enthusiasm of a pilgrim to that shrine of her affections. The aged Mrs. Lovel, whose name is familiar to the readers of Coleridge, and his contemporaries, also allowed me to be presented to her. It was affecting to see a group of Southey’s lovely little grand-children with her, in mourning for a mother. They are richer in the heritage of his name and character than if they were the heirs of the Derwentwaters, and restored to all their honours and estates.

By coach to Penrith, by the vale of St. John, and Huttonmoor. On the moor, I saw a cottage, with an inscription too deep for me, of which my reader shall have the benefit. It was this:—

A Waltonian puzzle in its quaintness, not to speak of the initials! Driving by Graystoke, in which is an old town-cross, we had a sight of its church and castle. But two odd-looking farm-houses, which we passed, presenting at a distance the appearance of forts, surprised me more, by their American names, “Mount Putnam,” and “Bunker-hill.” They were built and named soon after the battle: and the whip laughed as he slyly surmised, that the Duke of Norfolk, to whom they belong, “must have been afraid the ’Mericans were coming over.” At Penrith, I visited the extraordinary grave in the churchyard, called the Giant’s. Its history is lost in the obscure of antiquity; but one Owen is said to lie there, at full length, the head and footstones being fifteen feet apart. The stones are tall needles, of curious form, and covered with Runic carvings and unintelligible words. Not far from Penrith, are some ancient caverns, marked by traces of gigantic inhabitants, such as iron-gratings, and other relics worthy of the habitation of Giant Despair.

Next morning, we were favoured with a brilliant sky and cool breeze, and I took the top of the coach for a drive across the country, through Westmoreland, into Yorkshire. A sweet odour of hay-making filled the air as we started; and soon we had fine views of Brougham-hall, and castle, with a small adjoining park. A more interesting object to me was a small column, by the roadside, celebrated by Wordsworth, called the Countess of Pembroke’s Pillar. It was erected in the evil days of Cromwell, not to celebrate a battle, or a crime, but as a monument of love. On that spot, in her better days, the Lady Anne Clifford had parted, for the last time, with her beloved mother, the Countess Dowager of Pembroke, and she therefore caused this stone to be set as a memorial, and inscribed accordingly. But she did yet more, for hard by is a stone table, on which the anniversary of that parting is annually celebrated by a dole of bread to the poor of the parish of Brougham, to pay for which she left the annual sum of four pounds to the church forever. This is giving a stone to those who ask bread, in an orthodox way. The inscription ends with Laus Deo; and my heart responded in the manner which Wordsworth suggests. “Many a stranger,” he says, “though no clerk, has responded Amen, as he passed by.” Our drive continued a pleasant one till we came to Appleby, an interesting old town, through which runs the river Eden. In its church are monuments of the Lady Anne Clifford and her mother. At Brough, we came to an old castle, erected before the Conquest. Its church has a pulpit, hewn of a single stone; and they tell a good story of its bells. A worthy drover of the adjoining moors, once brought a fine lot of cattle to market, promising to make them bellow all together, and to be heard from Brough to Appleby. Accordingly with the money they sold for, he gave the parish a peal of bells, which constantly fulfils his vow. He deserves to be imitated by richer men. At Brough the coach left me, and I took a post-chaise over the dreary region of Stainmuir; dreary, just then, but not so in the sporting-season, when the moor is alive with hunters and fowlers. At Bowes, again, emerging from the moorlands, we came to the remains of a castle, and to the less interesting relics of a school, which had disappeared under the influence of a general conviction, that it was the original “Dotheboys Hall.” A dull place is Bowes; but striking over a rugged country, northward, I came soon into the charming valley of the Tees, and so arrived at the secluded church and parsonage of Romaldkirk, on a visit to a clergyman, who bearing my maternal name, and deriving from the same lineage, in times long past, yet claimed me as a relative, and welcomed me as a brother. I found a missionary from India, addressing a few of his parishioners, in an adjoining school-house, and there I first saw my hospitable friend, and joined with him in the solemnities of a missionary meeting, among a few of the neighbouring peasantry. With this estimable clergyman, and his family, I tarried till the third day, enjoying greatly their attentive hospitalities, and trying to catch trout in the Tees. The very sound of this rushing river recalled the story of Rokeby, and amid its overhanging foliage, I almost fancied I could see skulking the pirate-figure of Bertram Risingham.

I was not allowed to leave this happy roof unattended. The eldest son of the family, a young Cantab, took me more than twenty miles, to Richmond, through a most romantic country, allowing me to visit the ruins, near Rokeby, and to stop at many interesting spots. We journeyed through Barnard Castle, and by Egglestone Abbey, and met with several adventures in our “search of the picturesque,” but at last emerged into the surprising scenery of Richmond, which I found beautiful beyond all that its name implies, and not unworthy of sharing it with its southern namesake, on the Thames. It is the older of the two, and is remarkable for something more than beauty. It has a touch of grandeur about it, and the ruins of its old historic castle, on the banks of the Swale, full of traditions of feudal sovereignty, and still massive and venerable in appearance, give an imposing air of majesty to the town. The aspect of the valley of the Swale is almost American, in its wildness, in many parts, and I keenly relished even my railway journey through a region so inviting to delay. I made my way to Leeds, where, amid smoke, and much that is disagreeable, stands the interesting Church of St. Mary’s, lately renewed and beautified by its faithful vicar, Dr. Hook. I had barely time to visit this sacred place, and contenting myself with having sighted Kirkstall Abbey, in the vale of Aire, I continued my journey to my first English home, in Warwickshire. The glimpses of Derbyshire scenery which I enjoyed, in my rapid journey, were full of beauty: and the mishap of losing a trunk, gave me the opportunity of putting to the test the fidelity of the English railway system. As soon as I discovered that some blunder had been committed, I informed the guard, and at the first station, telegraphic messages were despatched, and in a short time my trunk followed me to the parsonage, where I passed the Sunday with my friend.

Cowper—Greenwich.

She little knew how much pleasure the sight of her gave to a passing stranger, with whom her art had been rendered poetically beautiful, by the charms of Cowper’s verse. This is, in fact, the secret of his spell as a poet, the power of investing even homely things, in real life, with a certain fascinating attractiveness. He avoids the romantic and the poetical, in choosing his themes; but he elevates what is common to a dignity and beauty unknown before. He is the most English of English bards, and I love him for teaching me to see a something even in the English poor, which makes them, to me, vastly more interesting than the romantic peasantry of Italy. True, the latter tread the vintage, and the other only stack the corn; but the English cottage has the Bible in it, and its children learn the Ten Commandments, and also learn that “cleanliness is next to godliness;” while in Italy, among fleas and other vermin, the idle parents sit lazily in the sun, and the children run after the traveller’s coach-wheel, lying while they beg, and showing by their religious vocabulary, that Bacchus and Maria are confounded in their imagination as saints of the same calendar.

At length I saw the spire of Olney, and soon I crossed the bridge, over whose “wearisome, but needful length,” used to come the news from London, to solace Cowper’s winter evenings. I was not long in finding the poet’s most unpoetical home, now occupied by a petty shop-keeper, who has turned his parlour into a stall. Here he lived, however, and here he sang: here, motherly Mrs. Unwin made tea for him, and Lady Austen gave him “the sofa” for his “Task.” Under these stairs once lodged Puss, Tiney, and Bess; those happy hares which, alone of their kind, have had a local habitation, and will always have a name. In the garden, I saw where the cucumber-vine used to grow, and where Puss used to ruminate beneath its leaves, like Jonah under his gourd. An apple-tree was pointed out to me as “set by Mr. Cowper’s own hands.” The garden has been pieced off, and to see the “summer-house,” I was forced to enter, by a neighbour’s leave, another enclosure. Here is the little nestling-place of Cowper’s poesy—the retreat where his Egeria came to him. In the fence, is still the wicket he made, to let him into the parsonage-grounds, when Newton was his confessor. ‘Here, then,’ I said, ‘one may fancy the lily and the rose, growing in rivalry; and another rose just washed in a shower; and the sound of the church-going bell, and a thousand other minute matters in themselves, all taking their place in the poetic magazine of Cowper, and so coming into verse, through his brain, as the mulberry leaf becomes silk, by another process of spinning.’ It was a small field for such a harvest, and yet “the Task” grew here.

And now, another mile brought me to the more agreeable Weston-Underwood, the resort of all his walking days at Olney, and the dear retreat of his later life; the dearer, because bestowed by the lovely Lady Hesketh. This is, indeed, a residence worthy of a poet, and though all who once rendered it so charming to Cowper have passed away, I was agreeably surprised to find no important feature changed. A painful identity belongs to it: you recognize, at every step, the fidelity of the poet’s descriptive powers, and it seems impossible that he who has made the scene part of himself, has been for half a century in his grave, while all this survives. You enter the desolate park of the Throckmortons, and there is “the alcove,” with its commanding view, so dear to the poet’s eye, and Olney spire in the distance. You pass into “the Wilderness,” now a wilderness indeed, for it is neglected and overgrown. Here are a couple of urns, now green with moss, and lovingly clasped by ivy, but each marked with familiar names, and graced by Cowper’s playful verse. The one adorns the grave of “Neptune,” Sir John Throckmorton’s pointer; the other is the monument of “Fop,” his lady’s favourite spaniel. I hailed this memorial of “Lady Frog’s” pet; but was far more moved to descry, before long, at the end of a flowery alley, the antique bust of Homer, which Cowper so greatly valued, and to which he gave a Greek inscription, which Hayley was proud to do into English:—

Here, then, that “stricken deer that left the herd,” was led to a sweet covert at last, and went in and out, and found pasture, under the guidance of one “who had himself been hurt by the archers.” With what enchantment these haunts of hallowed genius inspired me! And yet never felt I so melancholy before. The utter loneliness of the scene; the fact that they who had bestowed its charm, were all, long ago, dead; and then that painful reality—everything else there, as it should be; the Task, no poem, but a verity, and before my eyes; but Cowper, Hayley, Austen, Hesketh, all gone forever; these thoughts were oppressive. I sat down, and almost wept, as I repeated the names of those who were so “lovely and pleasant in their lives,” and who now are undivided in death! It was an hour of deeper feeling than I had realized before, at any shrine of departed genius, in England.

I went to the house, and rejoiced in the comfort it must have afforded Cowper, in his latter days. It is neat and comfortable, and the village is a pretty one, trim and thrifty in its look, and sufficiently poetical. It has “an air of snug concealment,” which must have been most congenial to its gifted inhabitant, and it was not unsuited to his fondness for receiving his friends as guests. I went into the poet’s chamber, and also into that which Lady Hesketh used to occupy. In the former, there is a sad autograph of the poet, in lead-pencil, behind a window-shutter. The window had been walled up, and only lately re-opened, when the pencilling was found. It is one of the poet’s last performances—an adieu to Weston, written there, as he left it forever:—

“Farewell dear scenes forever closed to me,

 O for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!”

No wonder he lamented a departure from such a retreat, into nearer proximity to the bad world. Walking in the park, beneath its avenue of ancient limes, I envied the nibbling flocks that were straying about, and the cattle that were reclining in their shade. So peaceful! If life were given us for ignoble devotion to self, I know of nothing within reach of a clergyman’s humble fortune to which I should more ardently aspire, than such an abode as Weston, where a golden mean between what is common and what is poetical in scenery, and situation, still offers every inducement to a man of taste to settle down, and live contentedly; or, like Walton, “to serve God, and go a fishing.”

On returning to London, I was rejoiced to meet an old and intimate friend, from America, whose genius has given him distinction, at home and abroad—Mr. Huntington, the artist. With him I, once more, visited the Crystal Palace, and enjoyed the benefit of his criticisms in surveying the works of art, there displayed. We were interested to observe a constant group of admiring spectators hanging around the Greek Slave, of our countryman, Mr. Powers. Other nude figures, although many of them were far better calculated to appeal to coarse curiosity, were comparatively neglected, so that we could not but consider the amount of interest which this work secured, a proof of something superior, in its character. I own that, for my own part, I do not like it. The subject is a sensual one, and does not appeal to any lofty sentiment. Beauty in chains, and exposed in the shambles, is a loathesome idea, at best.

I went with Mr. Huntington to the rooms of the British Institution, in Pall-Mall, where is a fine collection of paintings, by British and foreign masters. It was a great advantage to me to be prepared by the hints of so eminent an artist, for my continental tour, and often, in the galleries of Italy, I had occasion to thank my friend for enabling me to appreciate many things which would, otherwise, have escaped me. At the exhibition of water-coloured paintings, I was astonished, by the rich collection, and the exceeding beauty of many of the pictures. The fruit, and flower pieces, of Hunt, were almost miracles. He paints a bird’s nest, with the eggs, and every straw, so perfect, that the bird would infallibly attempt to sit in it, and he contrives to bestow it in a hedge of hawthorn, so green and white, and so entirely natural, that you would not think of taking the nest, without making up your mind to be sorely scratched. It would make May-morning of a winter-day, to have a few such paintings to look at, and no one who loves nature could ever be tired of them.

The weather was as hot, at this time, in London, as it is ordinarily, at the same season, in Baltimore or New-York. It was the middle of August, and the moon being near the full, the nights were very beautiful; and I observed it the more, because neither sun nor moon have much credit for making London attractive. Late at night, I could see the Wellington statue almost as distinctly from the Marble arch, as at Hyde-park corner, and the scenery of the Park, by moonlight, was enchanting. When shall we have such parks in all our large towns?

Next day, with Huntington, and Gray, both of our National Academy, I went out to Greenwich Hospital, to survey the place, and to enjoy a parting white-bait dinner. We went down in a steamer, enjoying the excursion the more for our comparisons of all we saw with the Bay of New-York, and the Hudson. It was pleasant, now and then, to discern an American vessel, and to know her at once, by her graceful form, amid a forest of masts.

Greenwich is the great outside park of London, the resort of thousands of her pleasure-seekers, of the humble class. The Royal Observatory stands on a commanding eminence, and the slope of its hill towards the river, is the favourite sporting place of mammas and children. As a prime meridian, however, I always regret that it is not deposed, by the religion of England, which ought to take the lead in making Jerusalem the starting point for all Christian reckonings. The wings of the morning should rise every day, from the Holy Sepulchre, and there evening should come down to brood, with everything to make it the first, and the last place, in the minds and hearts of a ransomed world.

Greenwich Hospital is, indeed, a palace of the poor. On the terrace, between its wings, one cannot but be impressed with a sense of the greatness of a nation which thus lodges the humblest of its worn-out defenders. The old pensioners, hobbling about, in their blue uniforms, and cocked-hats, move your profound respect. Their wounds, and battered visages, seem to speak of storm and shipwreck, and of shell and broadsides, in every climate under heaven. They can tell wonderful things of Nelson and of Collingwood; and all seem to address you, like Burns’ hero, with the tale,

In “the Painted Hall,” which is full of pictures of naval battles, one sees how terribly their pensions have been earned. There, too, is shown the coat worn by Nelson, when he fell, and it is stained with his blood. It was a comfort to turn from this temple of the Maritime Mars, to that of the Prince of Peace. The old sailors have a superb chapel, elaborately adorned, and furnished with an altar-piece, by West, “the shipwreck of St. Paul.” From a little book which I picked up in Paris, written by a Frenchman, and a Romanist, I gather that the service, in such places, in England, is very impressive, and that the contrast, in France, is not in favour of the Romish religion. He describes the chaunting, and apparent devotion of the soldiers, as very striking; and he seems to have been especially struck with their responses to the Ten Commandments. He adds—“all that would make us laugh in France:” and he goes on to say—“if it be answered that our soldiers are at liberty to go to mass, I reply, that’s true; but for all that, a young conscript, religiously educated at home, would be ridiculed so unsparingly for continuing in his pious habits, that he could not long resist the bad examples of his comrades.” At Greenwich, the Bible and Prayer-book are the constant companions of many an old salt; and bad as all armies and navies must be, I could not but think that there is a great advantage, in the morale, of Chelsea and Greenwich, as compared with the Invalides.

We adjourned to our White-bait—a fish, according to the same French authority, most delicate and delicious, and to be eaten only at Greenwich, because it is necessary to transfer them, instantly, from the water to the frying-pan, and thence to the plate, and because they are fished only in the Thames. I fully agree with Monsieur, as to the attractions of the plat, especially when enjoyed in good company. The dinner ended, my friends accompanied me to the Southwark station, at London, where I had all things in readiness for a start: and bidding them a warm farewell, I reached Dover in a few hours, and soon embarked for Ostend. The sea was calm, and heaving in long, broad, glittering swells; and as the chalky cliffs of Dover, gleaming in the cloudless moonlight, gradually sank in the distance, I felt that no native Briton ever waved a more affectionate salute to the bright isle, than that with which I said good-night to Albion.

Return—Conclusion.

It was four months later than the incidents of my last chapter, when after a tour on the Continent, I found myself safely landed at Dover, in the gray dawn of a winter’s morning. I had left Paris, in all the frightful confusion consequent upon the coup d’État of Louis Napoleon. In touching, once more, the free and happy soil of England, if I could not say—“This is my own, my native land,” I could yet feel that it was the sacred land of my religion, of my parentage, and of my mother tongue. I was, once more, at home, and ceased to feel myself a foreigner, as I had done in France and Italy. How good and honest, sounded again in my ears, the language of Englishmen! As “bearer of despatches” from Paris, to our ambassador at London, I was landed with the advantage of precedence, and very rapidly passed through the custom-house. The state of things in France, and the feverish anxiety, in England, to learn the changes of every hour, invested my trifling diplomatic dignity with a momentary importance, strikingly diverse from its insignificance at other times: and I was amused to see how much curiosity was felt by the officials as to the mighty communications which might be going up to London in my portmanteau. Even an old salt, as I stepped ashore, could not forbear accosting me with—“Any news this morning, yer honour?” ‘Bad news,’ said I, ‘the Frenchmen are going to have a bloody day of it; be thankful you are an Englishman.’ “So I am, your honour,” was his hearty, and most honest reply.

I had been travelling in Southern Europe, where, to borrow a thought of Dr. Arnold’s, no one can be sure that anything is real, which he seems to see: where Savans are not scholars—where captains are not soldiers—nor judges lawyers—where noblemen are not men of honour—where priests are not pure—nor wives and matrons chaste. I was, again, in the land of facts, a land deeply involved, indeed, in the sins and miseries of a fallen world; but still a land, where, for centuries, everything has been steadily advancing towards a high realization of human capabilities, alike in the physical, and mental, and moral of man’s nature. I was once more in a land where it is base to lie; where domestic purity and piety find their noblest illustrations, whether in palaces or cottages; and where not even luxury and pride have been able to vitiate the general conviction of all classes, that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach to any people.

On arriving in London, my very first employment was to visit the tomb of the holy Bishop Andrewes, at St. Mary’s, Southwark. The prelate is represented, at full length, stretched upon his sepulchre, and right dear it was, after long tarrying amid the monuments of popes and cardinals, to behold, once more, that of an honest and true man, and a saint of God, who, in his day and generation, was “a burning and a shining light.” The tomb of the exemplary and amiable poet Gower, is also in this Church, and has often been described.

Attending Evening Service at Westminster Abbey, on the following Sunday, I was so much struck with the effect produced by the light of candles, in the choir, that it seemed to me, I had never before fully felt the wonderful impressiveness of that Church, nor even of the church service. The surpliced singers, ranged in their stalls—the many faces of the worshippers—and the lofty arches of the sombre architecture received a new aspect, from the mingled light and shade, and the tones of worship were imbued, by association, with something strange and solemn. Deep under the vaultings lay the shadows, and here and there shone out a marble figure, or glimmered a clustered column. When the organ sent its tremulous tide far down the nave, it seemed to come back in echoes, like the waves of the sea—the more effective, because of the distance through which it had stretched and rolled the surge of sound; and when the responsive Amens rose, one after the other, from the voices of the singers, plaintively interrupting the petitions, and marking the impressive stillness of the intervals between, which were filled only with the low monotone of prayer, then I felt how amiable are the temples of the Lord of Hosts, and how fair a resemblance of that temple not made with hands, where they rest not, day nor night, from their hymns, and responsive praises. By the sides of the altar fared two immense wax lights, giving a fine effect to the sanctuary. After the Second Lesson, the preacher, Canon C——, ascended the pulpit, in his surplice, and preached the sermon; after which, the Evening Prayer continued, as after a baptism, the choir taking up the Nunc dimittis, followed by the creed, the collects, the anthem, and the prayers, while the organ thundered through the lengths and heights of the abbey. I joined the throng which passed down the nave, and looking back again and again, I received such powerful impressions of the sublimity of the place, as had been wholly wanting to the effect by daylight, as experienced on former occasions. One parting look through the western door, through the dimly illuminated perspective, and then I turned slowly and thoughtfully away. On the preceding Sunday, I had left the cathedral service, at Rouen, in circumstances precisely similar, and my mind naturally fell into a comparative train of thought. There was a great similarity in the effects produced on the senses by the two services. A stranger to the Latin and English languages, would have failed to note any marked difference between them. He would have recognized the Catholic unities of the two rites, and would have failed to observe their diversities, papal and reformed. The French sermon had been vastly better than the English one: the former was preached by an orator, the latter by a spiritless and formal favourite of Lord John Russell. Yet, between the two solemnities, in their entire effect, the disparity was greatly in favour of the English service, which was audibly and reverently performed, while the other was mumbled, and not understood by the congregation. I felt that the Church of England was strong, if compared with that of France, in her heritage of Catholic and Apostolic truth, as distinguished from the systematic falsehoods, which have made the religion of the other, a mere fable, in the general estimation of the French people.

At a later hour, the same evening, it was my lot to preach in St. Bartholomew’s, Moor-lane, in the pulpit once filled by the worthy Archbishop Sharpe. The incumbent of this Church had lately discovered at Sion College a collection of papers and books once belonging to the saintly Bishop Wilson; and he placed in my hands, for that evening, the original Sacra Privata of that holy and venerable prelate. I could not but think how much we may owe it to his prayers, that the Church of England is now what she is, as compared with what she was in his day; and, in preaching, I took great delight in paying a parting tribute to that Church, as compared with the churches of the continent.

I am convinced that the debt which England and the world owe to the Anglican Reformers of the sixteenth century, has never been properly appreciated. Like the air which we breathe, but do not perceive, the spirit with which they have invested the religion of England, is that of life and health. They banished nothing but the fogs and noxious exhalations of the middle ages; and, as the result, we find England hale and hearty, and bearing more fruit in her age, while the churches which allowed the Tridentine vapours to become their atmosphere, are perishing in the agues and fevers of a long and ghastly decline. Look at Spain and Italy!

And I cannot forbear, in conclusion, to remark, that when American travellers go to England, and copy the false statistics of some infidel almanac, to justify their railings against the National Church, they are about as wise as John Bull is, when he takes the statistics of our (immigrant) pauperism and crime, as a test of the true state of American society. It is true that there are great abuses connected with the establishment; and it is also true that they are deplored by no class of Englishmen, half so much as they are by the true churchman. If the Church could be left to herself, they would be immediately reformed; but the very creatures who rail at her, because of them, are they who refuse to give her the freedom which she claims, and who do the most to enslave her to the State power. I am no friend to that power in the Church of God; but they who prate against the church, because of her misfortunes, deserve the rebuke of all thinking men, whose knowledge of history, and of the existing state of the world, enables them to compare what has been done for England, by that church, even in her fetters, with what all other religions put together have done for the residue of the world. When we reflect upon the three great achievements of that Church for English liberty—the Reformation, the Restoration of the Constitution and Monarchy, and the repudiation of the Popish Stuarts, we may well afford to laugh at such sneers as a Macaulay endeavours to raise against her, on the ground of blemishes with which his own reckless and treacherous political allies have deformed and afflicted her. And when we attempt to estimate the blessings she has diffused through the whole Anglo-Saxon people, and by them through the world, who can refrain from blessing the dear Church which has placed the English Bible in every cottage, and which, for three centuries, has read the Ten Commandments, every Lord’s day, in the ears of millions of the people? It is only when we think of what that Church has done, in spite of the golden chains which fetter her, and in spite of the political miscreants who have always hung like hounds upon her heels and hands, that we can rightly estimate her strong vitality, and her vast beneficence.

And let it be remembered, too, that all that is good among English dissenters, is sucked from the Church, as the parasite derives its nourishment from the oak. The dissenters are mainly the small-tradesmen of England, a people intelligent enough to perceive the faults of their hereditary religion, but not generally enlightened enough to know its value and its services to themselves. They are like the Dutch boors, who thought the sun did no good among the Flemings, because they saw it so seldom, and who concluded that daylight came from the clouds, which were always visible. Whoever will take the pains to contrast the dissenters of England with those of Germany, will learn how much even they derive from the Church, against which they so ignorantly rail.

I desire to speak with great respect of many of the dissenters of England, who, like their estimable Doddridge, are such by the force of circumstances only, while they love and revere the Church of the nation; but I have known even American Presbyterians to experience the greatest revulsion of feeling against the mass of English dissenters, after actual contact with their coarse and semi-political religionism. I was not less surprised than gratified, moreover, to observe very lately, in a widely circulated American newspaper, edited by eminent Presbyterians, a full vindication of the Church of England from the odious and false views current among us in America, with respect to the system of tithes. The writer was himself an English or Irish dissenter, and he frankly asserted the fact, that in paying his tithes, he suffered no wrong, and contributed nothing to the establishment, which did not belong to her. “In short,” said he, “the Church owns one-tenth of my rent, and I am quite as willing to pay it to her, as to pay the nine-tenths to my other landlord.” The nine-tenths might go to a popish priest; but does he who pays it contribute to uphold Popery? No more than one who hires his house of a play-actor, supports the stage.

But although the decline of dissent, in England, is universally admitted, it is generally imagined that Popery is growing. So it is if the immigration from Ireland, of thousands of navvies, who have built Romish chapels and convents, out of their earnings on the railways, be the basis of the remark. But nothing was ever more over-rated than the late Apostacy, which is the fruit of a mere personal influence, over a few young men at Oxford, gained by one brilliant sophist, and perniciously directed by him towards ultramontane Romanism. It has spent itself already in a spasmodic revolt against common sense, which is breeding a reaction towards rationalism: but the Church of England is as much in danger from Irvingism as from Newmanism; and Wesleyanism was vastly more energetic against her than either. The chagrin and disappointment of Mr. Newman himself is most apparent. After numbering the “educated men” whom he had involved in his own downfall as a hundred, he confesses that their defection from the Church has scarcely been felt by her. “The huge creature from which they went forth,” he says, “showed no consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, and went about its work as of old time.” Yes, but with a newer and mightier energy than ever before, and that in both hemispheres. The unhappy man seems to have imagined that by getting into a balloon, he could kick the earth from its orbit: but the planet still revolves around the sun, while he dangles in the air, lost in the brilliant clouds of his own imaginations, and fancying his petty elevation as sublime as her pathway through the skies.

In the same manner, the Dublin reviewers are continually deploring their powerless expenditure of vast resources against the religion of England, which stands in its fortress of Scriptural truth, more impregnable than Gibraltar. Let the reader reflect, for a minute, on the essential characteristic of the Anglican Reformation, as it began under Wycliff, in a translation of the Scriptures, and then weigh the importance of the following citation from a Romish periodical.

“Who will not say,” says the Dublin Review, “that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country. It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of the church-bell, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the gifts and trials of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him forever out of the English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the land, there is not a Protestant with one spark of righteousness about him, whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.”

Action and reaction are always equal; and it is my own opinion that the hand of God is visible in the permission of the late scandals, and their sequel will demonstrate that He has been infusing into modern Romanism a spirit which will blow it to atoms. Among the beardless boys, who have swelled the numerical strength of the apostacy, there are some prodigals who will yet come to themselves, and remember their father’s house with penitent tears: and as to their leaders, the ex-Jesuit Steinmetz in his narrative of a residence at Stoneyhurst, introduces the following striking view of the case, which sustains my own impressions. “Though the men of Rome,” he says, “exult in this reaction (as they call it) which is making Oscott a refugium peccatorum, perhaps from among the very men whose captive chains clank in their triumphal thanksgiving, there will be shot the lethalis arundo, the deadly arrow that will pierce and cling to the side of their mother church in the appointed time. It is not children that they are receiving; but full-grown men, accustomed most pertinaciously to think for themselves. They began with being reformers, and it must be confessed with some of the boldness of reformers. Will they be content to change their skins? To become sheep, from having been, as it were, wolves? To smother the cunning and the clever thought, which seems so flattering to one’s own vanity, in the cold, dead ashes of papal infallibility? We shall see.” This is reasonable, and consoling. We may not live to see it; but a rebellion against Truth must have its rebound, and Church and State will be stronger for such rebellions in the end.

If then, the decline of English arts and arms be near, of which I am by no means as confident as some, it will be a very slow decline, and coincident with a new glory, and a brighter one, than England yet has known. Instead of armies, she is now sending forth soldiers of the Prince of Peace. She has discovered that it is cheaper and wiser to sustain missionaries than bayonets. The era of her greatest work is before her. She is to become the nursing mother of nations, and in her language, the sound of the Gospel is to go forth into all lands, and unto the end of the world. Hers is the deposit of the faith once delivered to the saints. The Roman Churches have divorced themselves from the promises, and in the Catholicity of England chiefly is fulfilled the promise of Christ, to be always with His own Apostolic commission, even to the end of the world. At the same time, there is a moral life in English society, which must long salt the State, and preserve it from decay. I appeal to the common sense of Christian men, and I ask, in what other country under heaven is there such a mass of domestic and social purity? Where else is there so large a benevolence, so masculine a religion, so enlightened a conscience, among any people? England has her shame as well as her glory; she is part and parcel of a sinful world; but her light is not hid under a bushel: and if the hope of the world be not in her candle, I am at a loss to know where to find encouragement as a Christian, that the Gospel is to become universal. I believe, indeed, that my own country is to share, with her, this magnificent career of peaceful conquest. We are bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh: but I believe, also, that before we can heal the nations, we must first heal ourselves of the wretched religious anarchy which is the bane of our education, our society, and our National character.

After lingering for a few days in the society of my friends, in London and Oxford, I was, once more, for a short time, the guest of the friend to whom this memorial is inscribed, and met at his table, again, the venerable Vicar, who was one of the first to welcome me to England. To part with such friends, and their families, perhaps forever, was only to become aware how deeply I had entwined with theirs, my brotherly feelings and Christian regards. But I had been long enough enjoying myself amid the scenes and friendships which even our holy religion, while it alone can produce them, forbids to our self-indulgence, in a world where every Christian is called to the work of a missionary. Much as I longed to mingle in the delights of an English Christmas, I felt the call of duty, and the blessedness of giving as greater than that of receiving. My own parishioners expected to see me at the altar, on the approaching feast, and my heart warmed towards them, as deserving my best endeavours to gratify their reasonable wishes. Thanks, under God, to the good steamer Baltic, and its skillful commander, I escaped the perils of a wintry sea, and on Christmas-eve, was restored to my flock, and family, in Hartford. On the following day, as I celebrated the Holy Eucharist, I trust it was not without befitting gratitude to God, nor without a new and profound sense of the blessings we owe to him, whose Gospel is the spirit of “peace on earth, and of good-will to men.”