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HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS 
 
 CONTINENTAL AND ENGLISH. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET J. PRESTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF ‘‘SILVERWOOD”; ‘‘ BEECHENBROOK”: ‘*OLD SONG 
 AND NEW”; ‘‘CARTOONS”; ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
 
 38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
 
®DWARD 0. JENKINS’ SONS, 
 
 PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, _ 
 20 North William Street, New York. 
 
 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN LEGEND,” 
 
 ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY, =. 
 A PICNIC ON THE DRACHENFELS, 
 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE, . 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF CHILLON, . 
 THE “ ALLEES” OF ANTWERP, : 
 ’S GRAVENHAGE: OUDE DOELEN, 
 
 ST. BERNARD’S DIJON, . : fi 
 
 THE BEST THING IN PARIS, . ; 
 
 THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 
 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND, . : 
 AN AFTERNOON AT KENILWORTH, 
 A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE, 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORDSWORTH, 
 AT ST. OSWALD’S, . ; . : 
 
 A Day AT FURNESS ABBEY, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 AROUND GRETA HALL, . : ; ‘ 4 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER, . ; - 
 AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES, . Les 
 KING WILLIAM’S ORANGE-TREES, “ i 
 
 THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND, . ° 
 
 IN THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER AND THERE- 
 
 ABOUTS, . : : ‘ : ; F 
 THE DORE GALLERY, . - : ‘ : 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET, . : 
 IN CRIPPLEGATE CHURCH, . : : : 
 
 CONCLUSIONS ABOUT DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 143 
 
 150 
 
 160 
 
 168 
 
 220 
 
 
 
Peeve tiAtlONS: 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE THREE SPIRES, COVENTRY, . . Frontispiece. 
 THE FALLS OF THE RHINE, . : f : ‘ 9 
 THE RHONE GLACIER, . : E E “ LER 
 THE CASTLE OF CHILLON, . ; ; : ay 
 ’"S GRAVENHAGE, . : } : : : eels 
 THE OLD MILL, Guy’s CLIFF, : ‘ : <i, FOO 
 WRAY CASTLE, WINDERMERE, : : : AO te 
 ABBOTSFORD, . ; ; ; : , ‘ IS 
 ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD, . ; : : et kOT 
 HAMPTON CourrT, . : 5 : : ; nee Ze 
 CLOISTER COURT, CHESTER, . : ; PLOT 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY, . D ; 7HE19O 
 
 PORTRAIT, Mrs. BROWNING, . : : : aya a 
 

 
IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN 
 LEGEND.” 
 
 WE were sitting in the pretty drawing-room of 
 the Hotel Scheizerhof, at the Falls of the Rhine. 
 As Anna laid down a copy of “The Golden 
 Legend,” over which she had been poring, she 
 exclaimed in her enthusiastic way: 
 
 “What is to hinder us from realizing in our 
 experience the delicious journey of Prince Henry 
 and Elsie, from the Odenwald to the St. Gothard 
 Pass?” 
 
 “ Nothing easier,” said the Doctor, closing the 
 volume of Taine, over which he had been bend- 
 ing—“ provided you are willing so to modernize 
 and vulgarize it as to substitute the iron horse 
 for the palfrey, ridden by Elsie, and be content 
 with such hotels as this Scheizerhof, instead of 
 the severely simple accommodations that were 
 furnished by the Abbess Irmingarde.” 
 
 “T am more than ready for the exchange,” re 
 plied Anna, pointing to the tessellated floor of 
 the drawing-room, mosaiced in rich patterns of 
 walnut, ash, and oak, and polished till it reflected 
 
 our figures like a mirror. ‘I much prefer such 
 (7) 
 
8 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 floors as these to the rush-strewn and rude ones 
 which were furnished by Irmingarde’s convent 
 cells.” 
 
 It was accordingly arranged that we should 
 take up on the morrow the track pursued by 
 these medizval pilgrims, on their way to Salerno. 
 This Chute du Rhin at Neuhausen is one of the 
 most beautiful spots we have visited on the Con- 
 tinent. As measured by our American ideas of 
 a fall, it is nothing remarkable either as to the 
 volume of water precipitated, or to the majesty 
 of its descent. The piunge is only about eighty 
 feet, but the falls are noteworthy as being the 
 highest in Europe; there is no suggestion of 
 grandeur about them, but their beauty is beyond 
 compare. In Switzerland, the air seems to have 
 a rarefied clearness, and skies of more inviolate 
 blue never stretched over Italian lakes. There 
 is always, too, a delicious freshness in the atmos- 
 phere, which makes the step elastic, and does 
 away, even to mountain-climbers, all sense of 
 weariness. So we had with the Chute du Rhin 
 the accompaniment of superb August days, cloud- 
 less and splendid, and moonlit nights of marvel- 
 lous beauty. The Rhine at this spot has extra- 
 ordinary loveliness: its banks are most richly 
 wooded, and the dash of the white waters con- 
 
 
 

 
af 
 
 ie 
 hae - 
 amend 
 
 “ny 
 
 
 
IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” 9 
 
 trasts so vividly with the intense blue of the 
 sky and the emerald brilliancy of the landscape 
 around, that we were never weary of watching 
 the lashing of its snowy foam, and listening to 
 the rich minor of its music. The grounds about 
 the Hotel are one great bouquet of shrubbery 
 and flowers: lines of orange, lemon, and oleander 
 trees edge the long, glass-covered marble pave- 
 ments: and never in any palaces have we seen 
 reception-rooms with such marquetry floors. The 
 fine colonnades in front are always cool and in- 
 viting: the decorations of the dining-room are 
 quite princely, and a whole greenhouse fills its 
 centre with oriental plants that reach half-way 
 to the lofty ceiling. The music of the Scheizerhof 
 is one of its greatest attractions; and with the fine 
 concert furnished every night, and the irradiation 
 of the falls with calcium-lights, and the display 
 of extensive fireworks, there was no lack of en- 
 tertainment for the crowds of English and Amer- 
 ican tourists that saunter up and down these 
 stately colonnades. 
 
 Our journey through the Black Forest was full 
 of strange surprises: such engineering we had 
 never imagined. Our train zigzagged along the 
 mountain-sides in the most extraordinary way ; 
 and as we looked back, and saw the tremendous 
 
Io A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 trestle-works we had crossed, and the trail of the 
 track half a mile above us, we could hardly per- 
 suade ourselves that we had just been over it all, 
 the Simplon Pass seemed scarcely so wonderful. 
 
 We were in the very track of “The Golden 
 Legend,” which Ruskin styles the most perfect 
 reproduction of medizval life which any modern 
 writer has given to the world. We did not look 
 for Prince Henry and Elsie, in “the road to Hir- 
 schau.” The chemin de fer, with its stations, and 
 its noise, and its smoke, was enough to dispel 
 all medizval illusions; we failed to see Prince 
 Henry’s cavalcade watering their horses in the 
 cool ravine, and we whisked by too rapidly to 
 catch a glimpse of Ursula at her spinning-wheel ! 
 We passed the ruins of the old monasteries; but 
 we did not hear Friar Paul singing his Gaudiolum : 
 
 ** Ave! color vini clari, 
 Dulcis potus, non amari, 
 
 Tua nos inebriari 
 Digneris potentia !” 
 
 We ad hear the tinkling of bells; but not the 
 bells of the cloisters, only those of the little flocks 
 of black goats, driven up the hillside by some 
 sabotted Swiss boy. 
 
 As the day darkened over the impressive gorges 
 and the cavernous ravines, we could not keep 
 
 
 
IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” jy 
 
 from our tongues the exclamation of Walter the 
 Minnesinger, as he turns to Prince Henry, and 
 says: 
 —‘‘ How slowly from the scene 
 
 The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts, 
 
 And puts them back into his golden quiver ! 
 
 There flows the river, ever broad and still, 
 
 As when the vanguard of the Roman legions 
 
 First saw it from the top of yonder mountain ! 
 
 How beautiful it is !” 
 
 We did not find any Abbot Ernestus ready to 
 press upon us the hospitalities of his convent ; 
 we did not meet with any old Scriptor, ready to 
 
 say to us: 
 ‘*Time has laid his hand 
 Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, 
 But as a harper lays his open palm 
 Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.” 
 
 Instead, we found telegraph wires, and opera 
 tors sitting in their Scriptorzum, ready to tick off 
 any messages we might desire to send to our 
 friends, five hundred miles away. We found, in 
 fact, the atmosphere of “The Golden Legend’ 
 sensibly interfered with and disturbed. No ro- 
 mance could be hung up on telegraph poles, or 
 glide along the iron track of to-day. 
 
 One of our stopping-places was at Zurich, « 
 pretty little city, lying, like a bit of gold and 
 silver embroidery, along the velvet edge of the 
 
12 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 lake of the same name. It has wide, shaded 
 streets, and a drive to its elevated cemetery, which 
 its inhabitants seem to regard with peculiar 
 pride, as a sort of pleasure park, gave us a 
 splendid view over the city, and up and down 
 the lake. Of course at Zurich we were obliged 
 to pay our homage to the memory of Ulric 
 Zwingle, the boldest of Swiss Reformers, who, as 
 Luther said of him, “Took the sword, and per- 
 ished by the sword,” and to recall reverently his 
 pious heroism at the Cathedral church in which 
 he preached. 
 
 We were greatly struck with the charitable 
 establishments of Zurich. Its Polytechnic Uni- 
 versity is of immense extent, and the building 
 on the outside was singularly girdled with por- 
 traits in fresco, of the distinguished sages of all 
 time. Its hospitals we found to be very numer- 
 ous, and held out a beckoning hand to our young 
 M.D. 
 
 But after all, Lucerne, on its Lake of the Four 
 Cantons, is the lovely heart of Switzerland; and 
 who that has been here for a fortnight, does not 
 want to linger a month longer? Our home at 
 the Scheizerhof proved as delightful as the one 
 at the Falls of the Rhine. There are three such 
 (the finest in Switzerland), owned by the three 
 
 
 
IN THE TRACK OF ‘'* THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” 13 
 
 brothers Hoffman, who have certainly learned the 
 secret of a perfect hostelrie. Jeanette, who has 
 travelled over Switzerland times without count, 
 declares she is never willing to turn her face 
 homeward without having spent a fortnight or so 
 in this loveliest of little medizval cities. 
 
 And then one finds here such delightful people, 
 English, Scotch, American tourists, who, like our- 
 selves, are so bewitched by their surroundings 
 that they are loth to leave them. Opposite our 
 chamber windows, 
 
 ‘* Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air, 
 
 Rose tall Pilatus, with his windy pines.” 
 Across the Lake stretched a line of snowy peaks. 
 To the south, Righi loomed up in frowning shad- 
 ow, and away down on the water’s edge, in pic- 
 turesque loneliness, stood Tell’s Chapel. But 
 why attempt to enumerate the attractions of this 
 delightful spot, when they beckoned us on every 
 hand! 
 
 It is worth coming to Lucerne to see Thor- 
 waldsen’s historic “Lion,” if for nothing else. 
 After having been through unnumbered galler- 
 ies of sculpture, we all concluded that we never 
 had seen a piece which so moved us as this. I 
 felt my eyes misting as I sat before it; and 
 rather unwilling to make ashow of such emotion, 
 
14 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 winked away the: moisture, and turned to the 
 Professor with some trite remark about the per- 
 fection of the execution; but behold! there was 
 a big tear on each of his cheeks; and I could not 
 wonder that such a lover of noble animals as he, 
 should be moved by the presentment of such 
 marvellous fidelity and fortitude. The position 
 of the sculpture is singularly appropriate: it is a 
 little outside of the city, in a small park, and is 
 cut upon the face of a mass of rock a hundred 
 feet high, and surrounded by the trees and shrub- 
 bery native to the spot. Within a niche of the 
 rock, the lion, slightly above size, lies as in his 
 lair; and the rock, being tawny-hued, the lion is 
 of the color of nature. The spear has entered 
 his heart, and the broken handle projects from 
 his side. The expression of silent agony upon 
 the face is indescribable; and yet, in his dying 
 anguish, he still protects, with his paw, the shield 
 that holds the fleur de lis. Above the niche is the 
 inscription, 
 
 ‘*Helvetiorum Fidei Ac Virtuti,” 
 
 and below are the names of those who sacrificed 
 their lives in devotion to their trust. 
 
 As we crossed the covered bridge, over which 
 Prince Henry led Elsie, we repeated with him, 
 
 
 
IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” 15 
 
 ‘*God’s blessing on the architects who build 
 
 The bridges o’er swift rivers and abysses, 
 
 Before impassable to human feet !” 
 and on the other side we found ourselves in a 
 city of the Middle Ages, as curious and antique 
 as any on the Continent. Its streets are of the 
 narrowest ; they have no sidewalks: its zigzag 
 thoroughfares lead under mouldy old arches, and 
 its hoary nooks and corners were simply delight 
 ful. It would be hard to tell how many effigies 
 and paintings of Gambrinus we saw in this 
 ancient part of Lucerne. Here, at least, he 
 seemed to be the supreme divinity. The cus 
 toms, manners, and dress of the people were en- 
 tirely diverse from the city on the other side of 
 the bridge: the river made a gap between them 
 of three hundred years, 
 
 This bridge is the one so impressively described 
 in “The Golden Legend,” as holding the paint- 
 ings of Holbein—‘“ The Dance Macaber— the 
 Dance of Death.” Julia sighed because we had 
 no copy of the poem with us, so that we might 
 go over each picture with the poet’s tender inter- 
 pretations before us. Yet we pored eagerly over 
 them all. Here was 
 
 ‘The grim musician, 
 - Who leads all through the mazes of that dance 
 That ends in death,” 
 
 
 
16 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Here was “A young man singing to a nun”, 
 overhead we saw “The Jester with his cap and 
 bells.” And yonder was “ Death playing upon a 
 dulcimer,” which Elsie declared had such conso- 
 lation in its song that whoever heard it “could 
 not choose but follow”; and we seemed to hear 
 Prince Henry replying to her: 
 
 “Tis the sound 
 Of their own hearts they hear, half full of tears, 
 Which are like crystal cups, half filled with water, 
 Responding to a pressure of a finger, 
 With music sweet and low and melancholy.” 
 
 As we reached the end of the bridge, the sun 
 was just setting: and we sat down on the worn 
 old benches, while one of the party could not 
 forbear taking up the words of the Abbot Er- 
 nestus—time and place were so appropriate : 
 
 ‘*Slowly, slowly, up the wall 
 
 Steals the sunshine, steals the shade; 
 Evening damps begin to fall, 
 
 Evening shadows are displayed. 
 Shafts of sunshine from the west 
 
 Paint the dusky windows red; 
 Darker shadows deeper rest, 
 
 Underneath and overhead. 
 Darker, darker, and more wan, 
 
 In my breast the shadows fall, 
 Upward steals the life of man, 
 
 As the sunshine from the wall. 
 From the wall into the sky, 
 
 From the roof along the spire; 
 
IN THE TRACK OF “ THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” 17 
 
 Ah, the souls of those that die 
 Are but sunbeams lifted higher !”’ 
 
 We went to the Stifts-Kirche one evening, to 
 Vespers, to hearrthe grand organ—one of the 
 finest in the world. The music was indescrib- 
 able: we marvelled at the size of the choir, at the 
 exquisite angel-voices, at the crash of an Alpine 
 storm, at the thunder and rain, and the Professor 
 whispered: 
 
 “How shall I get you home through this storm ? 
 I have brought no umbrella!” 
 
 What was our surprise on coming into the open 
 air to see the stars dropping their clear reflection 
 into the Lake! The marvellous choir proved to 
 be one man—the wonderful organist of Lucerne. 
 
 There was a niche in the outside wall of this 
 old church, which contained a most remarkable 
 bas-relievo, which greatly puzzled us. It was at 
 least two hundred years old. The figures were 
 life-size. A form was prostrate on the ground, 
 three prone figures near, and a cathedral pulpit 
 in One corner, containing an excited personage. 
 Above a paling fence, appeared three heads, with 
 steeple hats and pikes. It was only after a good 
 deal of puzzling that we discovered it to bea 
 representation of the Agony in the Garden! 
 
 The sail down the Lake to the little village of 
 me 
 
18 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Vitznau was something never to be forgotten. 
 Think of gliding over waters fifteen hundred feet 
 deep, and as clear as a sunlit emerald! Here we 
 took the train for the ascent to Righi-Kuln, of 
 five miles up, which was so steep, that on our 
 return, we could only maintain our seats by 
 bracing our feet against the one before us. We 
 had the fine fortune of arare day. But it would 
 be presumption to attempt to describe what met 
 our eyes when we reached the Kulm. Two hun- 
 dred and thirty snow mountain peaks—eleven 
 lakes, all Switzerland like a map spread at our 
 feet, and Righi, with a peak so sharp that walls 
 are built round for safety—who can essay to give 
 a picture of all this? Here was the Wetterhorn, 
 the Eiger, the Jungfrau, the Schreckhorner, and 
 ali the noted peaks of the Alpine ranges before 
 us. Yet after the first thrill of our wonder was 
 over, and our eyes had grown weary of looking 
 through our opera-glasses, we sat down upon the 
 grass, starred with blue-bells, ate as fine apricots 
 as we ever saw, and sipped St. Julien! The 
 Doctor had decoyed us away from the bric-a- 
 brace ‘booths, to the very edge of the Kulm:— 
 “ Verily womankind is a mystery! Here you are 
 with the most magnificent scenes before you 
 ‘your eyes can ever hope to see—two hundred and 
 
 
 
 
 
IN THE TRACK OF “THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” Ig 
 
 thirty snow mountains, and all the lakes of Swit- 
 zerland ; how can you grudge a minute thrown 
 away on carved salad-forks, and moss-agate 
 sleeve-buttons!” 
 
 The harmony between the different Cantons 
 on the matter of religion somewhat surprised us. 
 In the Cathedral on Sunday, there was mass at 
 nine o'clock; at eleven, it was filled with a Prot- 
 estant congregation, no change being made ex- 
 cept to place a small pulpit and cabinet organ 
 within the altar-rails, and to extinguish the altar 
 lights. Yet as we came out, I observed some 
 Roman Catholic worshippers lighting their little 
 candles outside the great iron screen, and sus- 
 pending upon it votive-offerings, in the form of 
 small waxen babies, waxen arms and legs, and 
 even a waxen tooth; whatever part of the human 
 body supposed to have been healed by the Vir. 
 gin, being thus represented. 
 
 It was hard to get away from Lucerne; but 
 half of Switzerland lay before us unexplored, so 
 we were fain reluctantly to go. We went down 
 the beautiful Lake, on a swift steamer; and of 
 course, at Tell’s Chapel, thought of the men of 
 Rutly, of Gessler, and of the historic apple, with 
 becoming emotion. At Fluelen we took diligence 
 for Hospenthal, a primitive village, high up the 
 
20 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Alps. Here we found an antique little church, 
 with the mountaineers at Vespers, and an old — 
 Roman tower, that dated back nobody could tell 
 us how far, and we realized here, perhaps more 
 than anywhere in Switzerland, the truth of the 
 description given by Ruskin, of the stern sadness 
 of the life of the dwellers in these remote chalets, 
 as pictured in his eloquent chapter on “ Moun- 
 tain Gloom.” From this point we took private 
 carriages for leisurely travel through the moun- 
 tain-passes; and glorious days were those that 
 followed. We were still in the track of “ The 
 Golden Legend,” and when we came to the 
 Devil’s Bridge, we realized the truth of the Poet’s 
 description : 
 ‘* This bridge is called the Devil’s Bridge, 
 
 With a single arch from ridge to ridge, 
 
 It leaps across the terrible chasm 
 
 Yawning beneath us black and deep, 
 
 As if, in some convulsive spasm, 
 
 The summits of the hills had cracked, 
 And made a road for the cataract.” 
 
 Such a magnificent cauldron of boiling foam 
 as itis! Upon the face of the stupendous rocks 
 that rise above it, some unscrupulous hand has 
 outlined, in black paint, his Satanic Majesty, 
 large as life, traditional claws, tail, and all! We 
 settled at once that it was the work of some 
 
 
 

 

 
IN THE TRACK OF “ THE GOLDEN LEGEND.” 27, 
 
 American. No European could be guilty of such 
 disrespect ! 
 
 The St. Gothard Pass is left behind before we 
 cross the Devil’s Bridge. Its gorges are exceed- 
 ingly impressive; the sun can scarcely slant a 
 way into their depths. No wonder Prince Henry 
 shuddered at it: 
 
 “* How bleak and bare it is—nothing but mosses; 
 And yet how awful, and how beautiful!” 
 
 Here we parted company with the invisible, 
 medizeval travellers, who had been haunting our 
 steps ever since we left the Odenwald; and we 
 felt in a measure defrauded that we could not go 
 with them into “ The land of the Madonna.” As 
 their eyes did not look upon Fiesch, in its gloomy 
 mountain solitude; nor the Fourka Pass, in its 
 lofty grandeur; nor the Rhone Glacier, in its 
 dazzling whiteness, magnificent as if it gushed 
 from under God’s throne—as they did not follow 
 the windings of the rushing torrents, whose 
 length we traversed, and the tumbling cascades, 
 that lured us on, nor climbed the heights, nor 
 descend the cavernous depths of the Tete Noire, 
 I will not touch these points of interest, which 
 all lie outside of the track of “ The Golden Leg- 
 end.” 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. 
 
 WE were sitting late one evening, over our 
 dessert, at the Hotel Imperial, at Chamouny, in 
 delightful converse with an English clergyman 
 and his wife, who were our fellow-guests, when 
 G——, our young M.D., came rushing into the 
 
 
 
 dining-room, with the most radiant expression I 
 had ever seen on his face. 
 
 “Leave your grapes and peaches,” he cried 
 out, “and hurry up to the balconies, if you want 
 to see the grandest sight that your eyes will ever 
 see this side of Heaven !”’ | 
 
 We made haste to follow his guidance, and in 
 a few moments found ourselves on the balconies 
 upon which our apartments opened. It was about 
 nine o’clock; and as the village of Chamouny lies 
 in a deep valley, on all sides of which the Alpine 
 ranges rise to stupendous heights, the sun sets 
 there very early, so that for two or three hours 
 ithad beendark. Indeed we had remarked upon 
 the dense quality of the darkness. The night 
 was clear, and the stars were bright overhead ; 
 but then it was only a very circumscribed piece 
 
 (22) 
 
 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. a3 
 
 of sky that we could see. The little Alpine town 
 cannot boast of any street-lamps, save those in 
 front of the hotels; but the many muleteers who 
 were making arrangements for early excursions 
 on the morrow, or were just guiding home parties 
 who had been out all day, carried flambeaux 
 about with them, which gave the dark streets a 
 wild, picturesque appearance. : 
 But it was not to the moving panorama, far in 
 the street below us, that our eyes were directed ; 
 its shifting scenes had no power to hold our 
 vision in presence of the grand spectacle to which 
 our gaze was lifted. Our hotel faced Mont 
 Blanc, which rose before us in all its unearthly 
 splendor, piercing the air to the height of some 
 thing less than sixteen thousand feet. The lofty 
 Alpine range, on the western side of the valley, 
 towering above La Pilegére, threw a dense shadow 
 half-way up the sides of Mont Blanc; and strange 
 to say, the upper line of the shadow was a straight 
 line, which apparently divided the immense peak 
 in twain, so that this king of mountains seemed 
 a mountain in the sky, with its base resting in 
 depths of Cimmerian gloom. The upper half— 
 that is, between seven and eight thousand feet of 
 it—pierced the steely blue-black of the heavens, 
 and was brought into relief against them, with 
 
24 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 a magic that was miraculous. The whole face 
 of Mont Blanc was flooded with an intensity of 
 light unlike anything our eyes had ever seen; it 
 was of as pure a pink as the heart of a most 
 brilliant summer rose, and its effulgence was 
 such as almost to make us turn away our eyes 
 from its blaze. Had the whole mountain been 
 thus suffused down to the Boisson Glacier, the 
 miracle of color would not have seemed so su- 
 preme; but suddenly ruled off as it was by the 
 black shadow of the opposite range, it did not 
 seem, and we could scarcely persuade ourselves 
 that it was, a thing of earth. It appeared to float 
 in the upper firmament; or, as one at my side 
 said, it was a sudden opening of the gates of 
 Paradise, giving a glimpse of God’s throne as it 
 appeared to St. John the Divine. As G had 
 said, we felt it to be the grandest sight we need 
 
 
 
 hope to see this side Heaven. 
 
 Turning to the left the magnificent pinnacles 
 of the Aiguille Verte rose as straight into the dark 
 blue sky as a giant church-spire, lit with the 
 same indescribable glory; all its kindred peaks 
 in impenetrable shadow, save one or two that 
 were tipped at the top like torches with acrimson 
 flame. The effect was so strange upon us all that 
 we clasped our hands in a sort of divine despair, 
 
 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. 25 
 
 unable to find any expression that could convey 
 the sense of what we felt, and it is a vain attempt 
 to try to put the least gleam of its brilliancy 
 upon my dead white page. The intensity of the 
 light over Mont Blanc and the Azguille Verte was 
 that of the most gorgeous sunset; it had no sug- 
 gestion of the pallor and indistinctness of moon- 
 light: and it gave us some faint idea of the 
 height of these peaks, when we remembered that 
 the sun, which had been three hours set in the 
 valley below us, was really lighting up, with its 
 fullest blaze of splendor, their bald, snowy pin- 
 nacles, revealing their gorges to our eyes as 
 clearly as if we were looking at them through a 
 great magnifying-glass. The revelation which 
 this Alpine vision, so dazzling to our sight 
 through its intense radiance, gave us of the splen- 
 dor and majesty of God’s handiwork, was alone 
 worth crossing the ocean to see. We were all 
 overshadowed with something of the sacred and 
 exalted feeling which St. Peter expressed on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration, when he exclaimed : 
 “Master, it is good to be here!” For I am sure 
 we watched the fading out of the unearthly splen- 
 dor with a deeper sense of Almighty power than 
 perhaps had ever visited our consciousness be- 
 fore. 
 
26 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 There are Alpenglows and Alpenglows: but 
 this was one of such rare character as visitors to 
 Alpine regions may not often see. Two of our 
 number had been at Chamouny at various times, 
 but they had never happened to see anything 
 like this: and during the rest of our stay, we 
 never saw even a faint gleam of this lustrous 
 color again, though we watched vainly for it 
 through the clear starlight. 
 
 If we were all lifted into a condition of exalted 
 poetic feeling, by the rare glories on which our 
 
 
 
 eyes had been resting, G was the only one 
 
 of us who gave rhythmic expression to his emo- 
 tions. So, 1 will press his sonnet between my 
 pages, as I pressed the Edelweis gathered just at 
 the edge of the snow, between the pages of my 
 Baedeker. 
 
 ALPENGLOW. 
 
 Softly the darkness falis upon the plain, 
 And shuts the snow-capped mountains from the sight 
 Of eager eyes, that gaze with new delight 
 On Nature’s solemn grandeur, when again, 
 Like far-off echo of some sad refrain, 
 There steals a rosy-soft, unearthly light 
 Along the glistening snow, above the night, 
 That fills the valley with its dusky train. 
 Thus memories of dream-like long ago, 
 With tender, half-forgotten joys replete, 
 Gleam far above the darkness round our feet, 
 For one brief, happy moment ere they go. 
 
 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. oF 
 
 How sad they are, and strange, but passing sweet, 
 These flitting visions of Life’s Alpenglow ! 
 
 But there are multitudes of things besides 
 Alpenglows to be seen in and about Chamouny. 
 There is the ascent of Mont Blanc, which is made 
 by parties every day; for it is not quite the for- 
 midable thing it used to be. An English lady 
 accomplished the feat while we were there, and 
 was none the worse for her hazardous adventure. 
 Those making the ascent go to the Grands Mulets, 
 where there is a chalez, stored with provisions, 
 brandies, and arrangements for passing the night, 
 and from there the rest of the ascent is made the 
 next day. There are several large telescopes 
 near the principal hotels, by means of which the 
 ascending parties can be watched; and we saw 
 them distinctly, as they wound up in long, single 
 file, tied together by ropes; and shivered as they 
 crossed the planks thrown over the crevasses on 
 hands and knees. When the highest point is 
 reached, for which they keenly watch through 
 the telescope, a cannon is always fired in Cha- 
 mouny, to indicate to all that the party is safe. 
 This is repeated as soon as the tourists return to 
 the village. One can only breathe for a very few 
 moments in the rarefied air; so that an immense 
 toil has to be gone through, and about two hun- 
 
28 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 dred dollars expended, for the privilege of say- 
 ing that this air has been breathed, even for a 
 very brief space of time. 
 
 Of course everybody crosses the Mer de Glace, 
 and visits J/ontanvert, and ascends La Flegére; 
 but those of us who accomplished this, had the 
 unusual experience of crossing the Mer de Glace 
 in one of the most violent of thunder-storms. 
 Anna was a brave traveller, however, though she | 
 owned that to be sheeted in lightning, under a 
 deluge of water, with the snow crunching beneath 
 her alpenstock, was not quite as pleasant as it 
 might be. 
 
 We have ludicrous experience often of the 
 English and Continental lack of a sense of the 
 fitness of things. When Julia crossed the Jer de 
 Glace, one of the party happened to be a young 
 French lady, who was dressed for the exception- 
 ally difficult excursion, in a sky-blue silk dress, 
 with a long train, trimmed with lace, which had 
 to be ignominiously tucked under the mule’s 
 saddle. One of our fellow guests at the Hotel 
 Imperial, who was of Anna’s party, had scarcely 
 any more sensible ideas about her habiliments, 
 but the wiser American woman counselled her to 
 adopt short skirts, somewhat @ /a Bloomer, and 
 throw over all a pretty gray gossamer, which she 
 
 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. 29 
 
 accordingly did, to her great comfort and con- 
 venience. At dinner that evening, where the 
 events of the day were being discussed, Anna 
 heard an English party a few seats above her, 
 commenting quite acrimoniously upon the dress 
 of a certain lady who had crossed the ice-sea that 
 day. “And what do you think,” said the elderly 
 dowager — “of the daring of one tourist who 
 wore skirts not much longer than a ballet- 
 dancer’s, covering them with nothing but a water- 
 proof? For my part, I think American women 
 do horrid things sometimes, for I conceive that 
 this was a little scandalous!” 
 
 “ Hush-sh-sh,” said Anna, turning to the speak- 
 er; “the lady to whom you allude sits just below 
 me, and—she is an English woman!” 
 
 We all know that Englishmen cannot exist 
 without their daily “tubbing”’; and as they know 
 that among the Alps bath-tubs are not to be had 
 at every stopping-place, they actually are in the 
 habit, frequently, of carrying their great tin ap- 
 paratus with them. These are slung on the out- 
 side of the diligence; and we were much amused 
 by some of our family party describing the in- 
 numerable accidents that happened to these 
 bath-tubs. In the ascent of the Alpine steeps, 
 the fastenings would often break, and away they 
 
30 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 would roll, bounding down the mountain-side , 
 the diligence would have to stop, and the postillion 
 or guide be sent after the erratic tub; and this 
 was a thing which was continually happening. 
 But it did not convince the Englishman that it 
 was anything out of the way to be carrying such 
 unwieldy articles up the Swiss gorges, and down 
 the dangerous passes. 
 
 We went one day, to see one of the grandest 
 gorges Switzerland can show, and one which we 
 were surprised was not more visited. It is about 
 five miles from Chamouny, over a road which at 
 every turn gives one such pictures of enchant- 
 ment as can be seen nowhere out of Switzerland ; 
 it would be the idlest effort to try to give one an 
 idea of it. 
 
 This Diozas Gorge is a gigantic rift, through 
 which the glaciers of the highest Alpine ranges 
 send down a volume of water, which is lashed, 
 during its whole descent, into snowy foam. 
 
 The gorge is very narrow, and so exceedingly 
 steep as to be ascended only by means of thou- 
 sands of wooden steps, planted against the per- 
 pendicular rocks. In many places these stair- 
 ways were so fragile that they trembled beneath 
 our footsteps, and as we looked over the slight 
 barrier, it made us shudder to think of the awful 
 
 
 
ALPENGLOW AT CHAMOUNY. 31 
 
 peril of a misstep, and of the plunge into the icy 
 current, so fearfully far below. It seemed to us 
 that there must have been two miles of ascent, 
 before we attained the little chalet, from which a 
 bridge, that looks like a spider’s web, spans the 
 tremendous gorge tothe other side. But, O, the 
 exhaustion of that Alpine climbing! We would 
 not have undertaken it had we any idea of the 
 peril which it entailed. I was dragged up the 
 last two or three flights of steps by the arms, and 
 stretched upon a bench, placed for tourists to 
 rest on, brandy poured down my throat, and ice- 
 water thrown into my face, dipped from the cav- 
 ernous depths by means of a little iron bucket 
 fastened to the end of along chain. Thanks be 
 to Heaven that I did not die in the Diozas Gorge! 
 
 When after many hours we reached the bottom 
 again, and sat down to luncheon prepared for us 
 under a crimson-covered tent, we understood 
 why this gorge was not more in favor with 
 tourists; but before the sun began to sink behind 
 the western Alpine range, we had all recovered 
 sufficiently to resume our seats in the travelling- 
 catriage, and we did not regret having made an 
 ascent which seemed to us to involve as much 
 peril and exhaustion of muscle as the ascent of 
 Mont Blanc itself. For it gave us such an idea 
 
32 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 
 
 perella does in one of his Spanish Letters 
 certainly pleasant to have travelled; but—- 
 
 ty ’ 
 travel.’ 
 ai 
 te, 
 it 
 <n 
 ° 
 

 
 A PICNIC ON THE DRACHENFELS. 
 
 A morE beautiful day than the one on which 
 we made the ascent of the Drachenfels never was 
 seen out of Paradise. We fancied that there was 
 some special quality in the atmosphere along the 
 Rhine that gave it an almost intoxicating rich- 
 ness and sweetness. We were approaching the 
 districts where the most famous German wines 
 are grown; and we expected to see next day, as 
 we did, that special region lying along the Rhine, 
 where all the Johannisberg and Hock in the 
 world is made. When we beheld the compara- 
 tively limited extent of the vineyards, we could 
 well believe the assertion, that it is a rare bottle 
 of the famous wine that ever finds its way to our 
 distant shores. 
 
 In this, no doubt, lay the germ of our fancy 
 _that the air of Kénigswinter—a little cluster of 
 hotels which stretches along the foot of the 
 craggy Drachenfels—was of exceptional purity 
 and sweetness. The Rhine, at this point, winds 
 with beautiful curves, and as it was the middle 
 
 of July, the vast extent of wooded and mountain 
 3 (33) 
 
34 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 landscape was still in its full freshness of sum- 
 mer glory. The frowning rocky pile, rising in 
 almost perpendicular palisades from the very 
 water’s edge, loomed invitingly above us, crowned 
 with the remains of the ancient Castle, about 
 which the old pagan tradition still clings, like the 
 many-hued lichens that cover its hoary walls. 
 
 A picnic among the old ruins seemed very 
 attractive; so we had a wagonette, with a vast 
 umbrella over it, brought to the door of the 
 “ Berliner-Hof,” and our party of four was soon 
 spinning away over a road as smooth as a floor. 
 
 
 
 Some Baron Von , we know not what, who 
 owns the Drachenfels, and has built a very new 
 castle in its close neighborhood, has constructed 
 a zigzag railway up to its very top—a track 
 almost as dangerous-looking as that up the Righi. 
 We preferred our wagonette, however, and by 
 taking a long, circuitous route we were able to 
 drive to the very door of the little hotel near the 
 ruins. And a most exquisite drive it was! Not 
 even in England had we seen a finer gravelled 
 
 road: the country was exceedingly picturesque, 
 
 the little farms were finely cultivated, and our 
 whole route was bordered in the most beautiful 
 way by an unbroken stretch of the mountain- 
 ash, in the full splendor of its crimson berries. 
 
 
 

 
 4A PICNIC ON THE DRACHENFELS. 35 
 
 Never in my life had I seen such.gorgeous clus- 
 ters. With the cloudless sun full upon them 
 they lit up our whole pathway. 
 
 When we alighted at the door of the inn, near 
 the top of the mountain, we found the court- 
 yard—a great, green, shady one—filled with the 
 inevitable little circular white tables, that one 
 sees everywhere as soon as one crosses the Straits 
 of Dover. About these were gathered family 
 groups, and knots of tourists, sipping beer and 
 eating fruit. 
 
 The capacity of Germans, men, women, and 
 children, for guzzling beer is something marvel- 
 lous. Two persons never sit down together any- 
 where without the companionship of the ubiqui- 
 tous bottle. Tender little girls, with flossy hair, 
 and mites of boys in knickerbockers, are con- 
 stantly invited by their parents to drink to the 
 honor of Gambrinus—the supreme divinity of 
 Teuton worship. The pictures and effigies of 
 this inventor of the national drink, which we 
 meet with everywhere in the old medizval streets 
 of Continental cities, had led us to think that he 
 must have been the only god of their adoration 
 in those ancient days. 
 
 The ascent to the top of the crags on which 
 the Castle stands is very steep, and the climbing 
 
36 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 of it is by no means an easy task. It was not 
 hard to believe that these fastnesses of the rob- 
 ber Barons of old were entirely impregnable. 
 One marvels that they could ever be taken under 
 the old system of warfare. Before stepping into 
 the area of the walls of Drachenfels which re- 
 main, we passed a wonderfully preserved tower, 
 with masonry of immense thickness, built, it is 
 said, by the first Barons A.D. 900. This masonry 
 is intact yet, and looks as if it might stand until 
 the day of doom. 
 
 As we came out upon the smooth greensward, 
 on the very apex of the crag crowned by the 
 old Castle, a most magnificent sweep of country 
 met our view, such as hardly can be elsewhere 
 seen in Germany. Some two thousand feet below 
 us the clear Rhine curved and sparkled till lost 
 in the blue distance. Dotted as it was with 
 steamers and craft of every kind, floating the 
 flags of varied nationalities, the effect was pic- 
 turesque in the extreme. The Seven Mountains, 
 so linked with German legend, were all in sight; 
 and as we looked through the loop-holes of the 
 old walls sheer down the perpendicular steep, 
 we found them draped with honeysuckle and 
 columbine and ivy, a magnificent tangle of the 
 most gorgeous color the eye need ever care to 
 
 
 

 
 A PICNIC ON THE DRACHENFELS. on 
 
 restupon. It was natural enough to recall Byron’s 
 verses while gazing over the rich landscape: 
 ‘** The castled crag of Drachenfels 
 Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine, 
 Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
 Between the banks that bear the vine, 
 And hills all rich with blossom’d trees, 
 
 And fields which promise corn and wine, 
 And scattered cities crowning these ’?—— 
 
 With a strong arm about me for safety, I 
 stepped upon the high, broken crag from which 
 the legend tells us the Green Dragon, who gave 
 name to the Castle, flung himself into the Rhine 
 below; no wonder after such a leap that he never 
 was heard of more. Who does not know the 
 tradition of the Green Dragon of the Drachen- 
 fels? How he was the terror of the pagan inhab- 
 itants, because he required human victims, which 
 they sacrificed to him asa fiendish divinity, whom 
 they could only thus appease : how, when a beau- 
 tiful Christian maiden was taken captive in war, 
 and the two baron brothers quarrelled as to 
 which should have possession of her, the pagan 
 priest decided that she should be offered in sacri- 
 fice to the Dragon: how, as she advanced to the 
 mouth of his den, holding the crucifix in her 
 hand, she cried out, “Jesus, deliver me!” and 
 thrust the symbol of her faith before the three- 
 
38 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 mouthed monster: how, awe-stricken at the sight, 
 he sprang to the point of rock on which I stood, 
 and precipitated himself into the waters below: 
 how the pagan people were overcome by the 
 miracle, and forthwith turned from their false 
 worship and became Christian. 
 
 As I stood there, drinking in the diversified 
 richness of the glorious landscape, I realized the 
 underlying significancy of the old legend, and 
 felt the fullness of its meaning as I never had 
 done before. 
 
 With venturesome hardihood we leaned as far 
 as we dared over the flower-festooned crag, and 
 gathered memorial leaves and blossoms, per- 
 fectly sure while doing so that they would never 
 cross the ocean with us. We picked stones from 
 under the nine-hundred-year-old foundations, 
 though Julia suggested that we could toss them 
 all into a bag, with pebbles gathered at fifty 
 other places of note, and, like Mark Twain, oc- 
 cupy ourselves on shipboard by labelling them 
 according to our fancy. <A bit of rock from Sor- 
 rento could not be materially different from the 
 piece picked out from the wall of the Drachen- 
 fels. And besides, they both were as old as 
 Adam. 
 
 Shall I tell you of our sitting upon the green- 
 
 
 

 
 A PICNIC ON THE DRACHENFELS. 39 
 
 sward at the mouth of the Dragon’s Cavern, 
 eating pretzels and apricots and nectarines and 
 little German seed-cakes, and sipping from tiny 
 glasses our cool St. Julien? Shall I tell you how 
 the blue-eyed German Fraulein watched us, and 
 wondered at the lack of a sense of the fitness of 
 things which kept those queer Americans from 
 drinking, in such a place, to the honored memory 
 of old Gambrinus? Shall I describe our down- 
 ward drive, so rapid as to more than match the 
 railway train, that landed us at the door of the 
 Berliner-Hof in time for fable @’hote, where we ate 
 fresh fish, just taken from the Rhine, of almost 
 the richest flavor we had ever tasted—fish whose 
 ancestors, at a far distant date, had no doubt 
 feasted on the scaly body of the Green Dragon 
 of the Drachenfels? No need for this, but I 
 must be permitted to say that it will not be easy 
 ever to blur in my memory that vision of beauty 
 seen from the walls of the old robber Castle. 
 
 As we sat over our dessert, we could not help 
 drawing contrasts between the groups we had 
 just left, picnicing in the great court-yard of 
 the Drachenfels inn, with the same class of people 
 in our own country. ‘“ Where in all America,” 
 asked the Professor, “would you find artisans 
 and families of laboring people going such a 
 
40 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRA?IEHS. 
 
 distance to drink beer and eat pretzels, with 
 wives and children, on a Friday afternoon? Say 
 what you will, our working people at home don’t 
 know how to put into life, or rather how to get 
 out of it, anything like as much of simple, inno- 
 cent enjoyment as these toiling Continentals.” 
 
 And we were all fain to agree with him, for 
 ever since we had been on the Continent, we had 
 been meeting everywhere these domestic groups 
 out on pleasure excursions; the burly father 
 with a little tot in his arms, the mother with the 
 unfailing baby, and three or four little toddlers, 
 at their heels, dragging along the lunch-basket. 
 We found them on top of the Righi, on the edge 
 of the Black Forest, on the shores of Lake Gen- 
 eva, among the passes of Switzerland, in the 
 aisles of great cathedrals, and among medieval 
 ruins. And yet these German peasants have 
 infinitely less, as a class, to make them happy 
 than our laboring people at home. 
 
 
 

 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE. 
 
 “TI HAD not supposed,” innocently remarked a 
 lady sitting opposite me at the breakfast-table 
 at the Dome Hotel, in the ancient city of the 
 Three Kings, “that Cologne was remarkable for 
 much beyond its wonderful Cathedral, and its 
 Jean Maria Farina’s Eau de Cologne; and yet 
 I heard you speaking this morning of its very 
 curious skull-caps. If they are a matter of com- 
 merce, I must secure one to carry home.” 
 
 “As to their being a matter of commerce,” re- 
 plied Julia, who had been at Cologne before, and 
 knew all about its ins and outs, “I cannot make 
 answer; but in your rounds this morning you 
 will have an opportunity to put the question to 
 some of our guides.” 
 
 Was it not Goethe who called the Cologne 
 Cathedral, “‘a miracle of frostwork in stone’’? 
 We realized the truth of the suggestion, as we 
 stood in presence of its two immense towers, 
 flooded with the clear morning light, and tried 
 to compass in some degree the magnificence of 
 
 the splendid structure, which required so many 
 (4) 
 
42 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 centuries to bring to its perfect completion. To 
 stand within its vaulted entrance, and gaze upon 
 the countless groups of carved figures niched 
 on either side and above it, each so perfect as 
 fairly to take one’s breath, makes one feel how 
 impossible it is, rightly to estimate the infinite 
 richness of the details of this mighty structure. 
 To look aloft to the countless statues that peo- 
 ple the entire front, makes one grow dizzy with 
 wonder. To stand sufficiently distant to take in 
 at one glance, the immense height of the building, 
 with its heaven-piercing towers, whose splendid 
 pinnacles carry up the same detail of grandest 
 carving to their topmost point, fills the mind with 
 a sort of awe and reverence for the handiwork 
 
 of man. Then to pass under the forest of arches, — 
 
 up the grand aisle, and lose one’s self amid the 
 splendors of the gorgeous interior, is sufficient 
 to arouse one’s enthusiasm almost to the pitch 
 of painfulness. However I might pile exple- 
 tives together, they would convey little idea of 
 the grandeur that dazed our sight, as we stood 
 before the tomb of the Three Kings, and looked 
 down through the interminable Gothic arches of 
 those superb aisles. 
 
 The richness of the stone carvings, down to 
 their minutest details, is beyond conception. 
 
 ee a ee ee a 
 
 
 
 ae 
 

 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE. 43 
 
 Everywhere we have lacework, wrought not 
 with needle and linen floss, but with chisel and 
 stone: eight centuries of artist life and genius 
 have religiously wrought themselves into these 
 roofs, and arches, and pillars, and monuments, 
 and statues, and altars. 
 
 Four years ago, one of our number, who does 
 not happen to be with us to-day, was here; and 
 in presence of the pretty German maiden who 
 waited on himself and Jeanette, as they made 
 some purchases, was lamenting the unfinished 
 condition of the towers. 
 
 **Come back, mein Herr,” she interpolated be- 
 tween his lamentations, “come back in four 
 years and you will find it finished.” 
 
 ““That’s what the people of Cologne have been 
 saying these two hundred years—” 
 
 “But this time, mein Herr, come back and you 
 will see.” 
 
 “Well, if I return within four years, and find 
 the hideous derrick, which has been resting on 
 yon tower for a century, gone, you shall have as 
 pretty a gold medal as Cologne can furnish, 
 mein fraulein !” 
 
 If he follows us within a week or so, he will 
 have to make the fraulein happy with his pres- 
 ent, if she can be found. 
 
44 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 I am not writing a book of travels; and am 
 therefore under no obligation to deal statisti- 
 cally, in tourist fashion, with Cologne Cathedral, 
 or anything else. I wish rather that I could re- 
 produce the droll English of the guide whose 
 duty it is to show the tombs of the Three Kings: 
 “Dis ish de tome of de Tree King—Caspar, 
 Melchior, and Balthasar—de grands Mages de 
 l’Orient—” 
 
 “ But if they were the Magi of the East,” chaffed 
 a brisk young American tourist standing by, 
 “how came they ever to find their way to Co- 
 logne?” 
 
 The guide, who could not be interrupted in 
 the lesson which he only knew by rote, repeated: 
 “Dis ish de tome of de Tree King—Caspar, 
 Melchior, and Balthasar—de grands Mages de 
 Orient, wko vas buried here by Charlemagne 
 in eight hunder, fourteen—” 
 
 ‘“No, no; that cannot be. Barbarossa brought 
 them to Milan in the time of the first crusade—”’ 
 
 “Ste unterbrechen! Dis ish de tome of de 
 Tree King—Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar— 
 de grand Mages de 1’Orient, who vas buried here 
 by Charlemagne in eight hunder, fourteen, what 
 time de Cathedral vas founded—’” 
 
 “But, my good fellow, Charlemagne was in 
 
 
 
 a 
 2 ie ae 7 
 
 
 

 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE. 45 
 
 his grave two or three centuries before the re- 
 mains of the Three Kings were ever discovered.” 
 
 But to no purpose was the guide set right; for 
 the fourth time he began: “Dis ish de tome of 
 de Tree King—” But the saucy students had 
 had sport enough out of the puzzled guide, and 
 did not wait for the continued iteration. 
 
 It is not necessary to repeat here the old Ger- 
 man legend as to the source of the architectural 
 design of the Cathedral,—how his satanic maj- 
 esty availed himself of the crazy hopelessness of 
 the architect who was employed to furnish the 
 design, and supplied him with the very one after 
 which the “dom” was built, on condition that 
 he would consent to resign his soul to him when 
 the structure was complete, demanding that he 
 should sign the compact with his blood. As we 
 gazed along the vistas of the long-drawn inte- 
 rior, we were disposed to find some truth in the 
 old story, inasmuch as the architect would seem 
 to have had some superhuman help to conceive 
 such a design. 
 
 The relics of the Cathedral are marvellous; 
 part of the Theban Legion is buried here; 
 which fact we accepted with the same faith as 
 that of the entombment of the Three Kings 
 The unnumbered paintings that line the walls are, 
 
46 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 many of them, by the most celebrated of the Old 
 Masters. But it is the Church of St. Ursula 
 that is fullest of the true odor of sanctity; and 
 as the visitor stands in the side chambers, and 
 runs an eye up and down the walls, which are 
 mosaiced from floor to ceiling with the bones 
 of the saint, and her eleven thousand virgins 
 arranged in every possible pattern and device, it 
 must be confessed the odor of this sanctity be- 
 comes oppressive. 
 
 “What a vast number of battlefields,” ex- 
 claimed our young M.D., “it must have taken 
 to furnish human remains enough to inlay these 
 walls!” 
 
 Here it was that we came upon the skull-caps 
 that our friend had inquired about at breakfast ; 
 but we found they were not purchasable, or we 
 surely would have brought away some trophies. 
 Arranged on innumerable shelves were the skulls 
 of the famous eleven thousand maidens (we ac- 
 cepted the number), every skull being covered 
 with a crimson, or blue cloth, or velvet cap, most 
 elaborately embroidered, with sacred devices, in 
 gold or silver thread. It surely was a hideous 
 sight to see! It fairly made our hearts ache 
 over the blank superstition of the multitude of 
 pious young nuns, whose fingers had lovingly 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE. 47 
 
 wrought all this decoration for this wretched 
 débris of humanity. We were mistaken in saying 
 that skull-caps were not marketable articles in 
 Cologne; for we found that extra fees had to be 
 paid for a sight of them, and that thus they are 
 a source of great revenue to the Church. 
 
 In this same Church of St. Ursula we were 
 gravely shown, by a young priest, an alabaster 
 vase, very much discolored and badly cracked, 
 which was one of the water-pots at the marriage- 
 feast at Cana. We looked at it as reverently as 
 we could, and asked no questions about the 
 “two or three firkins,” seeing this one would not 
 hold half a gallon. With a certain degree of 
 awe, two of the nails which had pierced our 
 Lord’s feet were shown to us; and we were per- 
 mitted to look at the forefinger of St. Mark, 
 preserved in a glass case, and the fleshless arm 
 of the Centurion who pierced the Saviour’s 
 side. An even bushel of fine white teeth was 
 shown to us, the teeth of the poor virgins, which 
 would have been a treasure-trove to some mod- 
 ern dentist. 
 
 The Cologne markets were much of acuriosity 
 to us. A certain broad square, or street, is set 
 apart for the display and sale of every imagin- 
 able sort of vegetable and fruit. In the early 
 
48 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 part of the day the entire square is as thickly 
 covered over with little stools as it is possible 
 for them to be placed; and here the market- 
 people sit, with their panniers around them, with 
 gay-colored shawls tied over their heads, in the 
 midst of such a babel as the Plain of Shinar 
 could not exceed. We tried to make our way 
 amongst them; but they were as closely packed 
 as a box of sardines. For the most part they 
 seemed to be very poverty-smitten, and we 
 stopped now and then to compassionate a poor 
 mother with a basket of cabbages on one side 
 of her, and a basket of babies on the other. Yet 
 _ they all chattered away at the top of their voices, 
 almost setting us wild with their Teutonic jar- 
 gon, which was very incomprehensible to the 
 Professor, who was the only one among us that 
 talked German. One may have Goethe and 
 Schiller at his tongue’s end, and yet not be able 
 to comprehend when a German market-woman 
 tries to make him know the price of her apricots 
 and plums. I verily believe that our own country 
 is the only one on the face of the earth, in which 
 the entire population can perfectly understand 
 each other’s lingo. 
 
 There are many galleries of paintings in Co- 
 logne; but they dwindle into insignificance under 
 
 
 
 ; 
 i 
 : 
 ‘ 
 
 
 

 
 THE SKULL-CAPS OF COLOGNE. 49 
 
 the mighty shadow of its grand Cathedral, which 
 seems to dwarf everything else which the old 
 city contains. As we walked about it, and tried 
 to take in the true conception of its magnificent 
 proportions, we longed for a conflagration or a 
 cyclone to come and sweep away the multitude 
 of low, miserable buildings that crowd upon it 
 and help to mar its superb unity. There is ab- 
 solutely no point from which the coup a’ ail is in 
 any degree satisfying; so persistently does mean- 
 ness and squalor thrust itself upon its greatness. 
 
 4, 
 
THE OUBLIETTES OF CHILLON. 
 
 SurELY there are no lakes in the world equal 
 to these Swiss ones, embedded as they are, like 
 sapphires and emeralds in their setting of snow 
 mountains! Of the entire eleven of them, into 
 whose deep waters we have looked, not one is so 
 beautiful as the Lake of the Four Cantons; and 
 not one is so historic as Lake Leman; :or to give 
 it its every-day name, this calm Lake of Geneva, 
 into whose crystal waters we have been gazing 
 for days past. But we were not content with 
 what we could see of it, as we crossed and re- 
 crossed from one shore to the other, in our drives 
 “and walks about this old French city of Geneva. 
 So yesterday we stepped on board one of the 
 swift steamers, that every little while are passing 
 before the windows of our pretty hotel, and de- 
 termined to explore the lake to its very end, that 
 is to the Castle of Chillon. 
 
 It would be hardly possible to imagine a day 
 fitted for more perfect enjoyment. There is a 
 quality about the atmosphere of these Swiss lakes 
 that is something indescribable—a crystalline 
 
 (50) 
 
 
 

 
 
 * 
 tee 
 
 ar 
 

 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF CHILLON. 51 
 
 transparency that enables one to see, with perfect 
 distinctness, Mont Blanc, and some of its sister 
 snow-peaks fifty miles away—a freshness that 
 touches the cheek like the breath of Eden, and 
 an exhilaration in the air that gives wings to the 
 spirit, and exaltation to the thought, and a rare- 
 fied buoyancy to the whole nature. One grows 
 mercurial as one glides over these sapphire wa- 
 ters. Wings sprout about our head and feet; and 
 wandering along these shores, we seem rather to 
 float than walk grossly on solid earth. As we 
 sat upon the awned deck, we felt as if we were 
 skimming charmed waves whose light ripples 
 must certainly wash the shores of the Fortunate 
 Isles ! 
 
 The variations, the curves, the windings of 
 these shores, fairly bewitch one with their beauty. 
 Towns, villages, hamlets, and chateaux give the 
 shores an embroidery of life, intermingled every 
 now and then with glimpses of open country, 
 which alternate with mountain ramparts, that 
 rise like solid walls of greenery from the very 
 water’s edge. Not many miles from Geneva we 
 stopped at a pretty little watering-place, where 
 were crowds of visitors—invalids in their bath- 
 chairs, ladies in their little landaus, and innumer- 
 able babies, who were being trolled up and down 
 
52 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 the gravel walks by their donnes. The shade was 
 so dense all around these baths that hat and 
 parasol were discarded by the ladies; and it 
 seemed a most tempting place for the ruralizing 
 Genevese. We made search here for some Amer- 
 ican friends who had been in Europe a year or 
 two; but they had left the place, and so we kept 
 on our way toward the end of the lake. 
 
 It is hard to realize that the Castle of Chillon 
 is fifty miles from Geneva. We left the Beau Ri- 
 vage after an early breakfast, and by midday 
 were at the village which has grown up in the 
 neighborhood of the chateau, where we had our 
 choice of going by row-boat or rail to the little 
 peninsula on which the towers of Chillon stand. 
 With such a sky and water about us, we prefer- 
 red the boat; and as a dozen of them presented. 
 themselves in the cove, our eyes were quick to 
 discern one that floated the American flag. So 
 we took our seats on the bright cushions of 
 L’ Audace, and were soon at the foot of the long 
 stairway that leads from the Castle down to the 
 water; for the chateau is wholly surrounded with 
 water, being connected with the land by means 
 of a long drawbridge. 
 
 This old haunt and home, and state prison of 
 the ancient Dukes of Savoy, is in a fine state of 
 
 
 

 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF. CHILLON. | 53 
 
 preservation ; its various round-pointed towers 
 are intact, and there is about it scarcely any 
 symptom of decay; the walls are white and per- 
 fect, and show with fine relief the clustering ivy 
 that drapes them. 
 
 It gives one a sense of suffocation to pass so 
 instantly from the free rich atmosphere of the 
 lake, and the careering winds, that were driving 
 the light clouds over the sky, into the dusky 
 walls of this gloomy prison-house. The Ama- 
 deuses, and Humberts of the ancient line of 
 Dukes, had nerves made of well-wrought steel, or 
 they never could have dwelt over these ghostly 
 dungeons. And yet so magnificent are the views 
 in every direction, that there must have been 
 somewhere in their cruel natures a soft spot ca- 
 pable of being moved by the splendid richness 
 of the outer world about them. The mockery 
 between this external glory and the horror of 
 the dungeons into which we stepped, quite dis- 
 turbed our equanimity, for shuddering shadows 
 seemed to haunt every corner of these dark pre- 
 cincts. A bluff Savoyard, with a great bunch of 
 ponderous keys, received us at the top of the 
 stairway, and conducted us across the paved 
 court-yard; and without any softening of effect 
 by gradual approach, led us straight down a 
 
54 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 flight of worn stone steps into lower chambers 
 of the Castle, at the extremity of which are the 
 dungeons. The first apartment is a dreary chapel, 
 so dark that no leaf of a missal could have been 
 read there at midday without artificial light. It 
 is not to be supposed that these wicked old Dukes 
 frequented the chapel, as the welfare of their 
 souls did not enter much into their calculations. 
 From the chapel we wound through a narrow 
 passage, which seemed to us a pathway of hor- 
 rors. The guide pointed to a deep niche in the 
 immensely thick foundation-walls, which had an. 
 opening at the top, now built over. Through 
 this circular hole the dead bodies of the miser- 
 able wretches, who had been racked, flayed to 
 death, or sent out of life by other ingenuities of 
 refined torture, were thrown down into this niche, 
 within whose half circle we stood. Immediately 
 across the passage-way from it was a black sub- 
 terranean opening, like a well, termed by the old 
 chroniclers most rightly, an oudlzette. Into this 
 opening the bodies of the victims were cast, and 
 falling to the bottom of its eight hundred feet 
 of water, were swept out into the depths of the 
 beautiful lake. What a cold shiver it gave one 
 to look down into its inscrutable depths ! 
 
 This narrow passage terminated at the door 
 
 
 

 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF CHILLON. 55 
 
 of the principal dungeon—Bonnivard’s Dungeon, 
 as it has come to be called; though multitudes 
 of prisoners groaned out their lives there, whose 
 fates were more terrible than his—for seven 
 years of chains and anguish at last brought him 
 release—but for these there was only the release 
 of the rack or the oubiiette. In the strict sense of 
 the word, this is not a dungeon, for there are at 
 least a couple of slits in the ten-feet-thick walls, 
 through which faint indications of daylight came. 
 Still it was so dark that, although the day was a 
 very brilliant one, and it was not far past high 
 noon, I had to grope over the floor, which was 
 roughly paved, for the pebble or two which I 
 wanted to bring away, to have set for my boys’ 
 watch-chains. Never, from one of these slits, 
 totally inaccessible to the prisoner, could Bonni- 
 vard have caught the least glimpse of the beau- 
 tiful little island, of which Byron speaks, right 
 opposite the chateau, on which he fancies the cap- 
 tive’s eyes must often longingly have rested. 
 The dungeon is long and low, and through its 
 centre run the seven historical pillars, great squat 
 masses of stone, to which Bonnivard and his 
 brothers were chained. The staple and links of 
 the rusty chain still remain. I passed them rev- 
 erently through my hands, not troubling myself 
 
56 ' A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 to question whether they could actually be the 
 same under which the pulses of this martyr of 
 Liberty so long throbbed. Around the pillar 
 there was a circular groove, distinctly worn by 
 years of torturing tread. Just above the staple 
 was rudely scored the name of Byron, done by 
 his own hand. Standing there under the too 
 overwhelming rush of thought and emotion, one 
 could only wonder that Byron, with all his power 
 and pathos, had not infused with a deeper indig- 
 mation, and a more shuddering thrill, the story 
 of Bonnivard’s captivity: though he has well 
 said— 
 ‘*Chillon !—thy prison is a holy place, 
 And thy sad floor, an altar,-for ’twas trod 
 Until his very steps have left a trace 
 
 Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
 By Bonnivard !” 
 
 From these chambers of horror, we ascend to 
 the apartments overhead, where the old Dukes 
 of Savoy and their Duchesses were accustomed 
 to hold princely revels in the ancient day. Right 
 over the dungeon were the Halls of Justice and 
 of Execution. There was the spot where a 
 species of guillotine had stood; on the other 
 side the place where the fiendish rack rent limb 
 from limb. And yet from these dens of cruelty, 
 
 
 

 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF CHILLON. 57 
 
 we looked, as we stood in the embrasures of the 
 deep windows, out upon as magnificent a scene 
 as mortal eye need ever to rest on. 
 
 Beyond these halls were the apartments of the 
 Duchesses; a bed-chamber, and a dressing-room, 
 with a great corner chimney-piece. Thick as 
 these walls are, the ears of her Serene Highness 
 must sometimes have been regaled with shrieks 
 and groans of the victims just beyond her; and 
 it must have been necessary sometimes for her 
 ladies to thrum their lutes and guitars pretty 
 Joudly to stifle the cry of anguish. 
 
 Farther on is the great hall, where the Dukes 
 of Savoy were accustomed to hold wassail after 
 being tired out with their troublesome businé$s 
 of condemning prisoners at the other end of the 
 long suite of apartments. There was an im- 
 mense fireplace in this hall. Its walls had once 
 been frescoed, but only faint traces remained of 
 the pictures, and around the frieze at the top of 
 the wall, ran a long, black-letter legend, whose 
 pious import we could only faintly make out. 
 These great rooms seemed almost as suffocating 
 as the dungeons below, haunted as they were by 
 the memories of the cold-blooded cruelties of 
 the men who had inhabited them. 
 
 We were glad to come out into the sunshine 
 
58 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 of the court-yard; although it was only that the 
 guide might lead us across to another wing of 
 the Castle, fearful with still further associations 
 of horror. We were taken into a room, at one 
 end of which was another oudlzette, with a strong 
 iron bar around its edge. The guide bade us 
 look down. There were half a dozen steps, and 
 beyond them, impenetrable darkness. To this 
 spot prisoners who were more than ordinarily 
 offensive to their tyrannical rulers, were con- 
 ducted blindfold, and were bidden to step down, 
 entirely unaware of the fate that awaited them; 
 they stepped, and plunged eighty feet into the 
 waters below. “And, Madame,” said the Savoy- 
 afd guide—with a chord of pity in his tone—“ Jez 
 le lac a plus de mille pieds de profondeur, et on en rien 
 entend dire plus—jamais, jamais.” 
 
 I can hardly say that we were sorry to get 
 beyond the shadow of walls that seemed as if 
 they must be cemented with blood; and as we 
 took our seats in the little Audace, and were 
 rowed out mid-stream, we looked back at the 
 Chateau, lifting its towers so beautifully from 
 its jutting peninsula, and drew a long breath of 
 relief and of thanksgiving, that the world had 
 grown so much better since those diabolical 
 days of the past. 
 
 nb 
 —, P 
 
 
 

 
 THE OUBLIETTES OF CHIELON. 59 
 
 At the little village of Chillon, we varied our 
 experience of the Lake and its lovely environ- 
 ments, by taking the train back to Geneva. 
 This led us through many an historic point. At 
 Vevay, Rousseau forced himself upon our mem- 
 ories; and Clarens compelled us to think of 
 “La Nouvelle Heloise.” The ponderous volumes 
 of Gibbon’s “ Decline and Fall” seemed to lumber 
 into view at Lausanne; and we did not wonder 
 that the self-indulgent historian loved to linger 
 at so beautiful a spot, while he leisurely gave 
 himself up to his bombastic periods. Coppet 
 had far tenderer associations for us; we liked to 
 fancy that we could see the brilliant Corinne 
 behind the grim brick walls of the lawn; Cha- 
 teaubriand, or Benjamin Constant, or Ampére 
 or Madame Recamier on the garden seat beside 
 her. And while we sympathized with the fact 
 of her exile, it did not seem to us that there was 
 anything very severe in being banished from the 
 salons of Paris, when her banishment led her to 
 such a retreat as these shaded walks of Coppet. 
 
 Ferney is so bound up with the memory of 
 Voltaire that we were obliged to think of the 
 bitter scoffer, whether we would or no; but we 
 did not turn aside even to read his inscription 
 over the door of the church, which he was so 
 
60 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 generous as to erect to God, if indeed it be still 
 there. We have the same feeling towards his 
 brother scoffer, Rousseau, when we come upon 
 memorials of him, as we do here even in this 
 city of the stern Calvin. We pass the lovely 
 
 little island every day, which bears his name, 
 
 and his statue erected upon it; but as we cross 
 the long bridge we never turn aside with pilgrim 
 reverence to do homage even to the acknowl- 
 edged genius of the man, whose warped prin- 
 ciples had so much to do with bringing about 
 the most fearful tragedy of modern times, __ 
 
 
 

 
 THE “ALLEES” OF ANTWERP. 
 
 WueEn I was a child of ten, a book of English 
 engravings, whose exceeding beauty I have 
 scarcely ever seen equalled since, was made a 
 present to a member of the family. . Among 
 these engravings was an unusually fine one of 
 the approach to the city of Antwerp, by the wide 
 mouth of the Scheldt. This picture fascinated 
 my gaze above all the others; and I was never 
 weary of poring over its attractive points. Not 
 that I had artistic taste enough to appreciate the 
 fine rendering of water and sky, of the high Dutch 
 vessels in the offing, or of the airy-looking spires 
 and church-towers. But somehow I was magnet- 
 ized by its rare beauty, and fancied that this Ant- 
 werp must be the centre of an earthly paradise. 
 ‘My geography was so much at fault, that I actu- 
 ally did not know whether it was a European or 
 Asiatic city: with the soft richness that seemed 
 to hang about the picture, I had mixed ideas of 
 the Orient, and was disposed to think it must be 
 somewhere in the classic East or South: for if 
 
 my modern geography was rather shaky, I at 
 (61) 
 
62 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 least could read Latin a little, and knew more 
 about Lemnos and Chios, and the Peloponnesus, 
 than I did about the geography of the West. 
 
 But deep as was my interest and mystification, 
 it never occurred to me to make known my per- 
 pléxity, and have it removed, which, of course, a 
 question would have been potent to accomplish. 
 It is very strange how children make caches for 
 themselves, carefully concealing their anxiety 
 about what really they have an intense desire to 
 know. They do not forget their cache, but in 
 thought continually return to it, never impart- 
 ing to any one a suspicion of its existence; until 
 some day the perplexity is removed, and all is 
 made plain to them. This was the case with my 
 picture, over which I think I mystified myself 
 for a couple of years. And now, here is the Ant- 
 werp of my childish fancy—not so oriental-look- 
 ing, not so soft and beautiful, not such an ex- 
 quisite mingling of sky and water; and yet the 
 Antwerp of my young imaginings. 
 
 All the cities of Holland have a beauty of 
 their own, which makes them unlike other cities 
 of the Continent. We have been quite capti- 
 vated with the quiet loveliness of The Hague. 
 We have rocked in the harbor of Rotterdam, and 
 admired the Dutch quaintness of the old com- 
 
 
 

 
 THE “ ALLEES” OF ANTWERP. 63 
 
 mercial emporium. We have sauntered and 
 driven about the embowered streets of Am- 
 sterdam, crossing as many of its innumerable 
 bridges as we could compass, gazing up their 
 pretty vistas, and owning it to be quite worthy 
 of its name, “the Northern Venice.” We have 
 grown patriotic at Leyden, and done honor to 
 the heroes of the Dutch Republic; and at the lit- 
 tle city of Delf, we have been tempted to burden 
 ourselves with a load of its pretty ware. Ant- 
 werp is unlike these other cities in some re- 
 spects, and has marked characteristics of its 
 own. As we drove about its wide, clean streets, 
 we found in the most important of them what 
 are there called “ad/ées.”” These consist of two 
 asphalt-paved strips, of some fifteen feet in width, 
 having close rows of shade-trees on either side, 
 and furnished throughout with iron benches, and 
 occasional little tables. The shade is so dense 
 that it is almost impervious to the sun at mid- 
 day. Here the dJourgeois classes take their ease, 
 their fresh air, and their beer. Especially are 
 they the resort of women, who bring their chil- 
 dren, and their baskets of work, and their din- 
 ners, and spend the day, with as much apparent 
 freedom as if they were in their own home. 
 
 The license allowed the working-classes abroad, 
 
64 4 HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 and the provision made for their comfort, I have 
 had occasion to speak of before. Democratic 
 America does not provide, in her municipal 
 arrangements, for the accommodation and com- 
 fort of the poor, as do the monarchical countries, 
 The gardens and parks of English, and especially 
 of Continental cities, seem to be kept up for the 
 entertainment of those who have no gardens of 
 their own. In the finest pleasure-grounds of 
 Paris, | saw a woman, one day, with her patterns 
 all spread on the benches, cutting out a pair of 
 knickerbockers for one of the six little fellows 
 capering about her. The police look on com- 
 placently, and never say them nay. Between 
 these “ad/ées,’ and on either side, are carriage- 
 ways, making a very wide and airy street. 
 
 One of our most vivid associations with Ant- 
 werp was, of course, its close connection with 
 Flemish art; and one of our earliest errands 
 was to the Cathedral, to see the two famous 
 pictures of Rubens, “The Elevation” and “The 
 Descent from the Cross.’”’ I had heard some 
 friends say, that they were fully repaid for hav- 
 ing crossed the ocean, simply by a sight of these 
 pictures. We did not realize this. Two of our 
 party had been here before, but not one of us 
 
 es 4 
 
 
 

 
 THE “ ALLEES” OF ANTWERP. 65 
 
 was able to get up any rhapsodical enthusiasm. 
 To deny that the pictures are fine, would be to 
 condemn our artistic taste utterly; but the char- 
 acteristic gorgeousness of Rubens manifests it- 
 self as much here, where all should be severe, and 
 chaste, and subdued, as in the magnificent Medi- 
 cean pictures of the Louvre. The Mary and the 
 Martha of “The Descent” were portraits of his 
 two beautiful wives, and are very exquisite. 
 
 The perfunctory way in which guides hurry 
 one over pictures and through galleries, is very 
 unsatisfactory and annoying. Great curtains 
 were suspended over these two pictures, and not 
 an inch would the guide withdraw them, till he 
 had summoned up all the tourists in the Ca- 
 thedral, arranged them in rows before the can- 
 vas, and then gone about between these rows, 
 with the precision of a beadle, and taken up the 
 prescribed fee from every one of them. And 
 then, there were no lingering examinations al- 
 lowed. Every tourist was supposed to desire to 
 look upon them just so long; when the fact was, 
 that some American ladies there turned upon 
 their heel, with scarcely half a glimpse, whilst 
 we would fain have sat before “ The Descent” for 
 at least one ungrudged hour. 
 
 5 
 
66 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 In one of the little side chapels, in another 
 church, we saw the tombs of the artist and his 
 two wives. The beautiful marble figures were be- 
 ing very vigorously scrubbed by two stout men. 
 
 We drove to Rubens’ house, in one of the prin- 
 cipal streets. It has been very grand in its day, 
 and even yet, its architecture is impressive; for 
 the Master, Peter Paul, lived in a very princely 
 way, and accumulated an immense fortune. We 
 were glad to find, in one of the small squares, an 
 impressive statue of Van Dyck, whose airy, cool 
 canvases are in such striking contrast with the 
 heavy richness of Rubens and Rembrandt, and 
 other Masters of the Flemish School. 
 
 Nothing in Antwerp surprised us more than 
 what we saw in our drives about its very exten- 
 sive wharves. Nowhere, in all the cities of the 
 Continent, did we see such immense lumber- 
 yards as we find here. One would think that 
 the forests of Norway had been levelled to fur- 
 nish them. We also came to the conclusion that 
 the oil-wells of the United States had emptied 
 themselves upon the borders of the Scheldt. 
 We positively saw acres covered as thickly with 
 coal-oil barrels as it was possible for them to be. 
 Had we not seen it with our own eyes, we could 
 
 
 

 
 THE ‘‘\ ALLEES” OF ANTWERP. 67 
 
 scarcely have believed that so much petroleum 
 was exported to Europe. 
 
 This Dutch language is most amusing: but 
 Holland is a pleasant land, notwithstanding 
 its ridiculous language; and the order, clean- 
 liness, thrift, prosperity, and happiness, which 
 everywhere met our observation, wonderfully 
 commended the country to us. In these respects 
 it is in strong contrast to parts of Germany 
 through which we travelled. But one cannot 
 help wondering, as one thinks of the influence 
 of this land upon Medizval Art, what the old 
 Flemish Masters found here to feed their imagin- 
 ation. Pale skies, flat lagunes, sluggish canals, 
 squat trees, monotonous pastures, sleek cows, 
 lazy canal-boats, stocky men and women in blue 
 blouses and short petticoats, and little two-year- 
 old tots, with coats, waistcoats, and trousers cut 
 exactly after the fashion of grown men, are not 
 the material out of which to construct Holy Fam- 
 ilies, ecstatic St. Cecilias, pathetic Magdalenes, 
 severe Junos, magnetic Venuses, or. adorable 
 Dianas! And yet such have had their birth here. 
 The first artists who ever used oils in painting 
 were the Flemish Van Eycks. 
 
 And what is there here, to inspire that enthu- 
 
68 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 siasm for liberty, and that readiness to die for it, 
 which of old characterized all the Low Coun- 
 tries ? We look to mountain lands, for our Bruces 
 and our Tells. And yet these flats of the Neth- 
 erlands have given the world as grand heroes as 
 ever have died for faith and country. i} 
 
 
 
it lan si 1 py a rl a al te et el aa ae RR el eee 
 
 a a a a a TS a Sl a Sa Se 
 
 
 
 = —— _ outs = eo. a ne ge A a oes 
 
@ 
 i swe eT iieied 
 Sl: wap ey 
 
 + 
 
 
 

 
 ’S GRAVENHAGE 
 
 OUDE DOELEN. 
 
 Our linguistic accomplishments had need to be 
 of a much greater range than they are, to get 
 along with any comfort in these curious old 
 Low Countries. English, French, German, and 
 Latin availed us little or nothing; and what 
 seemed to us the absurdity of High and Low 
 Dutch, has been a matter of constant amuse- 
 ment, as we tried to make it out in the shop 
 windows or on the street signs; it looked like 
 English knocked into pt; and we found it im- 
 possible to hold any but the most meagre com- 
 munication with the inhabitants. Nobody but 
 the waiters at the hotels seemed to understand 
 any tongue but their own; it was scarcely less 
 difficult for us to carry on shopping transactions 
 at The Hague or Amsterdam, than it would have 
 been at Shanghai. We had to show our money, 
 and questioningly hold our fingers up, to find out 
 the number of pieces we were to pay. Their 
 spelling is so farcical our eyes could not get 
 
 used to it. Awyksdaalder, Kwart gulden, dubbeltje, 
 (69) 
 
70 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 were coins which we did not pretend to name. 
 The Professor was always thanking his stars 
 that it had not been his fate to have been a 
 school-boy in Holland, and have to be taught 
 spelling there. 
 
 We could not divine why the old city should 
 be called ’s Gravenhage, till by some research we 
 found out that this was the name of a hunting- 
 seat, built in 1200, by an old Dutch Count, and 
 called “The Count’s Hedge,” which the word 
 signifies. : 
 
 Our place of abode while in La Haye, as the 
 French call it, was at the Oude Doelen, immedi- 
 ately opposite the Zournooiveld. This Oude Doelen, 
 or Vieux Doelen, as it is more generally called, 
 was founded in 1407; and as the city owes its 
 origin to a hunting-lodge, it is natural enough 
 that Doelen—the “Shooting - Place’ — should 
 come to be the name of the house erected for 
 the knights who met together here, from all 
 parts of the Low Countries, to amuse and per- 
 fect themselves in cross-bow practice. These 
 knights owned St. George as their patron; and 
 they belonged to a guild called the “ Brother- 
 hood of St. George.” The Vieux Doelen is still 
 surmounted by a figure of their old patron saint. 
 
 The Zournooiveld is a large park, which was 
 
 
 

 
 ’S GRAVENHAGE. vai 
 
 the tournament-ground in the olden days. It re- 
 mains much as it was, being as thickly crowded 
 as a forest with ancient-looking trees. As arch- 
 ery was the favorite form of manly exercise 
 when the Doelen was established, the hotel bore 
 on its front, as a sort of escutcheon, the bull’s- 
 eye of the target, which is what the Dutch word 
 doel means. It is only within later years that 
 the bull’s-eye has been removed. 
 
 There is something very quaint and curious 
 about this old haunting-place of the Doelen 
 knights. Its architecture is somewhat modern- 
 ized; but it was evidently built for posterity, 
 and looks as if it might last for five hundred 
 years to come. It was a matter of no little in- 
 terest to us, that this very hotel had been the 
 home of Peter the Great while he was learning 
 ship-building in Holland. And G 
 tickled their imaginations by believing that 
 
 
 
 and Julia 
 
 their respective apartments were each, the one 
 used by his Imperial Majestv. Great pride is 
 taken in the historic register of the hotel, and 
 travellers are shown the long list of royal per- 
 sonages who have, within the last five hundred 
 years, honored, as guests, its walls. It is situated 
 in one of the most beautiful parts of the city, 
 near the Voorhout, and not very far from the gates 
 
42 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 that lead into “ Het Bosch,” the beautiful park, 
 which is as free, as a drive and pleasure-haunt— 
 to all the populace, as to the king himself. 
 There is no question but that The Hague is 
 one of the most attractive cities on the Conti- 
 nent. There is a quaintness and old-world life 
 about it that is captivating. Its stout burghers, 
 stamping about in their old-fashioned boots, and 
 the antiquely dressed women, with their frilled 
 caps, and the flaxen-haired children, with their 
 short red petticoats and puffy knickerbockers, all 
 look as if they had just stepped out of Teniers’ 
 or Ruysdael’s pictures. And O! the beautiful 
 cleanliness of pavement, and street, and espla- 
 nade, and bridges, and everything ! The canals 
 and waterways so fill the city that they make it 
 sparkle all over: one catches glints of their 
 light wherever one looks. In Amsterdam we 
 were all the time catching charming outlooks 
 from some of its three hundred bridges. There 
 are drives, and promenades, closely lined with 
 trees, all along the banks of these canals; and 
 we observed in The Hague, the same dense rows 
 of fine leafage, under which the inhabitants 
 walk uncovered at noontide, and the same sur- 
 prise of beautiful water-effects that would be 
 worthy of note in the city of the gondolas. 
 
 
 

 
 ’*S GRAVENHAGE. 73 
 
 There seemed to be absolutely no shabby build- 
 ings in La Haye. The houses are all stately, 
 many-storied, many-balconied, light-colored, and 
 kept with such perfection of neatness as to con- 
 vey the impression that their outsides had all 
 just been scoured. The curious Continental 
 custom (the result, no doubt, of their French 
 windows, which open to the floor like a double 
 door), of having the old-fashioned Venetian 
 blind hung on the outside, is universal here; one 
 rarely sees a house without them,—a proof to us 
 that they never had experience on the Continent, 
 of the wild winds and rain that we know of at 
 home, which would surely dash these swaying 
 talousies to pieces. 
 
 Het Bosch is one of the few extensive parks 
 we have seen on the Continent, where Nature is 
 permitted to have “‘her own sweet will.” The 
 trees look old enough to have been primeval 
 forest; the drives through them are miles in ex- 
 tent, kept in fine order, and yet nothing is so 
 trimly dealt with as to interfere with a certain 
 sense of natural freedom, which to an American 
 eye is delightful. The Park terminates at 
 the simple, yet beautiful summer-palace of the 
 Queens of Holland; so called, we suppose, 
 because, for a short period every summer, the 
 
74, A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 female sovereigns of the Dutch rusticate here. 
 The style of architecture is domestic and unpre- 
 tending; it is set in a bouquet of flower-parterres; 
 for what would Holland be without its flowers 
 and its tulip-beds? We were charmed that the 
 pretty Dutch maiden, who took us all over the 
 royal residence, could, as she said, talk English; 
 but her English only comprehended a few sen- 
 tences, and was rather a droll jargon. There 
 was an exquisite Chinese drawing-room, in which 
 every appointment was as suggestive of the 
 central Flowery Kingdom as if we were going 
 through a royal palace in Pekin. I came sud- 
 denly upon a full-length portrait (the only thing 
 that was not Chinese in the apartment), and ex- 
 claimed to the Professor, “That ane is 
 John pee Motley !” 
 
 “ Out, oui,” responded our fair-haired guide; 
 and then in some lingo, a mixture of Dutch, 
 English, and French, she managed to tell us 
 that here Motley had resided; which we had no 
 trouble in recalling, as we remembered that the 
 historian of the Dutch Republic had had apart- 
 ments here allotted him by the Queen, whilst he 
 was writing the history of her country. The 
 Japanese drawing-room was even daintier than 
 the Chinese one,—walls, chairs, sofas, indeed 
 
 
 

 
 1S GRAVENHAGE. — 78 
 
 everything being covered with white, hand-em- 
 broidered satin. Nothing in the palace struck 
 us as more beautiful than the immense circular 
 ball-room, with its richly inlaid floor, as smooth 
 and glistening as plate-glass, on which dancers 
 had spun their rounds for over two hundred 
 years. These inlaid polished floors quite bewitch 
 us women, and make us think the most delicate 
 Moquette or Aubisson vulgar in comparison. 
 
 The Hague is quite rich in museums, picture- 
 galleries, and antiquities of all sorts. The long 
 commerce, in the old day, of the Dutch traders 
 with the East, has filled it with much that is 
 Oriental; but as Japan seems but our next-door 
 neighbor now, we were less interested than peo- 
 ple of 4 century ago, with the treasures brought 
 by the old galleons from the seas of the Orient. 
 Our young Doctor forgot his American zi/ ad- 
 miraré role, and grew excitedly enthusiastic over 
 Rembrandt’s “School of Anatomy.” He “had 
 seen nothing like it to warm up his blood!” I 
 could only turn away from it with the same horror 
 I should feel in a dissecting-room; for its realism 
 was only too perfect. Paul Potter’s Bull did 
 not carry off our enthusiasm in any Europa 
 fashion; though his shiny coat did fill us with 
 something of a marvel. 
 
 But after all, it was not picture-galleries not 
 
76 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 museums that stole our hearts at The Hague, 
 and inclined us to linger there indefinitely, In- 
 finitely more were we stirred by the heroic asso- 
 ciations we had with the struggles of these brave 
 Hollanders for the attainment of that very liberty 
 which we in our blessed country never know how 
 to value aright, till we come over to the old world, 
 and learn at what cost such men sold their lives to 
 winit. How could we traverse these Low Coun- 
 tries, and not find ourselves crooning passages 
 from Sir Henry Taylor’s “ Phillip Van Arte-- 
 veldte” ? How could we pass through Leyden, 
 and not recall the day when Boisot’s fleet raised 
 its siege? The eyes of William the Silent seemed 
 ever watching us beneath these pale skies. Here, 
 within sight of our hotel, was the spot where 
 Barneveldt was executed: Egmont and Count 
 Horn were names that made the very air vital. 
 Nevertheless we were content to relegate these 
 noble spirits of the elder day to the grand 
 shades, while we walked and drove up and 
 down these deliciously cool and breezy and im- 
 maculate streets and esplanades, delighting our- 
 selves with the quaintness and the old sixteenth- 
 century look of its present inhabitants. I do not 
 believe that there is a city on the Continent, 
 unless it be Geneva, where we could more charm- 
 ingly pass a restful summer month. 
 
 
 

 
 ST. BERNARD’S DIJON. 
 
 “HOTEL Du Jura!” “Hotel de la Cloche!” 
 “ Hotel du Nord!” were the exclamations with 
 which we were saluted by fifty of the votture 
 drivers, as we stood upon the platform in the 
 quaint old city of Dijon. With the beautiful 
 range of the Jura Mountains before our eyes, 
 how could we resist the entreaties of the little 
 cocher who kept shouting “Hotel du Jura!” in 
 our stunned ears? So to Hotel du Jura we com- 
 mitted ourselves and our belongings. We have 
 been travelling all day along the Cote d’Or, the 
 richest and most picturesque part of Burgundy, 
 where we have seen scarcely anything but leagues 
 of vineyards, with every now and then an old 
 French town, or an antiquated hamlet, or the 
 towers of an ancient chateau, breaking the mo- 
 notony of the landscape. 
 
 What a dear, strange, old-world city this an- 
 cient Dijon is! How intensely provincial, and 
 how wholly French; and how difficult to realize, 
 though it is so quaint, that it was an inhabited 
 
 place before the Roman invasion of Britain! I 
 (77) 
 
78 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 picked up, on the little drawing-room table, a 
 small French book, in which I found it asserted 
 that one of Cesar’s legions had its camp here, 
 and that the very name, Dijon, is but a corrup- 
 tion of the name of the tribe of Gauls who in- 
 habited this region. Be that as it may, it is cer- 
 tainly one of the oldest towns in France. 
 
 One of the first things on which my eyes rested 
 in looking out of my chamber windows, at the 
 Hotel du Jura, was the tall, gray tower of the 
 old Castle of Burgundy, where, so many hundred 
 years ago, the ancient dukes of that name held 
 such lordly court. Don’t think for a moment 
 that I am going to open my Guide-books, and 
 bore you with stories of Philip the Bold, and 
 Jean-Sans-Peur, and other great knights of the 
 golden days of Burgundian power and prowess. 
 Here in the historic old cathedral we found their 
 tombs, rich with the splendors of medizeval carv- 
 ing, and not so very much the worse for the wear 
 of half a dozen centuries. How very young we 
 Americans are compelled to own ourselves, as 
 we stand under the fretted roofs, and beside 
 time-gnawed tombs, that were old before it ever 
 entered the head of the Genoese navigator to 
 search for his new world! 
 
 But Dijon has a closer hold upon us than any 
 

 
 SZ. BERNARDS DIFON. 70 
 
 home of the old Gauls, or any of Czesar’s legions, 
 or any relics of the Burgundian princes, could 
 establish ; a hold that had to do with some 
 of the tenderest memories of the Christian 
 heart. Here it was that St. Bernard was born; 
 or, at least, so closely in the neighborhood of 
 Dijon, that the claim of its being his birth- 
 place is admitted: and a fragrant sanctity still 
 so clings to the memory of this old saint, that 
 the most detaining grasp which the ancient city 
 lays upon the passing traveller is, that with- 
 in its shadow he was born, here he lies buried, 
 and here is the richest mural monument ever 
 raised to his memory. We feel a certain rever- 
 ence for the inhabitants of this old city that they 
 have so honored their saint as to erect so hand- 
 some and costly a memorial, one that will com- 
 pel them, to all generations, to keep in some 
 degree before their minds the holy life and good 
 deeds of the man whom it commemorates, and 
 thus be one of those stones that has a sermon 
 in it. 
 
 St. Bernard was the most wonderful man of 
 his time—a reformer who deserves to divide the 
 honors with St. Augustine and Luther; not only 
 did he cleanse the corruptions of the Church, 
 and purge the monastic orders of their vileness 
 
80 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 but he was also the umpire between kings, the 
 counsellor of popes, and tried in a better way 
 than Hildebrand to hunt out heresies. But 
 so eloquent and persuasive was he in all this, 
 that he obtained the name of “Doctor Melliflu- 
 ous.” 
 
 To find his monument, which is the peculiar 
 pride of Dijon, we turned aside from the broad 
 street on which our hotel is situated, and passed 
 up the narrow and tortuous streets, lined with 
 dark gray houses, so high as to obscure the day- 
 light, which wind their way through the old city, 
 and came out upon the small square, in the cen- 
 tre of which the monument stands. It is built 
 of white marble, is circular, stately, and massive. 
 It is surmounted by a colossal figure of St. Ber- 
 nard, in his Doctor’s robes, with an open volume in 
 his hand, and his arm stretched abroad, as in per- 
 suasive exhortation. As we stood there, under the 
 silence of this rich August morning, and looked up 
 at the far-gazing eye, and the parted lips above us, 
 we almost fancied we could hear the mellifluous 
 voice that still keeps ringing down the centuries. 
 We thought of his mother, the beautiful Lady 
 Aletta, on the occasion of whose death he wrote 
 his first Latin hymn, which has been preserved 
 to us, whose first verse we may be excused for 
 

 
 ST. BERNARDS DIFON. 81 
 
 quoting, both for the music of its medizval Latin, 
 and for its Christian faith: 
 
 ‘*Salve, mundi salutare, 
 Salve, salve, Jesu care! 
 Cruci tuz aptare 
 Vellem vere, tu scis quare, 
 Da mihi tui copiam, 
 Ac si przsens sis, accedo, 
 Immo te presentem credo ; 
 O quam mundum hic te cerno! 
 Ecce tibi me prosterno, 
 Sis facilis ad veniam.” 
 
 In a circle of niches, below the platform on 
 which the saint stands, are life-sized statues of 
 his immediate disciples, and Abbots of Clair- 
 vaux, the monastery which he established. 
 
 Because St. Bernard wrote musical verse as 
 well as musical prose, he is often confounded 
 with another Burgundian monk of the same 
 name, who never attained to the honor of canon- 
 ization—Bernard of Cluny. This second Ber- 
 nard was a different order of man from his 
 namesake, not nobly born, not celebrated for 
 learning, wisdom, power, or any of the things 
 that make men great. And yet, at this day, his 
 name is better known over Christendom, and his 
 memory is held in tenderer veneration than that 
 
 of his canonized brother monk. The legacy of 
 6 
 
82 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 his Latin hymns is one of the rich possessions 
 of the Church; for, to what part of the civilized 
 world can one go, and yet get beyond the strains 
 of “ Jerusalem the Golden,” “Jerusalem, my hap- 
 
 ’ 
 
 py home,” and “O Mother, dear Jerusalem,” all 
 of which are taken from his “Zaus Patrie Ce- 
 lestis,’ and his “ Urbs beata Hirusalem.” It is 
 strange that when the writing of hymns was so 
 rare a thing in the old times, two hymnists of 
 the same name should be contemporaries in the 
 same Cote d’Or of Burgundy. We did not find 
 that Bernard of Cluny was buried in or near 
 Dijon, but the “golden country” must have ex- 
 ercised some rhythmic influence on them both. 
 Dijon itself is worth saying a word about. It 
 has a few wide streets, as is the case with all 
 European capitals. This is a feature of these old 
 cities, that has everywhere taken us by surprise. 
 There are multitudes of narrow streets in them 
 all, so narrow indeed, and crooked, that in going 
 about among them, our drivers are constantly in 
 the habit of cracking their whips as loudly as 
 possible on entering one, to give warning that 
 no Carriage must enter at the other end till they 
 are through, as to pass one another would be an 
 impossibility. One could almost shake hands 
 from opposite windows. The great broadway 
 

 
 ST. BERNARDS DIFON. 8 3 
 
 of Dijon throws into insignificance the width of 
 our New York Broadway, or indeed that of any 
 American city I know of. It is gay with shops, 
 and there is an air of bustle and business about 
 them all. It is a great wine depot for all Bur- 
 gundy. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the brightness, the gay- 
 ety, the zonchalance of this central street, as we 
 saw it under gaslight. The French are the least 
 seclusive people in the world: to use James Rus- 
 sell Lowell’s word,—they are the most “dis- 
 privacied”’ of all nations. All their household 
 occupations go on at the edge of the ¢rottoir, 
 under the eye of every passer-by. They break- 
 fast, lunch, and sup out at their own open doors; 
 the men smoke, drink their vx ordinatre, and read 
 their newspaper there; the women gossip, and 
 patch, and darn, and discipline their children 
 out of doors. We had evidence of this in abun- 
 dance in our strolls. Everywhere there were 
 family groups, the father hobnobbing in the full 
 tide of camaraderie with half a dozen boon com- 
 panions, and as many bottles between them; on 
 his knee a little two-year-old, who had fallen 
 asleep there; walking up and down on the pave- 
 _ment, the bare-headed mother, with a tiny baby 
 in her arms, whom she was singing to sleep with 
 
8 4 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 a French lullaby, and two or three older children 
 trolling their playthings under the feet of the 
 passers-by. Tubs, with little trees of arbor-vite, 
 cedar, and various kinds of evergreens, lined the 
 pavement’s edge; sometimes there would be 
 two rows of such tubs, and between them the 
 domestic party, occupying themselves with all 
 the freedom which we are accustomed to indulge 
 in within walls, and behind close-shut doors. 
 Yet anything more orderly, and more reasonably 
 quiet, and evincing more homely comfort and 
 happiness, we never saw in any city streets. 
 
 St. Bernard is not the only great man closely 
 associated with Dijon. The court preacher of 
 ‘Louis XIV., Bossuet, was born here. But we 
 «ould find no trace of his birthplace or his grave. 
 ‘This, too, was the birthplace of Crebillon; but 
 ‘we were able to discover nothing of him. We 
 found many handsome public buildings and old 
 ‘historic places, which had more or less interest 
 for us. But much as we might care to ransack 
 these old memorial spots of the past, and to 
 decipher ‘half-obliterated Latin inscriptions of 
 princes and dukes, who held wide sway in their 
 time, the reader will thank me for not compelling 
 him to thread :these old streets, and grope these 
 dusty aisles. 
 
 
 

 
 ST. BERNARD'S DIFON. 8 5 
 
 As it is, we will turn our backs to-morrow 
 upon this quaint old city, and this Frenchiest of 
 French provinces, with pleasant memories of our 
 stroll about its streets and environs; most agree- 
 ably impressed with the gayety and apparent 
 happiness and contentment of its outdoor-living 
 inhabitants. 
 
THE BEST THING IN PARIS. 
 
 WE have been going up and down, and through 
 and through, this gay, beautiful, and wicked city, 
 until our eyes are weary with seeing, our ears 
 with hearing, and our minds with searching for 
 expressions of admiration that shall not be out- 
 worn and commonplace. We have driven about 
 the festive streets in our brisk little voztures, till 
 we have grown utterly tired of the splendid 
 shop-windows, so characteristic of Parisian life; 
 outside, all grandeur and glitter; inside, almost 
 nothing that would indicate a shop; a bit of 
 a counter, a few boxes, a chair or two, and a 
 French woman, with the typical black hair and 
 eyes, long, straight nose, and somewhat insig- 
 nificant chin. 
 
 We have visited the grand churches that seem 
 little more suggestive of reverence and worship 
 than the splendid Academy of Music at the end 
 of Rue de l’Opera; we have walked the galleries 
 of the Louvre, till we have grown bewildered 
 with Murillos, Correggios, Del Sartos, Rem- 
 
 brandts, Rubenses, and the works of scores of 
 (86) 
 
 
 

 
 THE BEST THING IN PARIS. 87 
 
 other masters. We have wandered through the 
 intricacies of the Bois de Boulogne; we have sat 
 in the Sainte Chapelle; we have listened to the 
 bell of the Saint Germain du Roi, whose tongue 
 gave the signal for the beginning of the slaughter 
 of St. Bartholomew; we have strolled, somewhat 
 disgusted, along the galleries of the Luxembourg, 
 striving not to see how little regard the living 
 artists of France have for the proprieties of life. 
 We have spent hours and hours searching out the 
 wonders of Versailles, marvelling at the madness 
 with which the money of the French people had 
 there been squandered, and finding in its reckless 
 splendors almost a full excuse for the French 
 Revolution. We have grown sentimental over 
 poor Marie Antoinette, her Petit-Trianon, her 
 Swiss cottage, and her other royal toys. Truth 
 to tell, we have seen the most in the way of shows 
 and sights, pictures and statuary, parks and gar- 
 dens, that Paris has to display to her thousands of 
 visitors; and yet, after all these had been visited, 
 we had not seen the best thing in Paris. 
 
 We were sitting on one of the balconies of our 
 pretty hotel, looking down with a despairing sort 
 of sorrow upon the street below, where all the 
 shops were open, and a brisker traffic was going 
 on than is even common to a week-day, for it 
 
 6 
 
88 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 was Sunday afternoon. The pavements were 
 thronged with gay passers in their holiday attire, 
 and at the doors of every glittering shop was 
 the inevitable little circular, white-topped table, 
 with its group of men and women, sipping v2z 
 ordinaire, eating grapes, and smoking cigarettes. 
 The people all looked happy and at their ease, 
 and had it not been Sunday, the sight would 
 have been an attractive one. Just then the Pro- 
 fessor stepped upon the balcony, and handed me 
 a card of invitation to one of the McAll Mission 
 meetings, in the Rue de St. Honoré, at five 
 o’clock. We determined at once to accept it, 
 and were soon pressing our way through the gay 
 crowds to the place indicated. 
 
 We found at the door a very earnest, elderly 
 man, whom we had met the week before at 
 Lucerne, with his hand full of leaflets, which he 
 was offering to every passer who seemed inclined 
 to stop. We entered the room used as a chapel, 
 directly from the street—a rather low-browed, 
 very plain apartment, as simply furnished for 
 the purposes of worship as it could well be. 
 (We were afterwards told that a zealous knot of 
 ladies in Philadelphia pay ten thousand francs 
 a year for the rent of this room, for the use of 
 the McAll Mission.) 
 
 
 

 
 THE BEST THING IN PARIS. 89 
 
 When we entered, we found the room about 
 half full of French people, of the dourgeozs class, 
 not by any means, however, of the poorest sort. 
 There was an occasional bareheaded woman; 
 for all women of the artisan class go bonnetless 
 to church and everywhere else—and here and 
 there a man in the universal blue blouse; but 
 we were glad to observe that almost all were 
 just such people as we had left walking the 
 streets, and laughing and chatting at the shop 
 doors. Some eager English ladies were busily 
 going about, seating the incomers, and supply- 
 ing them with little French hymn-books, filled 
 with translations of Moody and Sankey hymns. 
 There was a small cabinet organ, at which 
 another English lady presided; and a simple 
 desk on a slightly raised platform, answered as 
 a pulpit. Ina little while the room was entirely 
 filled, and true to the moment of appointment, 
 three French ministers entered, and took their 
 . places on the platform. I had never heard a 
 French minister preach, and had never under- 
 stood the wonderful power which Adolph Monod 
 used to exercise, twenty-five years ago, over the 
 Professor, who was accustomed to hear him in 
 the Oratoire. But I learned his secret yesterday. 
 French preaching and French oratory are en- 
 
90 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 tirely different from that of other nationalities; 
 and have a power, a piquancy, a verve of their 
 own, quite in contrast with all that to which we 
 had been accustomed. Perhaps there were pe- 
 culiar reasons why we should enjoy this intensely 
 fervid French eloquence. 
 
 The short opening prayer was electric in its 
 earnestness. One saw instantly that the speaker 
 
 threw himself, with all the fervor of his Gallic 
 
 nature, into the service. And when he gave out 
 the hymn, repeating a stanza at a time, with 
 lifted hand, and eyebrows knit with the intens- 
 ity of his pleading tone, a subdued thrill ap- 
 peared to sway the audience. There seemed 
 real eloquence in these simple utterances: 
 
 ‘* Viens, ame qui pleure, 
 
 Viens a ton Saveur ; 
 
 Dans tes tristes heures, 
 Dis-lui ta douleur. 
 
 Fais tout bas ta plainte 
 A ce bon Jesus. 
 
 Parle-lui sans crainte, 
 Et ne pleure plus.” 
 
 Not one voice was silent. When he took his 
 text—“Le sang de son Fils Jesus Christ, nous purifie 
 de tout péche’’—and rang it in his clear voice over 
 and over again, he seemed the very embodiment 
 of intense persuasiveness. He was a typical 
 
 
 
 § 
 ij 
 
 eee ae ee 
 

 
 THE BEST THING IN PARIS. QI 
 
 Frenchman, the black hair combed straight up 
 from his forehead, the dark penciled eyebrow 
 the burning eyes, the straight nose, the mobile 
 mouth, the rapid play of feature, the restless 
 hands, every finger of which seemed capable of 
 conveying some different phase of expression, 
 the entire abandon of the whole man, flinging 
 himself, like a strong swimmer, into the depths 
 of a foaming current, and breasting it with a 
 self-forgetfulness that concerned itself only with 
 the point to be reached; and that was, that every 
 soul before him should feel the force of the ex- 
 pression to which he constantly turned—“ Le 
 sang ade son Fils Jesus Christ, nous purifie de tout 
 péché.” No one who listened could doubt fora 
 moment that the speaker felt every word that he 
 was endeavoring, with such tender vehemence, 
 to impress upon his audience. 
 
 The minister who followed him, in a short ex- 
 hortation of fifteen minutes, was a type of the 
 same mercurial eloquence, which seems to be 
 the kind best fitted to sway the French mind. 
 He was an eminently handsome man, and I have 
 rarely ever seen in the pulpit, such grace of man- 
 ner and movement, combined with such an utter 
 absence of self-consciousness. If the French 
 Protestant Church can boast many such min- 
 
92 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 isters, we do not know why it should not have a 
 second Reformation greater than that inaugu- 
 rated by Calvin and Farel. Every hair of his 
 black head seemed instinct with action; and he 
 at least produced upon the minds of us Ameri- 
 cans, who are schooled to a calmer sort of elo- 
 quence, the feeling that he aimed to have every 
 soul before him brought to submit to the Gospel 
 of Christ that very afternoon. Delightful sing- 
 
 ing followed, in which all the audience, bonnet- | 
 
 less women, men in blue blouses, even the little 
 sabotted children, joined with a heartiness that 
 was calculated to make one hope that the per- 
 suasions of the ministers had had their full 
 effect. Still another short address followed, and 
 if I had not been so magnetized by the two 
 speakers who had gone before, I should have 
 been as fully moved by the rapid, passionate ut- 
 terance, the vivid picturing, and the eager tones 
 of this last speaker, all varying somewhat from 
 those which had preceded them, but still of the 
 same general type. It seemed to us that we had 
 heard more to stir men’s souls in that small 
 chamber, on the Rue St. Honoré, than in all the 
 grand cathedral services we had elsewhere at- 
 tended. 
 
 As we went out, we were presented at the door 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE BEST THING IN PARIS, 93 
 
 to the son of the Hon. Baptist Noel, who is one 
 of that band of enthusiastic Englishmen who are 
 working with Mr. McAll in his noble efforts to 
 evangelize France. 
 
 As we walked back to our hotel through the 
 gay crowds of thoughtless Sabbath-breakers, we 
 could not forbear turning to each other, and 
 saying: “Surely we have just seen the best thing 
 in Paris!” 
 
THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY 
 CATHEDRAL. 
 
 WHAT a quaint, mouldy old city is this capital 
 of the ancient kingdom of Canturia, or Kent! 
 We were prepared for antiquity on the Conti- 
 nent, which led us as far back as the beginning 
 of the Christian era, and indeed to periods that 
 greatly fore-dated it; but England, the land of 
 our own ancestors, had seemed comparatively 
 modern; and yet this antique city was the an- 
 cient Durrovernum, the capital of King Ethel- 
 bert’s dominions, where A.D. 596, St. Augustine 
 baptized the Saxon king, and ten thousand of 
 his subjects, 
 
 We drove through a very narrow street to the 
 door of what we were told was the best inn of 
 the city, but finding it too crowded to admit us, 
 the landlord sprang upon the box beside our 
 driver and said he would guide us to another 
 inn of which he was part proprietor. He landed 
 us at the Fleur de Lis, where we read, carved 
 above the door, “ Founded 1402.” It is impossi- 
 
 ble to give any adequate description of such a 
 (94) 
 
 
 

 
 THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. 95 
 
 marvellous pile of old chimney-stacks and tiled 
 roofs of every imaginable angle and curve which 
 we saw from our windows as we overlooked the 
 court-yard. They were grimy with age, and 
 seemed tottering to their fall. As we tried to 
 catch a glimpse of the sky over them, we were 
 quite disposed to persuade ourselves that they 
 were indeed built a hundred years before America 
 was discovered. Theair of antiquity here is more 
 pronounced than in any other city of Britain. 
 
 We do not wonder that the English hold their 
 archiepiscopal city in such reverence. The spot 
 is one to which even travellers from a distant 
 land make truer pilgrimages than were made in 
 Chaucer’s day. Here Christianity placed its first 
 foothold in Britain, This very Cathedral of Can- 
 terbury holds within its circuit, what was once 
 the royal palace of the first Saxon king who em- 
 braced Christianity: and St. Martin’s, the old, 
 low-browed, ivied church, just beyond the city’s 
 precincts, was the first church erected to the wor- 
 ship of the true God in the British Isles, 
 
 We had a delightful stroll through the old 
 streets, just as the waning sun was deepening 
 the shadows under the curious overhanging 
 stories of the quaint houses, and making the 
 queer angles and recesses look still more an- 
 
96 4A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 cient. The very shops seemed to belong to some 
 dim, distant epoch; their contents looked so very 
 old-fashioned ; and the people who filled the 
 streets, seemed the remnants of some former 
 generation; all except the brisk, young red- 
 coated soldiers, who swarmed in unusual num- 
 bers. 
 
 In the ancient days, the city had four great 
 arched gateways, which marked the boundaries 
 of its walls. We passed out through the arch- 
 way of Westgate, for of course the city now ex- 
 tends far beyond these limits. It is a handsome 
 pile still, quite imposing in its vastness. It is 
 very odd to observe the stolidity of the common 
 people in England, and the ignorance they mani- 
 fest of their immediate surroundings. I cannot 
 tell how many people we addressed before we 
 could find the name of the rapid little river be- 
 yond Westgate, which still maintains the charac- 
 ter given it by the old chronicler who writes of 
 it in St. Augustine’s time. We had forgotten 
 that it was the Stour, as also had the people 
 whom we questioned, if they ever knew. 
 
 At a late hour, we sauntered by gaslight in 
 another direction, and found the streets gay 
 with the population that was abroad, enjoying 
 the beautiful night. People across the water 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 97 
 
 have a free-and-easy zusouciance in the streets, 
 that is quite novel to Americans; the women and 
 the men stroll about without bonnets or hats, the 
 former generally with their children about them, 
 at least the ubiquitous baby everywhere in arms. 
 The artisan class seem not to live within doors, 
 an hour more than they can help; all kinds of 
 work are carried on al fresco. Consequently 
 there is a far greater degree of health among 
 them, than with us—a robustness, and rotundity, 
 and color, in striking contrast with our pale and 
 waspish laboring people. 
 
 The Cathedral was our main point of interest, 
 and we intended on the morrow to give up a 
 delicious day to its thorough exploration. But 
 who can count on English sunshine? It was 
 pouring when we rose, and continued to pour 
 relentlessly throughout the day. However, once 
 under cover of the Cathedral, it did not matter 
 very much. We attended service in the choir, 
 conducted by four Canons, who were led in and 
 out, and up and down, by a verger, or whatever 
 his official title might be, who held before him a 
 golden rod, some four or five feet in length. The 
 Canons did not move without this badge of office 
 being carried before them. The singing of the 
 choristers, of whom there was an unusually large 
 
 7 
 
98 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 number, was very fine. But it seemed a “ waste 
 of the ointment” to have all these Canons, and 
 beadles, and choristers, and fifty gaslights for a 
 meagre congregation of fifteen or twenty people, 
 all of whom were American tourists, except five, 
 who seemed to belong to Canterbury itself. 
 
 After the close of the service, the official of the 
 golden rod assumed the ré/e of guide, and we 
 made a most satisfactory tour of the grand old 
 pile. Although it is the cathedral church of the 
 “Primate of all England,” it is far less splendid 
 in its architecture, its carvings, its stained glass, 
 and its other appointments than many of the 
 other cathedrals which we had visited. It is 
 less impressive than Westminster, Durham, or 
 York Minster. Its vast nave and aisles are di- 
 vided in such a way as to diminish their size, 
 and one does not anywhere get a true conception 
 of their extent. 
 
 With due reverence we paused at the tomb of 
 the Black Prince, and, as in duty bound, mused 
 for a moment on his chivalry and early death. 
 But one cannot be very sorry over anybody who 
 has been dead six hundred years. We climbed 
 the short flight of worn marble steps to the spot 
 on which had rested, for three hundred years, the 
 gorgeous shrine of Thomas a Becket. These 
 
 
 

 
 THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, 99 
 
 stairs are deeply worn by the knees of pilgrims 
 who crept up them from the time of his death, 
 1170, till after the Reformation, when, in order to 
 break up the traditionary miraculous power of 
 the shrine, it was necessary to dismantle it. If 
 the Canterbury pilgrims of former ages went up 
 on their knees, we, irreverent American pilgrims, 
 dared to make the ascent in waterproofs and 
 goloshes. One of our party indulged in a bit 
 of merriment that we fear would have been 
 rather shocking to the good archbishop had he 
 witnessed it. We had been at a relic-shop, near 
 the Cathedral, and had furnished ourselves with 
 various memorials—porcelain plaques and cups 
 and such things. The Professor remembered 
 friends at home, who, as he thought, had an 
 undue reverence for everything Anglican, par- 
 ticularly everything connected with the old 
 cathedral worship. Devoutly, therefore, and 
 with a gravity becoming a faithful member of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, he deposited his 
 relics upon the spot where the shrine of Thomas 
 a Becket had so long been. When we entered 
 the little chapel where Becket was murdered, 
 and were shown the stone which the head of the 
 martyr struck, as he was stabbed by the assassin, 
 with controlled seriousness the small vessels and 
 
I0O A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 platters were again laid, first one side, then the 
 other, on the centre bit of blue stone, which had 
 been stained by his blood. We descended to the 
 crypts, where we were shown, immediately under 
 the shrine, the broad slab under which the bones 
 of Becket have for these hundreds of years 
 peacefully reposed. Here for the third and last 
 time the relics were reverently laid, then care- 
 fully wrapped up, with all the acquired sanctity 
 about them that the act thrice gone through 
 could impart, ready now to be carried home to 
 indulge the Anglo-mania which our traveller was 
 disposed to make game of. So seriously had all 
 this been done, that some of our fellow-tourists 
 were nudging each other, amused at the devout- 
 ness of this good Roman Catholic, so that in the 
 end, our sham Romanist had to explain him- 
 self. 
 
 The most interesting portion of the crypts is 
 that which was set apart by Queen Elizabeth for 
 some of the persecuted Huguenots who sought 
 refuge in England, after the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. They were silk-weavers, and she al- 
 lowed them to erect their looms here, and by the 
 dim light of the sunken barred windows carry 
 on their trade. We saw the rusty grates that 
 had been put up for their comfort, just as they 
 
 _— x he te or : 2 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE CRYPTS OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL. joy 
 
 left them. We thought how these cloistered 
 passages had echoed to the hymns of the noble 
 exiles—how these walls had heard their prayers, 
 and witnessed their tears as they wept over those 
 who had died for their religion, in the streets of 
 the gay, wicked city left behind them. At the 
 same time that Queen Elizabeth offered these 
 crypts as a refuge for the Huguenots, she al- 
 lowed a portion to be partitioned off as a chapel 
 for their worship; and from that day until the 
 present, this same chapel has been used for the 
 service of the French Protestant Church, which 
 still exists in Canterbury, maintained through 
 all this long period by the descendants of these 
 same French silk-weavers. A couple of small 
 windows opened inward to the crypts where the 
 looms had once stood. By stepping upon some 
 blocks of stone, conveniently placed, we had a 
 fair view of this most interesting place of wor- 
 ship, which was neatly and appropriately fur- 
 nished. Our guide had no control over this por- 
 tion of the crypts; so we did not effect an en- 
 trance. But it seemed holy ground, and there 
 were some of us who felt quite disposed in our 
 Protestant enthusiasm, to carry our little Canter- 
 bury relics and devoutly lay them on the reading- 
 desk of the dim chapel, where for more than 
 
102 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 three hundred years, God’s pure worship had 
 been so strictly maintained. 
 
 Canterbury Cathedral is full of historic tombs 
 of some of the most eminent of English worthies; 
 but to catalogue these, would be but to furnish 
 guide-book information, and that we carefully 
 eschew. There is a grand memorial window to 
 dear good Dean Alford, whose beautiful life 
 wore away so serenely, in the Close near by. In 
 a little chapel nearly opposite the Dean’s win- 
 dow, is another window of fine stained glass, 
 erected by Dean Stanley, a memorial of his tour 
 in the Holy Land with the Prince of Wales. The 
 long vestibule or cloister, by which the Cathedral 
 proper is approached, is lined with the statues 
 and tombs of former archbishops and incum- 
 bents. We sat down on the stone benches, and 
 recalled the lives of some, whose commentaries 
 and writings we had read, till we grew silent and 
 subdued, under tender and pathetic memories, 
 and were ready at length to go back to our 
 ancient inn, like true and worthy Canterbury 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 
 

 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 
 
 -“Come and see us,” wrote our kind friends, 
 the Charles Kingsleys, two or three years ago. 
 “Come and see us in Warwickshire, where you 
 will find us in an old Tudor mansion, wainscotted 
 with black oak, and rich in secret stairways and 
 dark closets. Come, and every step shall be on 
 historic ground; for we live in the very heart of 
 England.” 
 
 So here we are in Shakespeare’s country, 
 with Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick 
 Castle, Guy’s Cliff, Charlecote, Stoneleigh Ab- 
 bey, Coombe Abbey, Edge Hill, Rugby, and Cov- 
 entry—all within easy drives of this pretty water- 
 ing-place of Leamington. Yes, as Rose Kings- 
 ley said, this is the very heart of England, both 
 geographically and historically. 
 
 We came here two or three days ago through 
 Derbyshire, where we turned aside to visit Chats- 
 worth, mainly because it is considered the most 
 elegant mansion-house in Britain. I will not 
 weary you, who are looking over my shoulder, 
 with a catalogue of its splendors, for many a 
 
 (103) 
 
104 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 tourist has described them before; but I feel an 
 American’s inclination to fling a gibe at his 
 grace the Duke of Devonshire, for not keeping 
 in his employ better-mannered lackeys. We 
 think it impossible that any English tourist 
 should be so treated on the estate of an Ameri- 
 can gentleman, as were some of our party by the 
 servants of his Grace; for, although the Duke is 
 one of the richest men in England, he condescends 
 to accept about fifteen thousand dollars a year, 
 at least, according to the computation we made, 
 of the fees taken from us and our one hundred 
 fellow-tourists. Yet we were obliged to walk 
 in the rain from the grand gilded gateways to 
 the mansion, because, as the attendant, gorgeous 
 in the Duke’s livery, told us, no umbrellas were 
 allowed to be carried upon the fine portico. As 
 we ascended the steps we saw a stack of them 
 there. 
 
 “JT should like to know,” flashed Anna—her 
 black eyes full of republican indignation, and 
 her manner commanding enough to quash the 
 lackey, plush breeches, silver-laced coat, cockade, 
 and all—“why you dared compel us to walk 
 thus far in the rain. See, here are plenty of um- 
 brellas.” 
 
 The lackey was overpowered, and meekly said: 
 
 
 

 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 105 
 
 ‘Madam, it was pouring when these people 
 came, and I hadn’t the heart to take their um- 
 brellas from them.” | 
 
 Two or three hours afterward, I had myself, an 
 experience of singular discourtesy. Waiting un- 
 der the great archway till the rest of our party, 
 who were wandering over the grounds in the 
 rain, should join us, we were so incommoded by 
 the wet, that we sought refuge on the steps of 
 the porter’s lodge, from which we were ordered 
 to retire, as it was contrary to rule for visitors to 
 stand there. Of course we scorned to accept such 
 grudged hospitality; but the Professor was con- 
 tent to swallow the insolence, for the sake of his 
 delicate wife, and went back to the lodge-keeper, 
 greased his palm well with silver, and so I had 
 leave to sit an hour at his comfortable coal-fire. 
 
 We are told that Chatsworth officials are fa- 
 mous for such doings. 
 
 Everything is on a very grand scale there. 
 The hall, the drawing-rooms, stairways, chapel, 
 boudoirs, and galleries are very superb. The 
 armor and weapons of war are without number, 
 the bric-a-brac of the richest description. The 
 picture-gallery is disappointing, but Grinling 
 Gibbons’ carvings are so superlative, that I don’t 
 believe Cellini himself ever did better. Gibbons, 
 
106 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 you know, was the best carver in wood England 
 ever produced. A sportsman’s meshed bag, filled 
 with game, excited our wonder, wrought out as 
 it was, with the most lifelike finish to the least 
 feather. 
 
 I promised not to write of Chatsworth, but you 
 see how its beauties have witched me; but, to be 
 partially true to my word, I will say nothing of 
 the splendid terraced walks alive with statues, 
 or the long sliding cascades, or the greenhouses 
 with their four miles’ drive in the centre, or the 
 Victoria Regia with its great marble tank, or the 
 immense park with its twelve hundred head of 
 deer. Nor will I even pause to speak of the thir- 
 teen years of captivity which fell to the lot of 
 Marie Stuart under the roof of the ancient Chats- 
 worth. 
 
 Leamington may be called the Saratoga of Eng- 
 land, and is as pleasant a watering-place as one 
 need to wish to spend the summer at. Its saline 
 springs are in great repute, and its close neigh- 
 borhood to so many points of interest, makes it 
 most convenient for the tourist’s headquarters, 
 It is full of first-class hotels. The one at which 
 we are staying, has every inside comfort, as well 
 as beautiful grounds, statues, fountains, walks, 
 and flowers. There are streets and streets of 
 
 
 

 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 107 
 
 detached villas, with pretty gardens about them, 
 bearing over their arched gateways all manner of 
 high-sounding names—Grosvenor Grange, Dun- 
 combe Lodge, Ashleigh House, etc. 
 
 Yesterday we drove over to Kenilworth, pass- 
 ing on our way Stoneleigh Abbey. I am afraid 
 I should weary you if I tried to impart some- 
 thing of the enthusiasm we felt in wandering 
 over these noble ruins. The situation of Kenil- 
 worth is very fine. Nothing I had read, had given 
 me an idea of the high natural terrace on which 
 it stands, commanding a view of remarkable 
 beauty and extent. How the old Saxons of 
 Knight Kenelm’s day seemed to rise before us! 
 How vividly the haughty Leicester sprang to 
 view as we walked up and down the long ban- 
 quet-hall! And as we sat half dreaming in the 
 sunshine, among the sweetbriers and ivy and but- 
 tercups of the great velvet-turfed court-yard, we 
 needed but to close our eyes and let fancy bring 
 ‘ before us the pageant of its ancient splendor. 
 
 One is amazed at the immense extent of these 
 ruins, and the fine preservation of parts of them. 
 We saw our faces reflected from the deep waters 
 of the well. We groped through the old wine- 
 vaults. We sat in the roofless audience-hall; we 
 looked out of the windows of the banquet-room, 
 
108 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 and asked vain questions of the noisy rooks, who 
 seemed to resent our presence. The grounds 
 about the castle are beautifully kept, and we 
 entered the premises through a walled pathway 
 
 gorgeous with flowers. “The King’s Arms,” a. 
 
 quaint little inn in the village, has its associa- 
 tions also. Two of us stayed there overnight, 
 and were shown the room where Sir Walter 
 lodged for three months, while he was writing 
 “Kenilworth.” There were his bed, his table, 
 his chair, and all his little belongings, preserved 
 with great pride and care. The bright-looking 
 servant-maid, when asked about the chamber 
 bearing Sir Walter’s name on the door, knew 
 nothing about it, but said, when Jeanette made 
 inquiry, “The mistress will be able to tell the 
 lady ”—which the mistress did. Could a bright- 
 witted Americanized “ Biddy” have remained in 
 such ignorance? 
 
 We drove over to Stratford-on-Avon one morn- 
 ing, to steep ourselves in Shakespearian memories. 
 A more golden summer day we could not have 
 asked. We took Guy’s Cliff and Charlecote on 
 our way, but were too eager for Stratford to 
 spend much time on these intermediate places. 
 The most noticeable thing at Guy’s Cliff was the 
 long avenue of ancient trees, many of them now 
 
 
 
 
 
t 
 hi 
 
 ——e 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND. 109 
 
 mere trunks, which led from the gateway to the 
 castellated entrance. Charlecote is only inter- 
 esting as having been the home of Sir Thomas 
 Lucy, who would probably never have been 
 heard of outside Warwickshire, but for that 
 mythical poaching affair. The house has a com- 
 paratively modern appearance, but the groups of 
 deer scattered about the wooded park—were they 
 not lineal descendants of the herd among which 
 Will Shakespeare poached,—if indeed he ever 
 poached at all? 
 
 How Stratford surprised us! We expected to 
 see a quaint little medizval town, with overhang- 
 ing gables and Tudor chimney-stacks; and be- 
 hold ! here is a thriving, busy place, full of trade, 
 with gas, and telegraph wires, and railway sta- 
 tions, and seven thousand inhabitants—nothing 
 medizeval about it save Shakespeare’s house, the 
 old church, and the very primitive inn to which 
 we were guided mainly, as it seemed, because 
 Washington Irving’s chair was there, and as 
 Americans we would be sure to want to see it. 
 But when we reached the inn, we found that it 
 had nothing to commend it beyond the chair. 
 
 Of course we took our pilgrim-way to the 
 house in which Shakespeare was born; and surely 
 a lowlier roof never sheltered the head of genius. 
 It seems something beyond belief that the most 
 
TLO A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 cosmopolitan mind of the world, the least cir- 
 cumscribed of human intellects, the widest-na- 
 tured man that ever lived, should be nurtured 
 to manhood within the narrow walls of such a 
 lowly home. The house is public property now, 
 and is guarded in its primitive condition with 
 the utmost care. Here are collected all the 
 available relics of the poet—a chair in which he 
 used to sit, his signet ring, his will, the editions 
 of his works that came out during his life, a 
 drinking-cup sent him by Ben Jonson, his Bible, 
 his autograph, his knives, his purse, and a hun- 
 dred belongings beside. Many of these relics 
 are of very questionable authenticity, 
 
 I stood in the room where he first drew breath, — 
 with a sort of awe and wonder; for by standing 
 on tiptoe I could touch its roof. I pressed the 
 floor with reverence, because the well-worn oaken 
 planks were the very same over which his child- 
 ish feet had pattered; and I sat on the stone 
 settle in the broad, rude fireplace, where I felt 
 sure he had sat many a time musing and medi- 
 tating. But I could not sit there long; for sweet 
 Ann Page tipped me on the shoulder; and The 
 Merry Wives chatted in the kitchen; and Jack 
 Falstaff roared out his fun; and Hamlet stalked 
 by in his cloak; and Macbeth wrung his hands; 
 and Romeo raved over his love; and the brain 
 
 
 

 
 THE HEART OF ENGLAND. IIl 
 
 creations of this. greatest of human masters, so 
 thronged the meagre room, and so choked me 
 with emotion, that, like King Lear, I had to turn 
 and say, “ Undo this button!” 
 
 “New Place,” the home Shakespeare built for 
 himself after his final return from London, has 
 nothing remaining but its firm foundation-walls, 
 which are all protected by a netting of strong 
 iron-wire; and it is only second in interest to the 
 house in which he was born; for it was the one 
 in which he died. 
 
 I will not ask you to go to the church with me, 
 to stand by the marble slab, or look up at the 
 painted marble bust; for a thousand emotions 
 have been poured out over them, and so I spare 
 you mine. 
 
 The day was exhausted before we finished our 
 Avon ramblings, so that we were disappointed 
 in getting over to Shottery. 
 
 “Ann Hathaway—she hath a way.” And for 
 Ann’s sake, we would like to have seen the old 
 cottage where Will Shakespeare courted her—to 
 have sat upon the ancient oaken settle, upon 
 which the lovers are said to have sat together, 
 and to have gathered roses from the bushes, 
 whose progenitors, we could readily persuade our- 
 selves, had often yielded their clusters to the witch 
 ing hand that tied up poor Ophelia’s nosegays. 
 
AN AFTERNOON AT KENILWORTH. 
 
 Tue English sun shone soft and bright, 
 The English fields were gay; 
 
 And Kenilworth, with sky and earth, 
 Seemed keeping holiday. 
 
 _ We wandered round the ruined walls; 
 The tilting-ground we trod, 
 And gathered there the daisies fair, 
 That starred the velvet sod. 
 
 We sought the turret-chamber out 
 Where Amy Robsart slept; 
 
 There trailed a screen of ivy green 
 Where she had watched and wept. 
 
 Fair troops of girls from over seas, 
 Made laughter seem divine; 
 
 As each and all danced up the hall 
 Where Leicester drank his wine. 
 
 A tourist with his strap and scrip, 
 Bent o’er the mossy well, 
 And dived to see what mystery 
 
 The sunken vaults could tell. 
 (112) 
 
 
 

 
 AN AFTERNOON AT KENILWORTH. 113 
 
 A gray-haired wanderer sat and mused, 
 With chin upon his staff: 
 
 A spiral stair, that led nowhere, 
 Sent back a school-boy’s laugh. 
 
 I sat apart with brooding eyes, 
 And introspective thought; 
 
 And sweet and clear, now far, now near, 
 A bugle’s sound I caught. 
 
 I heard the din of arquebus, 
 The trampling cavalcade, 
 
 The clash and clank of chain and plank, 
 The lowering drawbridge made. | 
 
 And in I saw the proud Queen Bess 
 Upon her palfrey ride, 
 
 And Leicester dight like royal knight, 
 Careering at her side. 
 
 As on they swept across the court, 
 So gallant and so fair, 
 
 Amid the rout I gazed about 
 To search for Amy there. 
 
 Just then the sad Tressilian passed, 
 With but a moment’s halt: 
 Wild “Flibberty ” I seemed to see 
 
 Turning a somersault. 
 8 
 
114 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 And when I asked him if he saw 
 The Lady Amy pass, 
 
 With saucy perk he gave a jerk, 
 And tumbled on the grass. 
 
 I heard the trembling Amy steal 
 Adown the turret stair, ; 
 
 And hasten through the early dew, 
 Into the Pleasaunce fair. 
 
 I watched her through the grotto glide, 
 Behind the coppiced screen; 
 
 And when with talk, along the walk, 
 Came Leicester with the Queen,— 
 
 A girl as fair as Amy’s self 
 Here broke upon my trance, 
 And put to rout with merry shout, 
 My vision of romance. 
 
 “Why ! we’ve been wandering up and down 
 And searching for an hour; 
 And find you now asleep, I vow, 
 In Amy Robsart’s tower !”’ 
 
 Her mirthful voice dissolved the spell 
 (More potent than the Earl’s), 
 
 And looking round, I only found 
 A band of saucy girls. 
 
 
 
AN AFTERNOON AT KENILWORTH. 115 
 
 The sun was hastening down the west, 
 And from the crannied nooks, 
 
 I heard the caws of noisy daws, 
 And saw the wheeling rooks. 
 
 But on Sir Walter’s pictured page, 
 Sweet Amy did not seem 
 
 To walk again in life, as when 
 She crossed my waking dream. 
 
 
 
A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE. 
 
 WaRwIck CASTLE is, perhaps, the finest speci- 
 men of a feudal fortress that remains in England. 
 Ancient and vast as it is, its great walls and. 
 towers are in a state of perfect preservation, and 
 give evidence of that superior workmanship in 
 stone which was such a characteristic of the 
 Middle Ages. Compared with its antique splen- 
 dor, the magnificent showiness of Chatsworth, 
 ‘seems too spic-and-span; and we concluded that 
 we would not be willing to exchange the grand 
 group of cedars of Lebanon (brought seven hun- 
 dred years ago from the Holy Land by the 
 Crusaders,—whose pendant branches sweep the 
 windows of the noble dining-hall), for scores of 
 acres out of the vast park of the Duke of Devon- 
 shire. 
 
 Every reader of English history knows that 
 Warwick Castle was founded by the daughter of 
 Alfred, though a few antiquarians insist upon it 
 that Czesar had something to do with its estab- 
 lishment. However that may be, the oldest part 
 of the castle is the great Cesar Tower—a most 
 venerable piece of antiquity. The Sir Guy, 
 
 (116) 
 
 ) 
 
 
 

 
 A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE. 117 
 
 whose memory is so bound up with the early 
 history of the castle, was its first duke. He was 
 a contemporary of Alfred, and many mementoes 
 of him still remain in and about the castle. We. 
 visited with interest Guy’s Cliff—where the old 
 giant lived like a hermit for some years before 
 his death—and greatly admired its long avenue 
 of ancient oaks. 
 
 The approach to the castle is through the 
 quaint old town of Warwick. The walls which 
 surround it are as ponderous almost as those 
 around Windsor Castle, and the gray old build- 
 ings elbow them just as we were surprised to see 
 them doing at Windsor. It would seem that 
 even royalty and nobility have never been able 
 wholly to keep the democracy at a distance. We 
 entered through the old stone archway, and 
 paused to examine the iron-toothed portcullis 
 under which we passed. The moat still sur- 
 rounds the castle, but is filled with greensward 
 and flowers. The approach inside the gate is by 
 a broad avenue more than a hundred yards in 
 length, cut through the solid rock some twenty 
 feet high, so embowered over at the top as to 
 exclude the sunlight. A more impressive intro- 
 duction to the old feudal pile could not be 
 imagined. 
 
118 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 It will be remembered that some dozen years 
 ago a fire broke out in the castle, destroying 
 thirty-three rooms. No trace of the fire is visible 
 now. Restoration and rich greenery have wiped 
 out even its scars. The Great Hall is, perhaps, 
 the most interesting feature of the interior. Its 
 proportions are very vast; so much so, that the 
 great cavernous fireplace, on whose immense 
 dog-irons a whole cord of wood was piled, while 
 another entire cord was placed on a barrow be- 
 side the huge hearth, seemed to occupy so little 
 of its space as scarcely to arrest our attention. 
 
 What a museum of antiquities is this Great Hall! 
 Here are full suits of armor of every description, 
 from the tenth century down, placed, like regi- 
 ments of Crusaders, against and along the wall. 
 Here are Sir Guy’s helmet, spear, sword, and 
 buckler, of such prodigious proportions as make 
 _ one quite willing to believe in his Goliath height; 
 his porridge-pot, which holds twenty gallons, 
 and other belongings. Helmets, suits of armor, 
 shields, swords, worn by great historic person- 
 ages, from Sir Guy’s day, down to that of James 
 II, lined the hall, We examined with special 
 interest, the armor worn by Cromwell, and the 
 Doctor aspired to try on his helmet. The hall 
 and the great drawing-room are very rich in 
 
 
 

 
 A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE. 119 
 
 Venetian chandeliers, buhl tables, ormolu cabi- 
 nets, antique vases, and bronzes; but, above all, 
 are they grand with pictures. The finest collec- 
 tion of Van Dycks that exists is found in Warwick 
 Castle. All the beauty and chivalry of the reign 
 of Charles I. seem to look down upon one from 
 the walls. The grand picture of Charles on his 
 white charger, is placed with such fine effect at 
 the end of a long gallery, that one feels like 
 getting out of the way of the fiery steed. But 
 I will pass by the pathetic portraits of Hen- 
 -rietta and her sad. husband, and multitudes of 
 others that captivated us, and not attempt to 
 catalogue “the silvery Van Dyck.” Nor will I 
 linger over the great Warwick vase, and the 
 amusing rigmarole of the lame old flunkey, who 
 went over and over the history of the vase, be- 
 ginning at the first word of his well-learned bit 
 of rote, as often as G 
 
 
 
 mischievously inter- 
 rupted him, with such barbarous mouthings of 
 the Latin names as provoked us to laughter 
 difficult to conceal. 
 
 Two of our party were fortunate enough to be 
 present at a charity bazaar, given in the park, 
 which the rest of us were sorry to have missed, 
 inasmuch as it would have given us a pleasant 
 glimpse of the Warwickshire gentry, with the 
 
120 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 modifying admixture of all the Duke’s tenantry 
 They described it to us as the prettiest Watteau 
 picture they had seen in all their many sojourn- 
 ings heretofore in England. 
 
 A fly brought them to the castle gate at the 
 appointed hour; and they were soon in the midst 
 of a gay crowd of elegantly dressed women, 
 who, with their cavaliers, were moving about 
 among the flowers and shrubbery of the beau- 
 tiful grounds. The tenantry of the estate seemed 
 to have as much the freedom of the park as the 
 gentry; and they were scattered about, under 
 the trees, on the many rustic benches, enjoying 
 themselves after their own fashion, while their 
 children were rollicking on the grass. Pretty 
 booths were erected on the green turf for fruits, 
 flowers, ices, and creature-comforts of all sorts; 
 for this afternoon, eating was to bea religious 
 duty, and the money it was to bring in, was to 
 go to the restoration of the ancient parish church. 
 Restoration is the form which the charity of 
 England seems everywhere to assume. The first 
 object that invariably met our eye, in parish 
 church and cathedral, was the alms-box begging 
 for money to “restore” the building. There 
 were other booths, filled with beautiful fancy 
 things; and Jeanette, wishing to contribute het 
 
 
 

 
 A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE. 121 
 
 quota to the charity in hand, entered one of 
 these fancy-booths. A tall, gracious-looking lady, 
 of about forty-five, very plainly dressed in black, 
 advanced with marked cordiality to meet her. 
 (We were nowise surprised that our Jeanette 
 should arrest her eye with her stately presence.) 
 She begged that she might have the pleasure of 
 waiting upon her, and began to show her the 
 pretty things. Jeanette was in search of a pea- 
 cock-fan, and this led to a pleasant discursive 
 talk about peacocks. We had observed in the 
 park, white peacocks, a species we had never 
 seen before; and the lady went on to tell her 
 customer, of the varieties and numbers kept 
 about the castle. While she was supplying her 
 purchaser’s wants, she was constantly interrupt- 
 ed by distinguished-looking people coming up, 
 and, with rather impressive greetings, making 
 inquiries after her health. But she was too in- 
 tent upon her vé/e of saleswoman to allow her- 
 self to be detained long by any of them. 
 
 “And now,” she said, as she delivered Jeanette’s 
 package, “let me sell you a ticket or two fora 
 raffle which is to come off shortly—a pretty pic- 
 ture which it may be worth your while to make 
 a venture for,” she went on to say, with a most 
 persuasive smile. 
 
[22 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Jeanette met her pleasant entreaty with a cour- 
 teous declinature on the score that she was a trav- 
 eller, even then on her way to the Continent. 
 
 “Ah!” persisted the lady, coaxingly, “it will 
 be an easy thing to carry it over seas with you, 
 supposing you to be the fortunate winner of the 
 picture; for, of course, I know you to be an 
 American. And would it not be a pleasant re- 
 minder to you, in your new country, of our old 
 castle here?” 
 
 Such pressure being brought to bear upon our 
 American, she felt called upon, not to seem un- 
 gracious, to explain why she declined to take 
 the tickets. 
 
 “In my country, many people object to raffling 
 for religious or charitable purposes; and I have 
 known frequently, of considerable sums being 
 refused which were the proceeds of raffles, lot- 
 teries, and even charity balls. You will allow 
 me to say, that I happen to share this prejudice, 
 as you may term it, of my country people.” 
 
 “How much you surprise me!” said the lady, 
 with unaffected interest. “How, then, do you 
 ever realize anything at your charity bazaars? 
 Why, if we gave up our raffling system, our bric- 
 a-brac and all such pretty trash would go a-beg- 
 ging for purchasers! It is the excitement of the 
 raffle that stimulates our buyers.” 
 
 
 

 
 A BAZAAR AT WARWICK CASTLE. 123 
 
 “On the contrary,” said Jeanette, “we find 
 that we take in more money since we have aban- 
 doned this way of making it.” 
 
 “And you really think it wrong?” persisted 
 the lady, eagerly—“ wrong to raffle when the aim 
 is so good a one?” 
 
 “Yes, we object to the principle involved; and 
 we really think the gain is all on our side. Let 
 me give you one instance. In the city in which 
 I live, a year ago, the proceeds of a charity ball 
 were divided among four of the city hospitals. 
 The one in which my church is specially inter- 
 ested, courteously returned the three thousand 
 dollars sent, on this ground of principle. A few 
 days after, the sum of five thousand dollars was 
 sent to the trustees, in acknowledgment of their 
 adherence to what the donor thought was their 
 right action.” 
 
 “And yet,” the lady replied, “you have no Es- 
 tablished Church, nor governmental help for 
 your charities and churches! This is so new 
 and strange to me.” And she asked to have the 
 points clearly restated to her. 
 
 By this time, the booth was well filled, and ladies 
 were crowding around Jeanette’s interlocutor; 
 so, with apologies for having allowed the lady 
 to occupy herself so long with the American 
 stranger, our Jeanette bowed herself away. 
 
124 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 When she joined her husband at the entrance 
 of the booth, where he had been waiting for her, 
 he said: e 
 
 “Do you know that you have been gossiping - 
 for the last half-hour with her Grace, the Countess 
 of Warwick ?” x : 
 
 “No, I was not aware of it; but it struck me 
 that she was treated with unusual consideration 
 by the fine-looking gentry, who were constantly 
 coming up with greetings. However, I am not 
 sorry to have had this bit of talk with her, as it 
 shows me that a countess is just as agreeable 
 as any well-born and well-mannered American 
 woman.” 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORDSWORTH. 
 
 I THINK it is the Swedish poet Tegner who 
 says: 
 
 ‘* Ah, if so much of beauty pour itself 
 Through all the veins of life and of creation, 
 How beautiful must the great Fountain be, 
 The bright, the eternal !” 
 
 And his lines kept ringing in my head all the 
 way from Windermere to Rydal Water, as we 
 drove through the beautiful landscape the other 
 day. The sky was brilliantly clear, and the sun- 
 shine truly American in its brightness. “You 
 have Queen’s weather, indeed, for your excur- 
 sion,” said our kind host, as we set out from the 
 edge of Lake Windermere, on board the little 
 steamer, The Swan, for Ambleside—Wordsworth’s 
 and Southey’s Ambleside. It is the quaint- 
 est village imaginable, cropping out from the 
 hillside like some natural rocky formation. 
 Wordsworth says that most of the cottages in 
 the lake country look like native boulders, shaped 
 by nature into some resemblance to a human 
 dwelling, and we constantly verified his idea. 
 
 On our way to the head of the lake, Dove-Nest 
 (125) 
 
126 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 was pointed out to us, half hidden amid rich 
 coppice—a pretty cottage, where Mrs. Hemans 
 once had her summer home: and as we passed 
 it, I looked out for the “great, white rose-tree,” 
 in the centre of the lawn, to which she so pathet- 
 ically likened her own life. 
 
 At Ambleside we took a carriage for Gras- 
 mere, and found in our coachman a most intelli- 
 gent guide. He knew every foot of the storied 
 way—yjust where to stop, where the views were 
 finest, and with the end of his whip gave interest, 
 by what he had to tell, to every roof and chim- 
 ney-pot. We wound among steep green hills, 
 bald of trees, and strewn over with sheep-walks 
 and mossy walls to their very tops. These hills 
 are marvellous in shape, often sternly rugged, 
 with little of the rich softness which character- 
 izes the more southern shores of Lake Winder- 
 mere. The roads are the perfection of roads, 
 turfed to the edge with such turf as the Rydal 
 Poet used to boast, it took three hundred years 
 to produce. The variety and beauty of the wild 
 flowers along the hedge-rows were things to 
 wonder at. Our driver gathered for us spikes of 
 brilliant foxglove a foot long, with flowers of a 
 prodigious size, and columbines of the rarest 
 beauty. 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORDSWORTH. 127 
 
 Before we reached Grasmere, we came upon 
 the residence of Harriet Martineau, a tall house, 
 some distance from the road. ‘The Knoll,” as 
 it is called, faces the lake, and is beautifully sit- 
 uated. Although we were no great admirers of 
 the strong-minded woman, we looked with in- 
 terest on a spot to which so many great person- 
 ages had made pilgrimage, while its Egeria dis- 
 pensed her wide hospitality here. 
 
 The village of Grasmere has the same gray 
 quiet that marks the villages of all this district. 
 We drove at once to the central spot of interest, 
 St. Oswald’s Church. As we entered its green 
 enclosure, and looked round at the stern yet 
 beautiful mountains, that gather lake and village 
 into their circling embrace, I thought I never had 
 seen so fitting a burial-place for a poet of nature. 
 “Don’t tell me,” I said to Julia, as we threaded 
 the long gravelled walk through the church- 
 yard, “where Wordsworth lies”; for she had al- 
 ready made a pilgrimage toit. “Let me see if 
 my instincts will not lead me straight there.” 
 And they did. 
 
 The Wordsworth plot is filled with family 
 graves, with simple slabs and headstones of gray 
 slate-stone; only one marble one among them, 
 that of Dora Wordsworth the wife of Edward 
 
128 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 Quillinan, the well-known translator of the Por- 
 tuguese poet Camoens. One may be forgiven a lit- | 
 tle sentiment while standing here and reading the 
 familiar names. What stern Doric simplicity in 
 the two lines on the slab over the poet’s grave: 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
 and 
 MAry, his wife. 
 
 We had evidence that personal interest in the 
 poet has not yet died out; for there was a cluster 
 of fresh roses laid upon the stone, and a man- 
 uscript copy of verses, evidently original, ad- 
 dressed to him, placed there also. 
 
 Dora Wordsworth’s grave recalled to mind her 
 father’s tender verses, “The Triad,” addressed 
 to the daughters of the three poets—Sara Col- 
 eridge, Edith Southey, and his own Dora—all 
 beautiful girls, worthy of the tribute paid to them 
 in the poem. 
 
 Close by is the grave of Dorothy, the “wild- 
 eyed sister” of Wordsworth, whom Coleridge 
 used to speak of as the most intellectual woman 
 he had ever known; and yet her latter years were 
 clouded under a veil of pathetic insanity. 
 
 As I turned from the Wordsworth plot, I felt 
 something like moisture dim my eye, as I found 
 ‘myself suddenly facing a circular headstone, 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORDSWORTH. 129 
 
 on which was sculptured a beautiful flower- 
 wreathed Maltese cross, bearing the name of 
 Hartley Coleridge. Instantly there came to mind 
 that gray morning, when Mrs. Wordsworth sent 
 “James ’’—the well-known factotum of Rydal 
 Mount—down to the cottage of the sick man, 
 over whose life she had had such a motherly 
 care. 
 
 “Mistress, I think you maun go down to him; 
 for Mr. Hartley is very bad.” 
 
 So she went, and sat by the poor fellow with 
 his hand in hers, till the sad, ineffectual life 
 passed away. 
 
 “William,” she said, on coming home, “I have 
 promised poor Hartley that he shall be laid close 
 beside us.” And so just outside of the iron rail- 
 ing he lies. 
 
 We went into the antique Norman church, and 
 read in the low porch this card, which seemed to 
 us touching and appropriate: 
 
 “Whoever thou art that enterest this church, forbear 
 not to put up a brief prayer for the minister and the 
 congregation who worship here; and, above all, forget 
 not to offer a petition for thyself.” | 
 
 The church is very quaint and ancient. It has 
 a large east window of fine stained glass; and in 
 the chancel were two very antique chairs, black 
 
 9 
 
130 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 as ebony through age, with their primitive carv- 
 ing worn almost to smoothness. On the high 
 back of each we read the respective dates cut in 
 relief, A.D, 607, and A.D. 637. In one of the aisles 
 is a monument to Wordsworth, surmounted by 
 a life-size bust, with a long inscription testifying 
 to his virtues as a neighbor and citizen, as well 
 as a poet. | 
 
 It pleased me to come suddenly upon a tablet, 
 with a das-relievo head, erected to Mrs. Fletcher, 
 the beautiful and accomplished woman whose 
 home in Edinburgh was the gathering-place, 
 fifty years ago, for the wits and bright spirits of 
 that classic city—in short, its Holland House. I 
 sat down in her pew, and recalled her account of 
 Wordsworth’s death. From the windows of Les- 
 keth How, her summer home, she could see the 
 windows of Rydal Mount. 
 
 “Are they closed this morning, Elsie?” she 
 asked her maid, not having courage enough to 
 look for herself. 
 
 “Yes, mistress, all are bowed.” 
 
 *‘ Ah, well !—then he has gone!” 
 
 From a neighboring mountain tarn a sparkling 
 beck dashes down, just outside the churchyard 
 wall, and goes babbling on till it loses itself in 
 the lake near by. 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WORDSWORTH. 131 
 
 At the pretty little Grasmere Hotel we had a 
 charming luncheon, and then took our carriage 
 again to drive to Rydal Mount. On the way, we 
 passed Nab Cottage, where Hartley Coleridge 
 lived and died. At one point we came upon a 
 huge pile of rocks, with rude steps cut upon one 
 side. Here was the sacred haunt of the poet, 
 where he used to sit for hours crooning to him- 
 self, as he made his verses. A short drive over 
 roads as smooth as a floor, brought us to the foot 
 of Rydal Mount. The ascent is long and steep, 
 but the beautiful road is completely overarched 
 with tall trees. Wordsworth’s cottage (though it 
 is a two-storied house of good dimensions) is al- 
 most hidden from view by high surrounding 
 walls, thick hedges, and close clusters of foliage. 
 The people of this north region seem still to hold 
 to the idea that raids from the Picts and Scots 
 may yet be looked for; for there is not a villa, 
 nor dwelling of any pretension, that is not 
 strongly garrisoned behind walls eight and 
 sometimes ten feet high, into which admittance 
 is only had through barred iron gates, ponder- 
 ous enough to guard a drawbridge. 
 
 _ As this property no longer belongs to the 
 Wordsworths, it is not open to the tourist; so 
 we contented ourselves with peering through 
 
132 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 the gates into the pretty grounds, and gather- 
 ing a few laurel leaves in memory of him whose 
 genius will always consecrate the place. | 
 
 Our drive back to Ambleside was on the oppo- 
 site side of the lake from the route we had taken 
 in the morning, and was only a shade less pic- 
 turesque and beautiful. Everything along the 
 way recalled Wordsworth. “We are seven,” 
 G 
 doorway full of bright-faced children. ‘ Goody 
 
 said, as we passed a cottage with a 
 
 
 
 Blakes’? were strewn along the road, and here 
 and there we encountered that “‘ wolet by a mossy 
 stone,”—some pretty “ Zucy Gray” in the shape of 
 a young mountain maiden. As we approached 
 the beautiful shores of Windermere, we could 
 not forbear quoting the poet’s own words: 
 
 «|... A mild surprise 
 Did carry far into our hearts the voice 
 Of mountain torrents ; and the visible scene 
 Entered, all unawares, into our minds 
 With its grand solemn imagery, its rocks, 
 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake.” 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 AT ST. OSWALD’S. 
 
 WirTuin the church I knelt, where many a year 
 Wordsworth had worshipped, while his musing 
 eye 7 7 
 Wandered o’er mountain, fell, and scaur, and sky, 
 That rimmed the silver circle of Grasmere, 
 Whose crystal held an under-world as clear 
 As that which girt it round ;—and questioned 
 why 
 The place was sacred for zs lifted sigh, 
 More than the humble dalesman’s kneeling near. 
 
 Strange spell of Genius—that can melt the soul 
 To reverence tenderer that o’er it falls 
 Beneath the marvellous heavens which God hath 
 made; 
 And sway it with such human-sweet control, 
 That holier henceforth seem these simple walls, 
 
 Because, within them once, a Poet prayed ! 
 (133) 
 
A DAY AT FURNESS ABBEY. 
 
 WE were staying last week at Bowness, on 
 Lake Windermere, about twenty-two miles from 
 the spot where I now write, Keswick, on Der- 
 wentwater. Bowness is one of the quaintest 
 towns I have seen in England, and has an air of 
 antiquity which its six or seven hundred years 
 of age will hardly warrant. Its steep streets 
 slope from the water’s edge up to the crest of 
 the hill, on which the pretty Crown Hotel stands, 
 clustered over with honeysuckles and roses, 
 
 The villages in the Lake District have a pecu- 
 liarity of their own, and are unlike any I else- 
 where saw in England. They are built of the 
 slaty stone that abounds in this region, and as 
 their streets are flagged with the same, they 
 would have a melancholy grayness were it not 
 for the laughing brightness of the flowers, in 
 which every little cottage nestles roof-deep. I 
 never imagined such a riot of ivy as there is 
 everywhere among these beautiful Cumberland 
 and Westmoreland lakes. Every roadside cottage 
 is covered with it to its chimney-pots; every wail 
 
 clothes itself with it as with a mantle; the great 
 (134) 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 A DAY AT FURNESS ABBEY. 138 
 
 boulders, which are a marked feature in the 
 landscape here, are green with it. Why it should 
 grow with a rapidity and luxuriance, here, un- 
 known to the South of England, I am not able 
 to say. 
 
 As Bowness is a very convenient centre from 
 which to make excursions to every part of the 
 Lake region, I must be allowed to say a few 
 words more about it. It lies along Lake Winder- 
 mere, the largest and most beautiful of all these 
 exquisite sheets of water that help to make this 
 North of England one of the most delicious 
 spots, for consummate beauty, in all the world. 
 Certainly the three kingdoms can show nothing 
 like it. The little cove at Bowness is at all times 
 flashing with scores of pleasure-boats, whose 
 crimson cushions and floating pennons give it a 
 most brilliant appearance. Small, trim steamers 
 constantly ply up and down the bright waters, 
 and as they have bands on board,—pipers and 
 fi dlers,—the tourist is constantly moving to the 
 sound of music. One of our party, who had 
 been up and down the lake so often that he had 
 gotten tired of dropping sixpences into the per- 
 petual hat, said, on one of our excursions, to 
 the old Scotchman who passed it around, “ Not 
 another pennv!” The bonneted piper meekly 
 
136 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 took his seat, and in a little while, “The Star- 
 spangled Banner” was struck up, and played 
 with great vigor. When the hat for the third 
 time made its rounds, the American heart of our 
 companion was so stirred that all his sixpences 
 
 went. 
 
 The old church at Bowness dates back five 
 
 hundred years, and is a well-preserved specimen 
 of the architecture of that period. Along the 
 nave, quaint wooden arches spring across from 
 the tops of the pillars, inscribed on each side 
 with verses from Scripture in black-letter, 
 
 The east window in this church was like the 
 one Lowell speaks of in “ The Cathedral ’— 
 
 ‘* A great east window of divine surprise.” 
 
 It was made of the fine stained glass rescued 
 from Furness Abbey at its destruction, and was 
 filled with medallion pictures, wrought with rare 
 delicacy and feeling. Scarcely in any other 
 stained window in England had we seen finer 
 specimens of the art when it was in its perfec- 
 tion. In one of the aisles we were shown one of 
 the few chained Bibles that yet remain in Eng- 
 land, the chain being strong and ponderous 
 enough to pull a cart. 
 
 One of the most delightful excursions a tourist 
 
 
 
 ‘: 
 
 
 

 
 A DAY AT FURNESS ABBEY. 137 
 
 can make from Bowness is to Furness Abbey, 
 which, by the help of steamer and rail, he can 
 accomplish, and return in a day, leaving several 
 hours on his hands for sight-seeing. We stepped 
 on board a rapid little steamer, Zhe Cygnet, and 
 were soon flying down the lake. The beauty of 
 the shores of Windermere is something beyond 
 description. The cultivation of the wooded 
 slopes is perfect, and from end to end they are 
 studded with villas, hidden away amid their 
 parks. No wonder that Wordsworth, and Sou- 
 they, and Coleridge, and Christopher North, and 
 Dr. Arnold, and Ruskin, seem to grow extrav- 
 agant over the dream-like beauty of this scenery ! 
 The greatest lover of Wordsworth among us in- 
 sisted on quoting him at every turn, till the rest 
 were ready to cry “ Hold!” 
 
 A few miles brought us to Lakeside, the station 
 where we took train to Furness. Its walls are 
 so completely covered with ivy and flowering 
 vines that it might readily be mistaken for the 
 picturesque lodge at the entrance of a gentle- 
 man’s grounds. The day was one of rare clear- 
 ness; the sky held that “incommunicable blue” 
 so seldom seen in England. We followed the 
 windings of the river Leven through valleys 
 steeped in verdure, down to Ulverston, thence to 
 
138 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 the large manufacturing town of Dalton. The 
 passage of the Ulverston Sands is robbed of 
 all its peril now, but in the ancient times, to 
 cross them was the only way to reach Furness 
 Abbey. The tide washed out far inland every 
 trace of pathway, so that no traveller, save at 
 the risk of his life, dared to cross them without 
 a guide. We were whirled safely over, without 
 a thought of danger, to the door of what eight 
 hundred years ago was the abbot’s house. 
 
 The old monks had a keen eye for rich lands 
 and picturesque sites. There is scarcely a mon- 
 astic ruin in the three kingdoms that has not 
 been chosen with an eye to these points. 
 
 The conquering Normans, too, well knew how 
 to search out the choice spots of the realm, other- 
 wise this little peninsula in the North of Eng- 
 land would not have been the centre of sucha 
 grand estate as Count Stephen, of Boulogne, 
 made over to the Cistercian monks, who, in 1127, 
 here founded Furness Abbey. 
 
 Had Stephen ever imagined that he was to 
 become King of England twenty years after— 
 for at this time Prince William, son of Henry L, 
 had not perished in the White Ship—he would 
 perhaps have held on to his rich possessions, 
 As it was, he gave them to the Church, in a pious 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 A DAY AT FURNESS ABBEY. 139 
 
 mood, in order, as he said, “to secure the sal- 
 vation of his own, his wife Matilda’s, and his 
 uncle’s (Henry I.) souls.” The revenues from 
 these vast possessions, arising from the fisheries, 
 the iron and coal mines, as well as from the rich 
 lands, enabled the Norman monks, whom Ste- 
 phen transported thither, to erect a vast monas- 
 tic pile, which in time became the largest in the 
 kingdom. The abbots reigned like feudal lords, 
 and soon lost sight of St. Bernard’s strict rules 
 for the regulation of the order. Twelve hundred 
 armed men were kept as retainers in the Abbey, 
 and at times the monks and the abbots them- 
 selves led scandalous lives. At the suppression 
 of monastic houses, everything belonging to the 
 Abbey was confiscated, and the buildings left to 
 ruin. 
 
 The first thing that met our eyes on entering 
 the abbot’s house, now beautifully restored, and 
 used as an inn, was an oil painting of Washing- 
 ton, over the door of the handsome room in 
 which we dined. It was the only portrait of him 
 we saw in England. The Abbey is of Norman 
 architecture, and was built of red sandstone, 
 which, draped as it is from top to bottom with 
 ivy, and surrounded by park-like grounds kept 
 in the most exquisite manner, gives it a very rich 
 
q 
 
 140 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 appearance. The walls that still stand are very 
 lofty, and several hundred feet in length. A 
 long row of pointed windows in the clere-story 
 still shows as faultless an outline as if the 
 mason’s chisel had left them but yesterday. 
 Windows thirty feet high still light the transept, 
 as perfect in form as when they were filled with 
 stained glass seven hundred years ago. Multi- 
 tudes of clustered pillars still stand in their 
 original perfection. All the ruins, with the ex- 
 ception of a chapel or two, are roofless, and the 
 long nave is carpeted with as rich a-verdure as 
 England can show. We gathered handfuls of 
 buttercups and daisies where altar and holy- 
 water fonts used to stand. Indeed, we dipped 
 our hands into some of the receptacles for holy 
 water built into the walls, with some feeling of 
 sentiment for the countless hands that had done 
 so before us—hands that have been dust for 
 seven hundred years. Fine lancet windows 
 opened from the transepts, where ancient tombs 
 are still thickly scattered. Our guide pointed 
 out the marble effigy of a crusader, black with 
 age; that he belonged to the second crusade was 
 indicated by his crossed legs. I scraped a few 
 flakes of lichen from his helmeted head in mem 
 ory of my visit. 
 
 
 
 ; 
 
 
 

 
 A DAY AT FURNESS ABBEY, 14! 
 
 I will not attempt to carry my reader all over 
 this magnificent ruin. The porter’s lodge, the 
 chancel, the choir, the transepts, the nave, the 
 lantern tower, the chapter-house, the refectory, 
 are all more or less perfect. 
 
 We sat down on the capitals of some of the 
 ruined pillars, which serve as seats in the beauti- 
 ful cloister grounds, and gave ourselves up to 
 delicious visions of the olden days. We could 
 fancy that we heard chanting in the chapter- 
 house, and it did not require much imagination, 
 as we sat with half-closed eyes, to believe that 
 we caught sight, now and then, of the floating 
 robe of a Cistercian monk. Julia suggested that 
 the multitude of rooks cawing above the ruins 
 were the old monks come back again, only their 
 white habits were changed to black in token of 
 their sorrow over the changed order of things. 
 The tinkle of the distant sheep-bells, that came 
 ‘borne to us on the soft wind, our day-dream 
 easily converted into the chime of the Angelus. 
 Even the bustle of a distant train seemed not 
 greatly unlike the noise the twelve hundred 
 armed men might sometimes have made in the 
 court-yard. But the gay chatter of half a dozen 
 bright young girls who had joined our party, put 
 to flight all too soon these visions of the past. 
 
wl Pi SRR oe i ee ee os ee 
 
 i ok eae ee ee 
 
 142 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 We certainly could not mistake them for saintly 
 lady abbesses, or white-swathed, meek-faced nuns. 
 
 Furness Abbey is now the private property of 
 the Duke of Devonshire, and its grounds and 
 
 surroundings are as perfectly kept as Chatsworth 
 itself. Infinite pains are taken to prevent hein 
 falling of walls, and every effort made to arrest 
 the gnawing tooth of time, so that the ruins of © 
 Furness Abbey are likely to stand in their pres- 
 ent beautiful decay—so beautiful that they ; if i 
 scarcely seem sad—for scores of yearstocome.  —S— 
 
 
 

 
 AROUND GRETA HALL. 
 
 WE have been driving and sauntering about 
 this lovely spot where, for forty years, Robert 
 Southey had his home, and in the neighborhood 
 of which he lies buried. . 
 
 Nothing could have been further from Southey’s 
 idea, when he came hither on a visit to Coleridge, 
 who, in his vagrant way, had moored himself here 
 for a brief period, than to choose this part of Eng- 
 land as a permanent home; for he was a Bristol 
 man, and loved the sights and sounds of the sea. 
 
 If it was the “malice of circumstance” that 
 sent Coleridge drifting thither, it surely was an 
 overruling kindness that placed Southey here, 
 where he was left free and undisturbed to carry 
 out the literary plans of his life, to which he ad- 
 hered so rigidly. He found Greta Hall a house 
 suited to his purpose; just sufficiently secluded 
 to meet his ideas; the neighborhood of poet- 
 friends and cultivated society, and scenery such 
 as his West England eyes had never rested on 
 before. 
 
 Coleridge, in coaxing him thither, said: “In 
 (143) 
 
144 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 front we have a giants’ camp, an encamped army 
 of tent-like mountains, which, by an inverted 
 arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right 
 the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of 
 Bassenthwaite ; and on our left, Derwentwater 
 and Lodore full in view, and the fantastic moun- 
 tains of Borrowdale. Behind us the massy Skid- 
 daw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms, and 
 a tent-like ridge in the larger.” 2 
 
 And so Southey carried his Penates to Greta 
 Hall, and hallowed the spot ever after, by its as- 
 sociations with one who was beyond almost all 
 of his craft, a perfect man of letters. 
 
 No one can read Cuthbert Southey’s delightful 
 Life of his father, so enriched by its abundance 
 of sparkling correspondence with the best minds 
 in Britain, or the pleasant autobiographical remi- 
 niscences of Sara Coleridge, during her girlhood’s 
 life under her uncle’s roof, without a keen inter- 
 est in what appertains to this rarely happy liter- 
 ary home. 
 
 Greta Hall stands on the crest of a slope, just 
 beyond the town of Keswick, and is so embower- 
 ed in trees, that it is not easy to get a good view 
 of it from the front. Between it and the pretty 
 stone bridge over the Greta is—oh, the sharp 
 irony of poetic justice !—a huge establishment 
 
 
 

 
 AROUND GRETA HALL. 145 
 
 bearing in staring letters on its wall: “The 
 Southey Lead-Pencil Manufactory.” I could not 
 but imagine the grim frown that would have 
 clouded the poet’s handsome face, could sucha 
 master of the scribbling art have had a fore- 
 shadowing of the smoky chimney -stacks, that 
 shut out the picturesque view of the pretty town 
 of Keswick beyond. 
 
 We strolled along the banks of the clear Greta, 
 fringed with sweet-brier, wild marigold, and but- 
 tercups. The path seemed to have been trod- 
 den by centuries of feet; and it was, perhaps, 
 Southey’s most familiar foot-way. We found 
 ourselves close behind the back windows of the 
 Hall. The stream whispers along so near the 
 house as fairly to wash its walls; and we almost 
 could have shaken hands with one standing in 
 what Sara Coleridge calls one of the lordliest 
 studies in England. 
 
 At one end of the mansion rambled the low 
 walls of the kitchen offices, where I imagined I 
 could see the “dear Aunt Edith” with her basket 
 of keys, going to and fro in her careful and dig- 
 nified way, looking after the res anguste domt. 
 
 A narrow path led from the house to a small 
 landing, where lay a little boat, just such a one 
 
 as that in which Southey used to paddle himself 
 IO 
 
146 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 up and down the stream. How suggestive it all 
 was of the beautiful life of this home-loving man 
 —of picnics to Lodore; of trips to Skiddaw; of 
 sails on Derwentwater; of climbs up Helvellyn! 
 
 We attended service on Sunday at Cross- 
 thwaite Church, where Southey lies buried. 
 Apart from this association, the church is inter- 
 esting as being a very ancient foundation. It 
 claims to occupy the site of a Saxon church that 
 stood there in the sixth century. At one end 
 of one of the aisles, is a large white marble 
 monument, bearing a recumbent figure of the 
 poet. The face does not give one as agreeable 
 an impression as the steel engravings we are 
 familiar with. Perhaps it is because the eyes 
 are wide open, with a sort of upward stare. The 
 idea evidently is, that he hears a voice above him, 
 and is dropping the book from his hand to listen. 
 
 The simple little children of the primitive- 
 looking dales-people gathered about us, and 
 seemed interested in our curiosity. It was cher 
 statue, and they were glad to have something to 
 show these foreign tourists. It was entertain- 
 ing to see their sense of proprietorship ; they 
 rubbed their rough hands over the poet’s crisp 
 curls, smoothed his forehead, and dallied with 
 the marble tassels of the cushion on which his 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 AROUND GRETA HALL. 147 
 
 head rested, the beadle not interfering to forbid 
 them. In the churchyard we found the monu- 
 ments of the Southey family, made of simple 
 gray stone like that which covers Wordsworth’s 
 grave. As I stood there, I could not but recall 
 the somewhat sad extinguishment of a life that 
 had been pre-eminently happy; and the sleety 
 March morning on which Wordsworth and Quil- 
 linan crossed over from Grasmere to see him 
 laid in the grave, seemed a fitting type of his 
 life’s ending. 
 
 “He was a noble and kind gentleman,” the 
 beadle said to Anna—“ so gracious to all his poor 
 neighbors; not like Mr. Wordsworth, who did 
 na’ mind them much. My wife was for long, a 
 maid in his family, and a better maister never 
 lived.” 
 
 Derwentwater is a perfect gem of a lake, sur- 
 rounded by fantastically moulded mountains, 
 green to their tops, and where they are not cov- 
 ered with young plantations of larches, threaded 
 with sheep-paths. It was not strange that Cole- 
 ridge should have named the son, who was born 
 here, after this lake. We made the circuit of the 
 lake the other afternoon, and it was a drive to 
 be remembered. We had a spanking pair of 
 horses and an intelligent driver, who made every 
 
148 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 foot of the way interesting by his reminiscences. 
 Old Skiddaw towered in the distance; the quiet 
 of the lake was impressive, presenting a great 
 contrast to Windermere with its fleets of pleas- 
 ure-boats. 
 
 We explored Borrowdale; we paused at the 
 chasm, but did not see “how the water comes 
 down at Lodore”’; for midsummer had dried up 
 the mountain streams. We stopped beside the 
 great “Bowder Stone’’—the biggest boulder, I 
 suppose, in Great Britain—but we did not ascend 
 the steps which lead to its top. The head-waters 
 of the Derwent take their rise in a wild region, 
 that answers to the Indian’s description of a waste 
 rocky gorge,—“ A place where the Great Spirit 
 emptied His lap, after He had finished making 
 the world.” We wound away from the top of 
 Borrowdale, down the other side of the lake, and 
 passed St. Herbert’s Isle,—a spot made holy as 
 the haunt of a hermit, who lived there in the 
 seventh century. Of course, by dint of a little 
 sharp gazing, we could see the ruins of St. Her- 
 bert’s chimney-top ! 
 
 We finished our beautiful day, by sitting out 
 on the fine grounds of this manorial-looking 
 hotel (The Mansion House)—which is for the 
 time being our home—and watched the sun go 
 
 
 

 
 AROUND GRETA HALL. 149 
 
 down behind the tent-like mountains, with a 
 golden lustre that suffused the cloudless sky— 
 the circle of sapphire hills—the bright town 
 below us, and the waters of the crystal lake. As 
 the sun’s rim dipped behind the horizon, I looked 
 at my watch, and found it a quarter past eight; 
 but it was nearly ten before it grew too dark to 
 read, so lengthened out, are these northern twi- 
 lights. 
 
 “TI shall never see anything on earth lovelier 
 than this,’ said the Professor, as he sat with his 
 face still brightened by the sunset sky; “I almost 
 feel as if I would like to close my eyes here, and 
 now, and open them next in heaven!” 
 
 It was perhaps pardonable, that, sitting within 
 sight of the roof under which it was written, I 
 should quote the opening verses of Southey’s 
 “ Thalaba,” as moon and stars came out: 
 
 ‘* How beautiful is night! 
 
 A dewy softness fills the silent air ; 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain 
 Dims the serene of heaven. 
 In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 
 Sails through the dark blue depths. 
 Beneath her mystic ray, 
 The heaving mountains spread, 
 Like billowy ocean, girdled by the sky; 
 
 How beautiful is night!” 
 
THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 
 
 THE most notable object that meets the eye of 
 a stranger, as he looks from the windows of the 
 Royal Hotel, Princes Street, Edinburgh, is the 
 exquisite monument dedicated to the greatest of 
 modern romancers. 
 
 And this Princes Street—how its beauty takes 
 away one’s breath! and we find ourselves using 
 the historic exclamation of “the First Gentle- 
 man in Europe,” with a consciousness of its ut- 
 ter baldness of description. It seems peculiarly 
 fitting, that at the noblest point of this splendid 
 avenue, Sir Walter’s monument should be placed, 
 just at the edge of the superb esplanade, with 
 the old town all behind him, and the new town 
 stretching away before him, with its picturesque 
 beauty. 
 
 The monument is like the section of a Gothic 
 spire, surmounted by many pinnacles, among 
 which are niched some thirty of the principal 
 characters of Sir Walter’s novels. It is built of 
 the light stone, to which most of the architecture 
 
 of the city owes its elegance; and its details are 
 (150) 
 
 
 

 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 151 
 
 very richly wrought out. Under the dome sits 
 Sir Walter, wrapped in his plaid, with his head 
 upon his hand, in a brooding attitude, while 
 Maida lies at his feet. There is something very 
 touching as he sits there between the past and 
 the present, keeping silent and everlasting watch 
 over the city, about which his genius has thrown 
 such a glamour of romance. 
 
 They tell us here a touching incident of the 
 architect who designed this monument. Sir 
 Walter was driving one day among the Pentland 
 Hills, and overtook a lad of twelve who was toil- 
 ing along under a heavy burden, He made him 
 place his bundle in the carriage, and take his 
 seat beside him, beguiling the way with talk 
 about the boy’s hopes and plans. When he was 
 put down by Sir Walter, it was with a warm glow 
 _in his heart, and a crown in his hand; and from 
 that time his admiration for his benefactor be- 
 came a passion. He studied architecture, and 
 when designs for the monument were sent in, 
 his design was chosen. The pathetic part of the 
 story is, that he did not live to see the work, into 
 which he had put all his heart, completed. 
 
 There is not a historic building, nor an old 
 church, nor a close, nor an ancient thoroughfare, 
 about this grand old city, that is not instinct 
 
152 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 with memories of Sir Walter. Our carriage 
 drivers filled us with wonder with their minute 
 knowledge of his works. We have followed the 
 limping boy to the high-school: we have gone 
 with him to the Grass Market. We have paced 
 up and down the Cannongate, and had Saddle- 
 tree, and Dumbiedikes, and wild-eyed Meg, to 
 come crowding about us. We have driven to 
 Castle Street, and visited the house there, ina 
 back room of which, as he himself says, “ with 
 only a patch of shabby sky visible,” he wrote the 
 best of his novels. There is nothing to distin- 
 guish the house but Sir Walter’s bust above the 
 door. 
 
 As we pored over the heart-shaped chiselling 
 in the pavement where the old Tolbooth used to 
 stand, and drove thence past Davie Dean’s cot- 
 tage, and then away beyond the city limits to 
 Reuben Butler’s school-room, and had the very 
 spot shown us where Effie was accustomed to 
 meet her lover, no wonder we fancied that we 
 saw her grave sister Jeanie walking in High 
 Street ! 
 
 On the steps of Greyfriars’ Church, we thought 
 assuredly of the solemn league and covenant ; 
 but also of that wet Sunday when the gallant 
 Walter gave his umbrella in the porch to the 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 153 
 
 pretty, young French maiden who afterward be- 
 came his Charlotte. And how could we sit in 
 St. Giles or stand in its crypt on the slabs, under 
 which lie Murray and Montrose, and not feel as if 
 we were living among his creation? 
 
 At Holyrood Sir Walter seemed to be our cice- 
 rone; and it was the Mary Stuart of his romances 
 who haunted all the rooms, and who went up 
 and down with us those worn, stony stairways. 
 Pausing before the entrance to the palace, at the 
 beautiful fountain covered over with historic 
 statuettes, it was “Jingling Geordie” who 
 seemed to stretch his hand to us to lead us to 
 Heriot’s Hospital, at whose entrance we easily 
 saw Nigel with Richard Moniplies behind him. 
 
 We have gone, with the spirit of pilgrims, over 
 the beautiful “Queen’s Drive”; and find the 
 whole circuit of the landscape filled with Sir 
 Walter. Yonder are the Pentland Hills, every 
 foot of which he had tramped over. In the dis- 
 tance beyond lies Lammermoor; and within 
 view are the sands where the poor Master of 
 Ravenswood perished. Just a short way this 
 side of them is the field of Preston Pans; and 
 down there, in the little village, we could see the 
 roof under which Prince Charlie slept the night 
 before the battle. 
 
154 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 We turn our heads, and below us are the ruins 
 of St. Anthony’s Chapel, so fully described in 
 “The Heart of Mid-Lothian.” Farther on is St. 
 Margaret’s Well—an ancient fountain of as cool, 
 delicious water as we ever drank. We pleased 
 ourselves with thinking that the boy Walter had 
 many atime taken a draught from the antique 
 iron ladle chained to the solid masonry of the 
 well. 
 
 But why attempt to catalogue the spots made 
 memorable by this supreme genius, when the 
 very lochs and mountains, and bracken, and 
 heathery moors, all give back to us the echo of 
 the one name! What were beautiful Scotland 
 without Sir Walter as the interpreter of her 
 legends and her history—of her sufferings and 
 her glory ! 
 
 A day or two ago we came down to Abbots- 
 ford, still keeping in our hands the clew of the 
 Romancer. How refreshing it was to drive along 
 the foot of the Eildon Hills, whose three peaks 
 are so distinctly seen as we approach the little 
 castle—the peaks said to be cloven by the spell 
 of Michael Scott, the Wizard, whose tomb we 
 saw to-day in Melrose Abbey; and how vividly 
 we recalled the midnight ride of Deloraine, in 
 search of the Wizard’s Book of Magic! Abbots 
 
; } 
 | 
 . 
 i 
 t 
 i 
 ' 
 a 
 t 
 p 
 ; 
 \ 
 
 SE EGE 
 
 ————————— 
 
 
 

 

 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 155 
 
 ford lies lower than we had imagined—the Tweed 
 
 ‘flowing softly before it, with only the interven- 
 tion of a velvet-turfed meadow. The castellated 
 house is much more imposing than I had ex- 
 pected to see: it is anything but the lath-and- 
 plaster structure my travelled friends had talked 
 about. It is of a beautiful light stone, and the 
 grounds about it are faultlessly kept. 
 
 And yet it made me infinitely sorry to see this 
 treasure of Sir Walter’s heart kept as a mere 
 show-place; for the Hope-Scott family, we were 
 told, live for part of each year in a cottage near 
 by, and draw their income largely from the ex- 
 hibition to tourists of the house proper. It would 
 have made Sir Walter groan, and lean his hand 
 more heavily on Tom Purdie’s shoulder, could 
 he have been one of our fifty tourists, yesterday, 
 who followed the wooden guide all over his pre- 
 cious rooms, and heard his wooden talk. It 
 seemed to vulgarize the romance of the place. 
 Yet it was inspiriting to walk round the draw- 
 ing-room; see Raeburn’s fine picture of the Laird 
 of Abbotsford; examine the beautiful ebony cab- 
 inet and set of chairs, the gift of George the 
 Fourth; look at the grand chair presented by 
 Gregory the Sixteenth; study the bronze vases 
 sent by Byron; and pore over the great, circular 
 
156 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 table in the Jarge bay-window where, under 
 glass, the most precious relics were kept. Here 
 was Rob Roy’s purse; Helen Macgregor’s heron- 
 plume; the golden cloak-clasps of Bonaparte, 
 picked up at Waterloo, with his military port- 
 folio; relics of Lord Nelson; a drinking-cup of 
 Burns’; and multitudes of mementoes alike in- 
 teresting. 
 
 The library is a beautiful room, lined from 
 floor to ceiling with books; but the little study 
 next to it, with the books around, which were 
 the special implements of the Romancer’s trade, 
 above all took my heart. There was the veri- 
 table chair, and the desk at which he had sat. I 
 had leave of the wooden guide to seat myself for 
 a few minutes in the chair; and every tourist be- 
 fore me seemed some personage who had walked 
 out of the pages of “ Kenilworth,” or “Ivanhoe,” 
 or “ Old Mortality,” or “The Abbot,” or “ Wood- 
 stock.” What brilliant society had filled these 
 rooms! What flashes of wit and wisdom had 
 these walls heard! What royal spirits had in- 
 terchanged thought and sentiment here! How 
 had Sir Walter sat on this very window-seat, 
 looking out over his beloved Tweed, and listen- 
 ing to its placid murmurings ! 
 
 The armory is one of the most interesting in 
 
 
 
 See ee a 
 
 
 

 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 157 
 
 the suite of apartments, hung, as its walls are, 
 with every species of armor and implements of 
 warfare known in Scottish annals. I shuddered 
 as I looked at the claymore of Claverhouse, and 
 thought of the blood of the slain Covenanters. 
 In the armory, under glass, is preserved the last 
 suit Sir Walter wore, even to the white felt hat 
 and well-blackened shoes. Just outside the win- 
 dow, near, was the grave of Maida, with its pretty 
 monument. 
 
 From Abbotsford we drove to Sir Walter’s 
 last resting-place, Dryburgh Abbey, and all the 
 way we thought of his last drive thither. The 
 scenery is of the loveliest character. We did not 
 ford the Tweed, but crossed it by a foot chain- 
 bridge, and had a long walk to the lodge at the 
 gates of the ruins. From the gates to the Abbey 
 itself there is the perfection of a beechen walk, 
 some quarter of a mile in length,—a mossy wall 
 on one hand, a wide stretch of meadow on the 
 other, and close rows of ancient beeches meeting 
 overhead. The ruins are the most picturesque 
 we have seen in Britain; the seclusion has some- 
 thing inexpressibly sweet about it. Those world- 
 ly-wise old monks knew how to choose the love- 
 liest spot on all Tweedside. No wonder Sir Wal- 
 ter wished to be buried here, instead of at Mel- 
 
158 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 rose! There is a calm and quiet about the place 
 that makes it seem almost holy. “If I die 
 abroad,” I could not help whispering to the Pro- 
 fessor, as I stood among some of the freshly-made 
 graves, “get leave for me to be buried at Dry- 
 burgh !” 
 
 The chapel, or rather niche, under which Sir 
 Walter lies, is well preserved, and is protected 
 by tall iron gates. The Lockhart family fill the 
 adjoining one—the only two cloisters that are 
 under roof. A large rose window, near, remains 
 perfect, and the chapel is well preserved, with 
 the narrow stone benches running all round the 
 walls, intact as when the monks sat on them so 
 long ago. I could write a dozen pages about 
 the choked fountains, and the carvings, and the 
 court-yard perfumed with sweetbrier and honey- 
 suckle; but I forbear. 
 
 We drove away with the afternoon sun bright 
 above us, under a long line of “the monks’ 
 beeches,” as our driver called them, and reached 
 this quaint little inn at Melrose, not to see it by 
 “fair moonlight,” but at least before the sun 
 went down. The Abbey must have been beauti- 
 ful in its time, but the ruins are limited as com- 
 pared with Dryburgh; and the village which has 
 been built from them, crowds them in a very vul- 
 
 
 
 ee a eee - =, 
 
 eS 
 
 Te ae ee a Se 
 
 
 

 
 THE HAUNTS OF SIR WALTER. 159 
 
 gar and obtrusive way. The ruins are not kept 
 with much care, but some of the cloisters are 
 still very perfect. ‘Here rests the heart ot 
 Bruce,’ we read on a tablet under the east win- 
 dow; and many a famous name in Scottish story 
 we traced upon the ancient tombs. Here, just 
 beneath my window, is Tom Purdie’s grave, and 
 yonder is the stone within the Abbey on which 
 Sir Walter used to sit brooding for hours. He 
 would walk on from Abbotsford, the guide told 
 us, with Tom Purdie’s shoulder for a staff, and 
 sit half the day here, with Maida at his feet. 
 Still, Melrose has little of the charm of Dry- 
 burgh, and we are glad Sir Walter lies beyond 
 the long beechen walk where the roar of the 
 world never comes. 
 
AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES. 
 
 Or all the old cities of England which we 
 have visited, there is not one that has taken a 
 deeper hold upon us than this beautiful, historic, 
 and most antique city of King Alfred. So linked 
 is it in our minds with the boy-memories of 
 one of the most interesting of all Britain’s early 
 sovereigns, that one is quite disposed to summon 
 up in imagination the little Saxon prince, stand- 
 ing at the knee of his noble mother, Elfleda, and 
 conning the lesson, which was to bring him the 
 reward of the little manuscript book he so cov- 
 eted. We know that here Alfred, when he be- 
 came king, planted the first college or school, 
 about which have gathered such vast accretions, 
 as the centuries have gone on, There are now 
 some twenty-four colleges in Oxford, each one 
 an independent foundation in itself, and all to- 
 gether forming that splendid university, which 
 has been for ages, not only Britain’s pride, but 
 the pride, as well, of the civilized world. 
 
 Having been built at epochs widely separated, 
 
 the architecture of these ancient halls of learning 
 (160) 
 

 
 AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES, 161 
 
 is as varied as their names. Among the oldest, 
 we are told, is Merton College; and to look at 
 its scaling walls, and loosened carvings, and time- 
 stained architraves, and gnawed stone-work, into 
 which the ages have bitten so remorselessly, one 
 might think that King Arthur had there worn 
 the academic gown. It actually seems decrepit 
 with age, and the worn Gothic doorways seem 
 almost ready to stoop with the weight of the 
 centuries piled upon them. 
 
 These gnawed and eaten walls seem very pa- 
 thetic—like the wrinkles of decay upon the face 
 of the octogenarian. It is not owing to extreme 
 age that these Oxford colleges wear such traces 
 of the tooth of time. They have been almost 
 invariably built of that soft, white English stone, 
 which so readily yields to the effects of constant 
 dampness. Westminster Abbey was built of this 
 stone, and the consequence is that it is scaling 
 and wasting to such a degree that the English 
 mind is just now greatly exercised as to whether 
 the whole Minster will not have to be cased ex- 
 ternally with fresh stone—a step every antiqua- 
 rian would be shocked to see taken, for this 
 hoary agedness of which we speak, seems equally 
 to wrap the Abbey, and make it older than the 
 
 temples of Paestum. 
 ry 
 
162 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Here and there they are furbishing up the 
 antique exteriors of the old colleges. Magdalen 
 College was undergoing some such thorough 
 repair. This college is always called Maudlin 
 at Oxford. If we had asked for Magdalen Col- 
 lege we would have received the same answer 
 as our American friend did of the Oxford porter: 
 “Magdalen College, sir? Why, there is none of 
 that name here.” He put the question to some 
 half-dozen different persons of various stations 
 
 of society, receiving in substance the same an- ~ 
 
 swer. At last, seeing a gownsman approaching, 
 he accosted him: “ Half a dozen people have as- 
 sured me that there is no Magdalen College in 
 Oxford. As I know there is, will you be so kind 
 as to relieve my perplexity as to its where- 
 abouts ?”’ 
 
 “ Oh,” said the Don, “you mean Maudlin Col- 
 lege. Nobody here knows it as Magdalen.” 
 
 We drove to Christ College, which is the head 
 college of the University. A guide was waiting 
 under the broad, stone archway, into whose 
 hands we resigned ourselves. This college is by 
 no means one of the oldest, but it is one of the 
 richest in its architecture. Crossing a broad 
 grayelled quadrangle, we faced the sculptured 
 stone over the doorway, which bears a Latin in- 
 

 
 AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES. 163 
 
 scription to the effect that this college was built 
 and endowed by Cardinal Wolsey. 
 
 We ascended the old marble stairway, worn 
 by the tread of the scholarly feet that had been 
 going up and down it for more than three hun- 
 dred years, and the first department in which we 
 found ourselves, was the grand refectory. It is 
 an immensely lofty and long room, lighted with 
 many windows of old painted glass, and lined 
 from floor to ceiling with historic portraits, full- 
 length figures, statues and busts of the great 
 scholars who had been educated here. At the 
 head of the apartment was a dais, elevated two 
 or three feet above the rest of the floor, where 
 royal personages dined when they honored the 
 college with a visit, and where the Dons and the 
 Professors dine now. In the centre of the wall 
 were two immense pictures—one of Henry VIII, 
 in all his regal pomp; the other of the Cardinal, 
 in the glory of his ecclesiastical robes. 
 
 As we walked up and down this splendid room, 
 we felt ourselves in very superb company, as we 
 looked round at the sages and statesmen who 
 gazed at us from the walls, or surveyed us from 
 their pedestals. It was natural that from the 
 refectory we should wish to go to the kitchens, 
 to see in what manner meals were prepared for 
 
164 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 this vast number of scholars, for the guide said 
 there were then about five hundred names on the 
 rolls. It was vacation, and there were only then 
 a few residents in college; but some alert cooks, 
 in their white-paper caps and immaculate aprons, 
 were moving briskly about the huge fireplaces, 
 and we saw them grilling their famous steaks. 
 We were shown the apartments which Prince 
 Leopold occupied when he was a student at Ox- 
 ford—apartments that had nothing about them 
 more royal-looking than those of a sizer. Dr. 
 Pusey’s rooms were pointed out to us, Canon 
 Liddon’s, and others. Only an occasional gowns- 
 man was to be seen; and quadrangles, walks, and 
 gardens wore a look of strange solitude. What 
 splendid avenues of old trees bordered the green- 
 sward in the college gardens! Every tree seemed 
 as much sheltered and cared for as if it were 
 some old college pensioner; and what pen can 
 describe the velvety richness of the grass, the 
 broad, long-drawn, gravelled walks, as smooth 
 as a marble floor; the umbrageous seats, invit- 
 ing to studious repose, and the air of ancient 
 and scholastic elegance which pervades the em- 
 battled walls, the ivied towers, the mullioned 
 windows, the sculptured gateways, and the hoary 
 cloisters. We did not wonder, as we went over 
 

 
 AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES. 165 
 
 the Oxford Colleges, at the Englishman’s love 
 for his university; we did not marvel that such 
 perfect scholars were turned out here, as we 
 looked at the grand libraries, overflowing with 
 the musty lore of the ages. 
 
 Addison’s beautiful walk is a spot of great at- 
 traction, with its gravel, its grass, and its mag- 
 nificent trees, and the sweet association of the 
 calm and gentle scholar, the echo of whose steps 
 will forever linger here. From Addison’s walk 
 we drove to the Bodleian Library. Its external 
 appearance is very imposing, as one passes under 
 the huge archway into the great paved quadran- 
 gle, upon which the different departments open, 
 having the peculiar character of each one de- 
 scribed over the door—such as law, medicine, 
 history, divinity, science, and so on beyond our 
 counting. We ascended to the apartment where 
 were stored the most valuable manuscripts, mis- 
 sals, relics, specimens of the oldest known writ- 
 ings, the first books ever printed, autograph let- 
 ters of old authors, manuscript copies of ancient 
 celebrated works, Guttenberg’s earliest printing, 
 and a thousand other things, which only a cata- 
 logue of the Bodleian could give one an idea of. 
 Here was the missal that Marie Stuart had wept 
 over at Fotheringay Castle. Here was a book of 
 
166 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 devotion belonging to Charles I., and bound—a 
 queer conceit !—in a piece of a waistcoat he had 
 worn. Here were pages of Queen Elizabeth's 
 copy-book—a bit of the little Princess’ Latin ex- 
 
 - ercise. Here was a pretty letter of the boy-king, 
 
 Edward VI. 
 
 But one cannot attempt to enumerate the treas- 
 ures of the Bodleian. These, of course, are 
 all under glass; but they are so carefully and 
 fully catalogued that one had no questions to 
 ask. It brought one very near to the old times, to 
 bend over Caedmon’s Anglo-Saxon Paraphrase, 
 and King Alfred’s Translations, anda manuscript 
 of the Gospels used by St. Augustine at Canter- 
 bury, A.D. 600, and a pair of Queen Elizabeth’s 
 gloves which she had worn. All this was mod- 
 ern compared with the papyrus rolls from Her- 
 culaneum, Sanskrit rolls, and Ethiopic and Cop- 
 tic manuscripts. The ceiling of this treasure- 
 room is in large panels, every panel containing 
 the portrait of some celebrated man of past 
 times. The Great Hall is a room of splendid 
 proportions. The books of greatest value, look- 
 ing as old as Miles Coverdale, were in cases 
 of four feet in height, the whole space above, 
 almost to the lofty ceiling, being filled with large 
 canvases and portraits of all the worthies who 
 

 
 »* 
 
TT 
 
 
 

 
 —-z 
 
 AMONG OXFORD QUADRANGLES. 167 
 
 have figured in English history. It was like 
 walking down the pages of Hume, Macaulay, 
 and Green. What a tempting place for a student 
 
 _ to study history, where he can find upon the wall 
 
 the face of every important actor in the great 
 drama of the past. 
 
 The architecture of the twenty-four colleges 
 of Oxford is wonderfully diverse and wonder- 
 fully interesting. Such quaint old gateways, no 
 two of them exactly alike; such antique porches, 
 such beautifully sculptured oriel windows, such 
 rich stone tracery everywhere. And then the 
 air of almost pathetic antiquity that seems to 
 pervade every spot on which the eye rests, and 
 the classic aroma that hangs about the dim old 
 quadrangles, and the mossy cloisters, and the 
 crumbling arches, and the ivied towers—what 
 an aspect of scholastic seclusion these give to 
 this ancient haunt of learning. There is not an- 
 other city like Oxford in the world, and to us it 
 seemed the very gem of England. There is noth- 
 ing of to-day about it; it is redolent of the yester- 
 day that reaches back to King Alfred—that brings 
 before us Chaucer and Wycliffe, and Ben Jonson, 
 and Wolsey and Cranmer and Sir Kenelm Dig- 
 by. When we drove away from the old city, we 
 felt as if we had left half our heart behind us. 
 
KING WILLIAM’S ORANGE-TREES. 
 
 “Ts it possible’”’—said one of my travelling 
 companions, who had been so often in England 
 as to know it pretty well by heart —“is it possi- 
 ble you are so little of. an anti-Jacobite, and a 
 good Protestant, as not to care to make a pil- 
 grimage to the spot most of all on British soil, 
 associated with the Prince of Orange? Can 
 one who is given to boasting that some of her 
 ancestors witnessed the final defeat of James 
 Stuart, and were ready to sell their lives for 
 ‘the bulwark of the Protestant Faith,’ in the 
 person of the Prince of Nassau, does not care 
 _to go to Hampton Court!” 
 
 “But at Hampton Court I should be haunted 
 by visions of the proud old Cardinal, or the 
 bluff, tyrannical Harry, or poor tearful Anne 
 Boleyn.” 
 
 “Not you! There is little there to recall the 
 older days; the atmosphere is redolent of Will- 
 iam and Mary, almost to the exclusion of either 
 earlier or later sovereigns; you will walk through 
 
 twenty apartments that reflect the simple taste 
 (168) 
 

 
 KING WILLIAM’S ORANGE-TREES, I 69 
 
 and domestic habits of the Holland Prince. 
 You will almost fancy yourself in the Low Coun- 
 try, when you look at the Delf ware, that seems 
 to be the only porcelain used in the decoration 
 of the palace. You will see the rows of knotted 
 and gnarled old orange-trees, whose ancestors, 
 at least, came from the principality over the 
 water, if they did not themselves have that 
 honor; and you will walk through Queen Mary’s 
 Private Bower, where she and her ladies used to 
 spend somewhat tedious hours.” 
 
 Chaffed thus, I consented to join the party 
 that were to spend the day at Hampton Court. 
 It was a soft gray English morning, when we 
 descended the long flight of stone steps at Black- 
 friars’ Bridge, and stepped on board one of 
 the little steamers, that are continually rush- 
 ing up and down the Thames. We wondered 
 what London would do without this historic 
 water-way, as there are almost no lines of street- 
 trams, as they are called in England, about the 
 great city; true there is avast network of under- 
 ground railways, which pierce London in every 
 direction, honey-combing it as the catacombs 
 did old Rome. But it is far more agreeable to 
 have the stiff breeze of the river, blowing one’s 
 hair about one’s face, than to be traversing the 
 
170 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 smoky atmosphere of the under-world of the 
 great metropolis. 
 
 We sped briskly along the beautiful Victoria 
 embankment, which extends for miles along the 
 river; and passed multitudes of spots, familiar to 
 us, by name, from childhood—Temple Gardens, 
 Westminster, Chelsea, Battersea Park, Putney 
 Kew. We paused at Chelsea, and with what 
 reverence we could summon, examined the 
 houses on Cheyne Walk (which faces the river), 
 where George Eliot spent the last months of her ~ 
 life, and in which she died; and the one not fai 
 off, where Thomas Carlyle, and his much-endur- 
 ing wife, lived for thirty-five years or more. We 
 looked somewhat cynically at the spot on the 
 river-bank to which the old philosopher used to 
 come every evening to smoke his pipe, and in- 
 dulge his gloomy lucubrations about the world. 
 But every foot of ground is historic here, and 
 every cluster of chimneys we saw, recalled some 
 great name in English annals. The windings of 
 the Thames become very picturesque, as we get 
 beyond the environs of the city; but with its flat 
 banks, and sedgy marge, it looks too ridicu- 
 lously narrow to American eyes to deserve the 
 name of river, at all, much less to be styled, in 
 Gray’s lordly verse, “Old Father Thames.” We 
 
th nt = 
 “att is 
 
 2 4 kate j 
 
 UY, is 
 
 
 
KING WILLIAM'S ORANGE-TREES. 7} 
 
 wondered how it was possible for the Oxford 
 and Cambridge boat-races to take place on such 
 a mere creek as the river becomes, above the 
 point which the tide reaches. 
 
 Everybody knows that Hampton Court was 
 largely built by Cardinal Wolsey, and its grounds 
 so beautified by him, that some little time before 
 he fell into disgrace, he made a reluctant present 
 of it to his royal master, who otherwise might 
 have lifted his head from his shoulders to gain 
 possession of it. The palace and very extensive 
 grounds are surrounded by high brick walls, al- 
 most as high as the stone ones of Windsor. In- 
 gress is had through various great iron gates. 
 We crossed the old stone bridge, and entered a 
 broad drive, which on one side had a long line 
 of barrack-stables; for a regiment of cavalry 
 has its station here. We witnessed an inspection 
 of the horses of the regiment, and a pretty rigid 
 one it was. The stern-looking Inspector ex- 
 amined every horse with the utmost minuteness, 
 from head to tail, rubbing his bare hand the 
 wrong way up the horse’s sides and back, and 
 slapping his coat with all his might, to see if he 
 could shake out any dust. After that was done, 
 
 the young cavalryman was ordered to take his 
 
 
 
 horse by the mane, and trot him very rapidly up 
 and down before the Inspector. 
 
172 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 The palace is a huge pile of brick, with facings 
 of white marble. It has no special architectural 
 beauty, though portions of it were built by Sir 
 Christopher Wren. 
 
 We did not realize, as we entered the Great 
 Hall, any beauty of the pavement, which some 
 old chronicler says was made of tiles of ‘“manie 
 divers hewe, pynted and ypaved with pontyls”; 
 for we found it worn and dim enough. The 
 floors in this palace are inelegant and rude 
 beyond those of any royal residence we had 
 elsewhere seen, excepting Holy Rood. Not a 
 single apartment had waxed or polished floors. 
 But it must be remembered that on an average, 
 two hundred thousand people visit the Court 
 yearly; for it is a great place of resort for the 
 millions of London. It is never used as a place 
 of royal residence at all. It is not probable that 
 Queen Victoria ever passed a night there, and it 
 is actually uninhabited, except by the countless 
 officials who take care of it. We found it filled 
 with workmen, engaged in putting in heating- 
 coils. We were told in London, that Bucking- 
 ham Palace is manned (and maided) the year 
 round, with such perfect order and precision, 
 that if, at any hour of the day, the Queen should 
 telegraph that she would be there in three hours 
 

 
 KING WILLIAM'S ORANGE-TREES, 173 
 
 she would find everything so perfectly arranged 
 that she could take instant possession. “And 
 
 99 
 
 yet,” said my informant, “she does not spend 
 three weeks there out of the fifty-two!” Is it 
 wonderful that we found Parliament making in- 
 quiries as to the expenses of the seventeen royal 
 residences at her Majesty’s disposal? We were 
 reminded of Lord Gower’s saying that he was a 
 “homeless man”: and were disposed to think the 
 Queen might place herself in the same category. 
 He is the owner of twenty castles and residences, 
 and as he cannot live in any one of them but 
 a short period at atime, he feels a compassion 
 for himself as one who cannot create for himself 
 a permanent enough habitat to be called a home. 
 
 The Great Hall, the largest apartment in the 
 palace, is a room of fine dimensions, filled with 
 painted windows, rich in heraldic devices. The 
 walls were hung with tapestry of more than usual 
 artistic grace and finish, very much superior toa 
 great deal that we have seen in other castles and 
 ducal residences; we remarked one peculiarity 
 which gave an odd look to the historic scenes: 
 the colors were quite admirably preserved, with 
 the exception of the faces of the figures. These 
 had invariably turned black, so that these noble 
 personages of old all seemed to be negroes. We 
 
174 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 found beneath the grand chimney-piece what 
 looked very familiar to us, a cast-iron stove of an 
 old-fashioned Pennsylvania pattern, which, if not 
 made at one of the great foundries of the Key- 
 stone State, was an exact imitation of those most 
 in use twenty-five years ago. 
 
 In the grand drawing-room, there is a fine 
 carved mantel-piece of black oak, in the centre 
 of which is a profile picture of Cardinal Wolsey, 
 who, as he only had one eye, always had his fair 
 one turned to the gazer. This room is crowded 
 with historic portraits of no great artistic value, 
 but interesting as having been taken from life. 
 The King’s Stairway is quite grand, and leads to 
 many reception-rooms, boudoirs, and chambers, 
 the walis of which are entirely concealed by dim 
 old canvases, many of them of extraordinary di- 
 mensions. The closest historical association that 
 many of these suites of rooms seem to have, is 
 with William and Mary. There is no end to the 
 apartments which his Majesty of Holland digni- 
 fied with his occupation; there is his Writing- 
 closet, and his Dressing-room, and his Presence- 
 chamber, and his private Chapel, and his Study, 
 and a score of others. Many of these have their 
 walls covered with Sir Peter Lely’s paintings, 
 and there are multitudes of articles of furniture 
 

 
 KING WILLIAM'S ORANGE-TREES. 175 
 
 and of vertu which recall the tastes of the Orange 
 prince The finest carving in these chambers, is 
 by Grinling Gibbons. In one of the rooms I was 
 charmed to find the only picture of Mrs. Delaney 
 which has come down to us; but it would have 
 made the dear delightful old lady shudder to find 
 herself elbowed by a flashy portrait of Madame 
 Pompadour. 
 
 We could not forget, as we threaded these his- 
 toric rooms, the haunting memories that tapes- 
 tried its walls. Here Wolsey had kept almost 
 royal court; here bluff Harry had rollicked; from 
 these rooms Anne Boleyn had gone to be behead- 
 ed; here Jane Seymour had died; here Mary Tu- 
 dor had passed her grim honeymoon; here Charles 
 I, was a prisoner; here Oliver Cromwell had lived; 
 here James II. spent portions of his bloody reign. 
 No wonder that later kings and queens never set 
 foot within these royal walls, with which so many 
 tragic memories are linked ! 
 
 As one walks the long terraces it is not hard 
 to believe that the interminable lines of gnarled 
 ancient orange-trees made the passage of the 
 Straits in the early days of the Protestant Suc- 
 cession. If they were all in bearing order they 
 would furnish fruit enough for every Protestant 
 of Ulster to carry one on the end of his shillalah. 
 
176 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 Some of them undoubtedly did form a part of 
 Queen Mary’s botanical collection. There are de- 
 lightful gardens, and the views across them and 
 beyond the river are picturesque and beautiful. 
 This is the garden which John Evelyn describes 
 in his charming “Sylva” and “Terra.” Not far 
 off, is Deptford, Evelyn’s fine estate, through 
 whose “glorious and impenetrable holly-hedge,” 
 —as its owner styled it,—Peter the Great, when a 
 tenant of the mansion, was accustomed to ride on 
 awheelbarrow. The vinery of the Court contains 
 the enormous black Hamburg vine, greatly overa 
 hundred years old, the most remarkable one in 
 the world. It is wonderful in its way; the infinite 
 pains taken to support every cluster and branch 
 make one think of the delicate engineering called 
 into play for its preservation. Its costly clusters 
 are wholly reserved for the royal table. 
 
 The park and grounds of Hampton Court are 
 more exquisitely kept than anything we have 
 seen in England. To note the number of garden- 
 ers employed, one might think that every par- 
 terre and grass plot had its special keeper. Rus- 
 kin somewhere says, that so conventional are the 
 English people that not a fallen leaf must be 
 suffered to lie upon the gravel, though the mas- 
 ter of the house be lying dead within it. We 
 

 
 
 
 KING WILLIAM'S ORANGE-TREES. 177 
 
 were reminded of this bit of exaggeration as we 
 walked over the turf, and wondered at its ex- 
 ceeding beauty. 
 
 “Stoop down,” said Julia, as I stood on one 
 of the emerald circles; “stoop down and examine 
 closely the quality of this wonderful turf. Look 
 at the threads; are not the spires as delicate 
 almost as the filaments of a spider’s web? And 
 see the microscopic character of the clover-leaves; 
 centuries of cultivation have reduced their size 
 till they are almost infinitesimal.” 
 
 I did as she bade me, and found the grass of 
 the fineness and texture of velvet pile. 
 
 As we returned to London, a bit of history that 
 ybrought our own country vividly before us was 
 
 
 
 recalled by hearing G say: “Here is the 
 town of Brentford.” The name at once suggested 
 the last meeting of the Indian Princess Poco- 
 hontas with the Great Captain, John Smith. The 
 Court was residing here when she was brought 
 thither to be presented to the Queen; and it 
 was on this occasion that she was unexpectedly 
 brought face to face with the hero of her early 
 romance, whom she had supposed to be dead. 
 Her surprise and agitation were such as to con- 
 firm the idea that she had really loved the hardy 
 
 adventurer whose life she had saved. 
 12 
 
THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND. 
 
 BoapDicEA, the intrepid queen of the ancient 
 Britons, who so bravely opposed the Roman in~ 
 vasion—in what a twilight of remote history 
 does she seem to have flourished! And yet, here 
 to-day, I stand upon the spot from which Sue- 
 tonius, the Roman general, marched forth at the 
 head of the famous Twentieth Legion, to conquer 
 this Amazonian queen. 
 
 I have just come in from a stroll along the 
 walls of old Chester, the origin of whose very 
 name marks it as one of the most ancient of the 
 Roman cities founded by Julius Cesar. It was 
 to this spot that Suetonius was sent that he might 
 drive the ancient Britons into their Welsh fast- 
 nesses. Antoninus mentions it as the camp of 
 the ‘‘Legion of the Victorious” (Ces¢ri@), from 
 whence we have the modern name Chester. 
 
 We have just walked around the city, whose. 
 entire circuit is bounded by the Roman wall, 
 which was built when Suetonius first fortified 
 his camp, and repaired by Marius a.p. 73. The 
 under-stratum of the old wall gives positive in- 
 
 (178) 
 

 
 THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND. 179 
 
 dication of Roman workmanship; and upon it, 
 in early Saxon times, a wall two or three feet 
 higher was constructed. Running along this 
 wall, its entire length, is a fine flagged pavement, 
 to which you ascend by broad stone steps; 
 and from every point, as we make the circuit 
 of the city, we have fine views of the windings 
 of the river Dee, and of the wide surrounding 
 country. 
 
 How antique are the associations about us! 
 Yonder is the great field, called The Barrows, 
 where the Roman soldiers were drilled; turning 
 around we see, on a projecting rock, a figure of 
 Minerva, dug up from the ancient city. Across 
 the river Dee lies the seat of the Grosvenor fam- 
 ily, descendants of the Danish Rollo, who in- 
 vaded England in a.p. 876. Within sight is the 
 anchorite cell, where, tradition says, Harold, the 
 last of the Saxons, retreated after the battle of 
 Hastings—not having been slain in battle, as the 
 old chroniclers have it. I can hardly imagine 
 anything more inspiring than the sights we have 
 had to-day, from this Roman wall. 
 
 The city within the walls, is the delight of all 
 antiquarians. The houses that line the quaint 
 streets, are gable-fronted, with their wooden 
 beams exposed, curiously carved. - There are 
 
180 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 remains here, of King Alfred’s possession of the 
 city, and of Edgar, the Saxon king, as well; and 
 from the times of Edward of Carnarvon (which 
 was the Welsh name of Chester), who was the 
 first Prince of Wales, the eldest sons of Englisk 
 monarchs have always borne the title of Earl of 
 Chester. 
 
 Since I came in from my stroll along the walls, 
 I have been out on a little shopping tour, among 
 the picturesque and curious “ Rows.” These are 
 two lines of shops, the one on the ground-floor 
 having an arcade built in front, the roof of which 
 forms a passage-way in front of the shops above; 
 this upper row of shops is reached by flights of 
 stone steps at every street-crossing. The limits 
 of the city are not extensive, owing to its being 
 circumscribed by such compact walis. This may 
 account for these double rows of shops which so 
 utilize space. There is nothing else like them in 
 England. One of the oldest things in Chester, is 
 the Cathedral of St. Werburgh, which is built 
 upon the site of a Roman temple of Apollo, and 
 is now Chester Cathedral. It was built partially, 
 in the eleventh century, but the towers we now 
 see were not completed till some time about 
 1240. Owing to the softness of the red sand- 
 stone, of which the Cathedral was built, it has 
 
 
 
 So ee Fe 
 
 
 

 
ae 
 
 
 

 
 THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND. I8I 
 
 been necessary to recase much of it; but this 
 does not destroy its air of antiquity. We at- 
 tended service at four o’clock yesterday, in the 
 choir, and heard Dean Howson read the evening 
 lessons. It is hard for us Americans to become 
 accustomed to the addition of the scarlet aca- 
 demic hood to the white robes of the priests. 
 There is something about it suggestive of the 
 Roman Church; and we cannot understand why, 
 if it is not strictly ecclesiastical, it should be worn 
 at all the services in which the English clergy 
 officiate. A cardinal is constantly suggested to 
 our minds, when the clergyman at the lectern or 
 the altar, turns his back to the congregation, and 
 displays this long red pointed hood. It was a 
 great pleasure to us (despite the crimson-lined 
 hood) to hear Dean Howson, with whose “ Life 
 of St. Paul” we in America are so familiar, read 
 the services. The photograph of him, that has 
 lain in my portfolio so long, is so perfect that 
 his face seemed quite familiar tome. After the 
 service was over, we examined at our leisure, 
 under the guidance of the verger, the beautiful 
 carvings of this choir, which are among the most 
 exquisite in England. And how sorry we felt as 
 
 ’ 
 
 we were shown the “clere-story,”’ along which 
 
 are ranged the stalls where the poor nuns used 
 
182 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 to sit in the old days, and get, through the deep 
 carved lattice in front of them, such scraps of 
 the service as might reach their ears—if, indeed, 
 the voice of reader or preacher was ever distinct- 
 ly audible at that height. 
 
 I asked to be shown the stall where, as Canon 
 of Chester, Charles Kingsley used to sit. We 
 turned up some of these quaint, curious seats, to 
 look at the carvings underneath. We found 
 them for the most part grotesque, and provoca- 
 tive of laughter. One of them—I think perhaps 
 the very one on which Mr. Kingsley used to sit— 
 had a scene apparently from the legend of “ Lit- 
 tle Red Riding-Hood ”—showing that the story 
 is a very old one—the savage jaws of the wolf 
 being wide open, ready to snap up the frightened 
 child. Nothing seems too absurd to be repre- 
 sented in these carvings: a pig dancing, while a 
 piper plays; an angry woman beating a boy; a 
 monkey with a psalm-book in his hand. What 
 could the old ecclesiastics have meant by allow- 
 ing such wickedly suggestive things as I have 
 sometimes seen under these cathedral-stall seats, 
 to be introduced into a place of worship? Was 
 it to symbolize the unworthy thoughts that 
 passed through the minds of the people who 
 came to worship? The monkey is a favorite 
 
 
 

 
 THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND. 183 
 
 subject in these church ornamentations. We 
 noticed more monkeys in the beautiful old 
 Temple Church—alas! despoiled of its antique 
 interest, by unlimited “restorations ”’—than any 
 other form of ornamentation, Perhaps these old 
 monks had some instinct of their origin, though 
 they had no Darwin to tell them of it in those 
 dark old days. 
 
 In one of the streets here, there is a house with 
 a carved beam in front, on which there is the in- 
 scription, “God’s providence is mine inheritance 
 —1652”; and to this day it is pointed out to visit- 
 ors as God’s Providence House. It came by its 
 name when the city was swept by the plague, be- 
 cause it was almost the only house in which some 
 of the inmates did not perish by the pestilence. 
 We found an old chapel, in one of the narrow 
 streets, where lies buried Matthew Henry, the 
 commentator; and reverently as we might, we 
 visited his grave, though not without Julia’s re- 
 calling how often in her early days she had dozed 
 over his prolixity. It would grieve his good old 
 Christian heart, if he could know that the church 
 in which he once preached, is now held by Uni- 
 tarians. We found here, too, the grave of Par- 
 nell, the poet, who is mainly remembered now, 
 as the author of “The Hermit”; and, standing 
 
18 4 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 there, one could not refrain from quoting the 
 familiar lines: 
 
 ‘Remote from men, with God he passed his days, 
 Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.” 
 
 I wonder, if ascending and descending so many 
 long flights of stone steps here, can have any bad 
 effect upon the muscles of the inhabitants. I 
 certainly never have seen as many lame people— 
 as many men, women, and children who walked 
 with a limping or halting step—as I have seen 
 to-day. Others of our party have remarked the 
 same thing. Some one, speaking the other day 
 of the wonderfully erect figures and fine muscular 
 development of the women of Venice, was dis- 
 posed to attribute it to the long flights of stairs 
 which they had been going up and down since 
 their childhood. The stone stairs of Chester 
 must be at fault; for they have not had that 
 effect. 
 
 We quite delight in the wide corridors, and 
 broad staircases, and lofty ceilings of this old 
 Grosvenor Hotel. It was evidently built in the 
 good old times when there was more room for 
 England’s population, and it was not necessary 
 to crowd so close together as now. 
 
 This dear, quaint old city has got such a grip 
 
 Sybian eM tans gh pa ria ss 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ee ee ee ee | Lee a ee 
 
 Pe fee ee ee ee 
 
 2 ee et ead 
 
 - ah 
 er ge 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 THE QUAINTEST CITY IN ENGLAND. 18 5 
 
 upon our hearts that we would like to linger 
 here longer, and wander about the old cloisters 
 of the Cathedral, and read the inscriptions on 
 the flat gravestones in its pavements, and listen 
 to the rich music of its chorister-boys, and hea1 
 good Dean Howson read the evening lessons, 
 and stroll upon the antique walls, and think of 
 Suetonius and his jousts with Boadicea. 
 
IN THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER AND 
 THEREABOUTS. 
 
 Ir has been said that no one who has not read 
 Dean Stanley’s monograph of Westminster Ab- 
 bey, or who has never formed one of the party 
 conducted through its intricate mazes by this 
 prince of guides, and listened to his eloquent 
 and vivid description of the aisles, the monu- 
 ments, the chapels, the tombs, the entablatures, 
 and the thousand historic memorials of Eng- 
 land’s grand story—that no one who has not had 
 this experience has ever known or seen the old 
 gray pile at its best. 
 
 Through some curious inattention, or culpable 
 neglect, not one of our party had ever read the 
 Dean’s exhaustive book; and as to his guidance 
 through these cloisters so beloved of him—that 
 was something to muse longingly and sadly over 
 as we sought out the old niche (too small to be 
 called a chapel), in which he had chosen to lie 
 . down beside his dear Lady Augusta. With a 
 little of the feeling that pilgrims have before a 
 
 shrine, we stood at his grave one sunny day. 
 (186) 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FERUSALEM CHAMBER. 18 7 
 
 Under one of the lancet windows he is stretched, 
 in his white ecclesiastical robes, with his hands 
 folded as in prayer; the clear-cut face, so marked 
 with intense intellectuality, and traced with lines 
 of deep and scholarly thought, turned heaven- 
 wards; the pointed slippers resting upon a lamb 
 couchant. It gave a solemn emphasis to our wan- 
 derings through the vast pile, as we walked out 
 under the cloister arches, across the Dean’s Close, 
 and passed the door leading into his private 
 dwelling, to go from his grave to seek the Jeru- 
 salem Chamber—one of the spots most sacred of 
 all to him. 
 
 This long, lofty apartment takes its name from 
 the fact that it was panelled with cedar brought 
 by some of the Crusaders from the neighborhood 
 of Jerusalem. The Dean was the first one to 
 discover the interposition of a flat ceiling which 
 had been placed there, for what purpose, and 
 when, no record thereof remained. This ceiling, 
 so destructive of the fine proportions of the room, 
 through his intervention was removed. He also 
 placed, as his own slight memorial, the rich tiles 
 round the ancient chimney-piece, which bear, in 
 black-letter, the legend, “ Jerusalem which ts 
 above ts free.” 
 
 Shakespeare has made us know, even if history 
 
188 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 had not, that immediately before this fireplace, 
 Henry the Fourth was laid, when carried from 
 the chapel of Edward the Confessor, in a dying © 
 condition, and there, breathed his last. As I 
 stood upon the flagstone where his head had 
 lain, and seemed to hear him say, 
 “‘It hath been prophesy’d to me many years, 
 I should not die but in Jerusalem, 
 
 Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land ; 
 But bear me to that chamber, there I’ll lye :” 
 
 the date of his death, 1413, seemed brought 
 quite near to me; and yet Columbus had not 
 then been born! 
 
 But the most pregnant association which Prot- 
 estants have with this august chamber, is the 
 fact, too well known to need announcement here, 
 that within it sat for so long, the Westminster 
 Assembly of divines summoned by the “Long 
 Parliament.” It is redolent, therefore, of the 
 Confession of Faith and the Shorter Catechism. 
 There is a large painting between the windows, 
 and opposite the chimney-piece, representing the 
 scene so well known—the moment at which the 
 divines pause, with solemn awe, over the question, © 
 “What is God?” when the youngest of them was 
 asked to kneel, and beseech direction for an an- 
 swer. The whole chamber is adorned with stately 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FERUSALEM CHAMBER. 189 
 
 paintings and busts. Through its centre runs 
 a long green-baized trestle table, which seemed 
 old enough to have been used by this ancient 
 Assembly. The worthy successors of the trans- 
 lators of King James’ Bible, had just closed their 
 labors, and risen, a few days before, from their 
 seats, Their pens and inkstands still occupied 
 the table, and it required some little self-denial 
 to keep me from asking from the guide (for a 
 consideration) one of the quill pens lying there. 
 We would have liked to linger here for an hour 
 or two, and saturate ourselves with the specially 
 Protestant associations of this memorable spot; 
 but the successor of Dean Stanley came in, in 
 his scholar’s black gown, evidently on some offi- 
 cial business, so we felt it incumbent upon us to 
 bow ourselves out. Dean Bradley is a small, 
 meagre man, with shoulders that stoop, as if he 
 had spent all his life bending over books—which, 
 no doubt, he has. He has a most kindly face, 
 and there was about his attenuated features the 
 eager look of an enthusiast. 
 
 The Jerusalem Chamber has but one door of en- 
 trance, and that is through the Jericho Chamber— 
 why so called, we did not find out. This room is 
 also panelled with cedar-wood, and has its trestled 
 table, and pens and ink in the centre, and is used 
 
190 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 as a conference-room, by the Dean and the Canons 
 of the Abbey. The only picture in it, is one of 
 the Greek patriarch, who some time since visited 
 England. 
 
 One who has read a hundred, more or less, of 
 tourists’ descriptions of this ancient Abbey, and 
 heard friends describe every aisle and chapel, 
 may fancy that he has a very good idea of it— 
 “His eyes make pictures while they’re shut”; 
 but neither Coleridge’s pictures, nor one’s own, 
 probably, bear the remotest similarity to the 
 conceptions of what one has not actually seen. 
 It certainly has been so with us here. 
 
 As we entered the low door, next St. Marga- 
 ret’s Chapel, at the foot of the nave, and were 
 suddenly confronted with its vast proportions 
 and length, what a rush of strange feeling came 
 over me. The immense aisle was actually peo- 
 pled with a white multitude, whose lifted hands 
 and heaven-pointing fingers, gave one an idea of 
 the resurrection morning, so thronged did it 
 seem with sheeted forms. One does not get over 
 this impression amid the crowds of statuary that 
 everywhere, in transept and aisle and chapel, 
 startle and confuse the eye. It is assuredly like 
 reading history, with marble figures as its type, 
 that one pores over these interminable vistas. 
 
 
 

 

 
 44 
 ae ie 
 
 
 
 i 2 ge x. Sait E eee 
 ee ae 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 IN THE FJERUSALEM CHAMBER. IgI 
 
 “Come with me,” said a friend, who had been 
 so often in Westminster Abbey as to have learned 
 it by heart—“ come with me, and I will take you 
 into nooks and corners that the ordinary tourist 
 never dreams of.” He did so, and such delight- 
 ful explorations as were vouchsafed me were 
 something out of the beaten track. Among other 
 spots, I found myself in a niched recess, which, 
 on looking round me, I discovered was dedicated 
 as the burial-place of the Boleyn family. “Ah!” 
 I said, “I ought to find here, the tomb of Lord 
 Hunsdon, Anne Boleyn’s brother, of whom I 
 surely know something, inasmuch as our dear 
 S 
 get that she is one of his descendants. If she 
 
 
 
 *s genealogical fervor never lets her for- 
 
 were here, her first search would be for his mon- 
 ument.”’ | 
 
 So saying, I stepped back from reading the in- 
 scription about Sir Thomas Boleyn, and stumbled 
 in doing so, against a tomb behind me. I turned 
 and read the name of Lord Hunsdon. 
 
 “What would § 
 I do?’ I said; and therewith proceeded to look 
 
 
 
 not give to stand where 
 
 for a scale of ancient marble which I might carry 
 back to her, and let her have set about with pre- 
 cious stones, to wear as a brooch on her breast! 
 But not a scale would the old stone yield up; so 
 
192 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 I shall have to be content with assuring her that 
 I have made a pilgrimage to her ancestor’s tomb, 
 and gratify her Virginia pride with the knowl- 
 edge of my homage thereat. 
 
 As we turned away from these Boleyn monu- 
 ments, we came upon a most curious piece of 
 time-blackened sculpture. It was a baby’s cra- 
 dle, almost of the hue of ebony, and had in ita 
 little efigy just as black, tucked up in its blankets. 
 From the inscription, we found it to be the coun- 
 terfeit presentment of an infant child of James I., 
 who died at the age of three days. What a nip- 
 ped bud of royalty was this to have been em- 
 balmed here for nearly three centuries! Fast- 
 ened over the Jerceau, was a manuscript copy of 
 verses, ‘‘ written by an American lady.” Wewere 
 told that Miss Woolsey (“Susan Coolidge’) was 
 their author: and they so commended themselves 
 to Lady Augusta Stanley, that she had them 
 placed over the cradle, with the request that they 
 de not removed. 
 
 As an American I found several things that 
 touched my patriotic pride, in the rich old Ab- 
 bey. One of the most conspicuous objects, as 
 one walks up the nave toward the Poet’s Corner, 
 and just at the point where a short aisle branches 
 off, is the nobly placed bust of Longfellow. It 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER. 193 
 
 stands so clearly out, in its white purity, from 
 the dark stone background of the walls, that it 
 can be seen the entire length of the nave, and 
 has thus a prominence given it, which Lord Ma- 
 caulay might sigh for; for his bust is so hidden 
 behind Addison’s statue, that one has to make 
 quite a défour to see it at all. Just afew feet around 
 the corner from the Longfellow memorial, is the 
 old blackened and battered tomb of Geoffrey 
 Chaucer. In what close neighborhood, are their 
 tablets here; and yet what a sweep of centuries 
 _ separates them! A couple of wreaths of fresh 
 flowers lay on our poet’s pedestal—the votive of- 
 fering, no doubt, of some loving countrywoman. 
 
 Near the end of one of the transepts, I found 
 myself standing upon a broad gray marble slab, 
 so much fresher in appearance than all around 
 it, that I looked down to see whom it commem- 
 orated, and read the following inscription: “ Be- 
 neath this stone lay, for five months before his remcval 
 to his native land, the body of the American philan- 
 thropist, George Peabody.” 
 
 As I turned aside from the transept, my eyes 
 were raised to the fine stained-glass window, 
 erected by Mr. Childs, of Philadelphia, in mem- 
 ory of Isaac Watts and John Wesley; and these 
 traces of American kinship and gracious Eng- 
 
 13 
 
194 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS, 
 
 lish courtesy, made me feel warmer as I walked 
 through the chill aisles of the hoary minster. 
 
 We were surprised to find dear old Wordsworth 
 not in Poet’s Corner, where he certainly should 
 have been placed. In the very obscurest chapel 
 that we came across, we discovered a statue of 
 him in a sitting posture, with nothing to keep 
 him company there, but busts of Keble, Kingsley, 
 and Maurice—grand company, no doubt, but so 
 little of it, considering the excessive crowding 
 one feels everywhere. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the grotesqueness of some 
 of the Abbey monuments. Before them, one can 
 do nothing but give way to fits of laughter. The 
 extraordinary lack of taste displayed in multi- 
 tudes of others, is calculated to shake one’s faith in 
 the average Briton’s sense of the fitness of things, 
 and to deny him any true conception of har- 
 monious beauty. The biggest pile of marble in 
 the Abbey is the monument to General Wolfe, 
 representing his death at Quebec. It is almost 
 absurd in its details. 
 
 One word about St. Margaret’s Church, one of 
 the dependencies of Westminster, as old as, if 
 not older than, the Abbey, and almost touching 
 it. It is very rich in historic associations. We 
 attended service here last Sunday, and heard 
 
 
 

 
 IN THE FERUSALEM CHAMBER. 195 
 
 Canon Farrar preach to a congregation of two 
 thousand people, The church has little of the 
 rich ornamentation of the minster. There is no 
 stained glass save the great window over the 
 altar, which has a curious history, having been 
 buried two or three times to save it from de- 
 struction during the various troubles in the 
 realm. At the altar here Cromwell was married. 
 On one side of the chancel is the grave of Mil- 
 ton’s second wife. Here Cromwell’s mother is 
 buried; and on the wall, above where we sat, was 
 a brass tablet in memory of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 It was pleasant to sit and dream there, and have 
 the morning sun stream through the stained glass 
 of the great east window, just as it did on the 
 heads of Raleigh and Milton and Cromwell three 
 centuries ago. 
 
THE DORE GALLERY. 
 
 AFTER the tourist has roamed over Continental 
 galleries until the sight of a great canvas almost 
 comes to be an object of weariness, he will prob- 
 ably return to England with the feeling that it 
 will be impossible to find there anything to move 
 him as he has been moved in the Holy Land of 
 art. He has dreamed away days and weeks, it 
 may be, in the Vatican and other grand galleries 
 of Rome; he has been saturated with beauty 
 among the treasures of the Uffizzi and Pitti at Flor- 
 ence; he has revelled over the riches of Munich; 
 he has almost worshipped at the shrine of the 
 Madonna in Dresden; he has bewildered himself 
 trying to systematize the vast wealth of the 
 Louvre,—what can the little green isle have to 
 show him after all this? What are its National 
 Gallery, its Royal Academy, its Kensington Mu- 
 seum, or the art stores of its princely and ducal 
 palaces compared with what he has seen? 
 
 And yet to-day, after having made within the 
 few past weeks this round of the galleries, I have 
 
 been persuaded, half against my will, to see 
 (196) 
 
 a eee ee oe eee ee 
 
 
 
 pe for re 
 

 
 THE DORE GALLERY. 107 
 
 a collection of paintings which has strangely 
 moved me. 
 
 “Tf you want to be lifted out of the rush of 
 this nineteenth-century life,” said a friend to me 
 the other day, “and be spellbound before one 
 of the most marvellous pictures of the age, go 
 to the Doré Gallery in Bond Street, and sit down 
 before a canvas there that will move you, I ven- 
 ture to say, more than Rubens’ great work at 
 Antwerp, or—shall I dare to say it ?>—more than 
 even Raphael’s ‘ Transfiguration.’ ” 
 
 I resented any such deduction. 
 
 *“Doré is wonderful as an illustrator of the 
 conception of others, and fertile beyond all pree- 
 edent; but art critics have taught us to distrust 
 him as a colorist, and in some degree to deny 
 him supreme power on canvas.” 
 
 “ Nevertheless, go,” urged my friend, “and see 
 what will become of all the rant of your critics 
 after you have been subdued before his miracu- 
 lous Christ.” 
 
 Accordingly, our home party went to Bond 
 Street this morning; and for hours of this bright 
 day we have been lingering entranced over such 
 creations as no French school has ever before 
 produced—creations whose lofty simplicity, and 
 stern grandeur, and realistic vividness have taken 
 our very hearts. 
 
198 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 I had seen large engravings of Doré’s master- 
 piece,—“ Christ Leaving the Preetorium,”—but 
 they had conveyed to me no sense of the maj- 
 esty of the painting. The canvas is an im- 
 mense one, thirty feet by twenty, and is instinct 
 throughout with the most passionate life and 
 movement. Itcontains hundreds of figures (those 
 in the foreground above life-size), and illustrates 
 the marvellous skill which the artist possesséd 
 in representing multitude and space. We have 
 seen no canvas of Claude’s that breathes with a 
 more palpable atmosphere. And yet, in this vast 
 throng, there is not a face or figure that is not 
 marked by its own individuality. 
 
 The moment of action is, I believe, original in 
 its conception. It represents Christ descending 
 the broad marble staircase leading from the Pre- 
 torium, just after His final condemnation by the 
 Roman governor. This broad staircase occupies 
 the centre of the picture, and down its shallow 
 steps our Lord descends. The august figure mov- 
 ing forward in its awful solitariness is the central 
 point toward which every face in the multitude 
 is directed, and which holds the eye of the spec- 
 tator with a fascinated gaze. He is clothed, not 
 in the dead white of linen, but in the softer-hued, 
 undyed woolen toga. There is not an accessory 
 
 
 

 
 THE DORE GALLERY. 199 
 
 about Him to divert attention from the divine 
 humanity of the straightforward-looking face. 
 The arms are dropped on each side; there is no 
 auriole about the head, or, if any, it is so faint as 
 not to attract attention, There is a total avoid- 
 ance of that meek beauty, that feminine auburn 
 hair, that delicacy of complexion and feature, and 
 that characterless softness, which mark all the 
 heads of Christ in the pictures of the old mas- 
 ters, not even excepting Raphael’s. 
 
 On each side, separated only by the balustrades 
 of the stairway, surge and seethe the shrieking, 
 excited multitude, who cry: “Away with Him! 
 away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him !”’— 
 who clench their fists across the railing, and with 
 demoniac rage fling upon Him their ribald revil- 
 ings, and gloat over His condemnation, with faces 
 of fiend-like vengeance; on the other side crowd 
 the callous-hearted, indifferent Roman officials 
 and soldiery, too much accustomed to the sight 
 of cruelty, woe, and blood, to be in the least 
 moved by the majesty of the innocent sufferer. 
 
 It will be remembered that at the Feast of the 
 Passover, almost every nationality of the then 
 known world was accustomed to be represented; 
 and consequently, we have here a fine field for 
 the artist’s pencil—the proud Pharisee, the scowl- 
 
200 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 ing scribe, the howling Jewish populace, the re- 
 fined Greek, the stately Persian, the Arab of the 
 desert, the scoffing Roman, the gaping African, 
 and the philosophic Egyptian. On these faces 
 every possible passion is depicted—hate, vindic- 
 tive wrath, exulting vengeance, stolid satisfac- 
 tion, haughty indifference, scorn, vulgar curiosity, 
 deprecation, cold wonder, and here and there, 
 upon some startled female face, the yearning of 
 a fathomless compassion. Between these two 
 opposing throngs, moves the Christ, in the sub- 
 lime dignity of His Godhood, with a majesty as 
 
 calm as the unapproachable heavens overhead. © 
 
 There is an infinite unconsciousness of the shriek- 
 
 ing multitude around Him. Hesees nothing, He - 
 
 hears nothing. He is alone between the eterni- 
 ties! His unblenching eye is fixed upon the 
 inexorable Justice that sits upon the everlast- 
 ing throne. He seems to say, “I shall see 
 of the travail of My soul, and shall be satis- 
 fied.” The superhuman dignity, the unshaken 
 serenity, the loftiness of purpose, the majestic ac- 
 quiescence, the transcendent sorrow, of the Son 
 of man, surely were never better portrayed by 
 mortal pencil. The sense of separateness (the 
 “treading of the wine-press alone”’), the miracle 
 of that far-away gaze, the suggestion of awful 
 
 
 

 
 THE DORE GALLERY. : 201 
 
 solitariness, are inspirations. We felt as if we 
 must veil our eyes, and shrink back from a sight 
 of such sacred awfulness ! 
 
 We have just been studying the cartoons of 
 Raphael in the South Kensington Museum; but 
 how conventional the flashily robed Christ of 
 these pictures seems compared with this pathetic 
 figure, draped in its stern robe of dim white! 
 
 I know it is treason to all the canons of Art and 
 to the traditions of the ancient schools to say it, 
 but I will say, that in all our rounds of the Con- 
 tinental galleries, I have never seen a representa- 
 tion of our Lord that so subdued and awed me, 
 and made me realize so fully His divine humanity. 
 
 There may be faults of technique in this vast 
 canvas, and to critical eyes, there doubtless are; 
 but the central thought is so all-pervading and 
 éxalted, that one is ashamed to search for de- 
 fects. There is very apt to be, in all of Doré’s 
 paintings, some excess of imagination which 
 mars the general effect. In this picture, it is the 
 malefactor, who drags the cross over the fore- 
 ground of the canvas. Apart from the anachron- 
 ism of introducing the cross here, it disturbs, 
 with its cruel realism, the lofty spirituality of the 
 divine sufferings. 
 
 It is said that Doré spent two years of labor 
 
202 a HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 upon the figure of his Christ, and some seven or 
 eight upon the whole picture. The history of 
 the canvas is somewhat curious. To save it 
 from destruction in its unfinished state, during 
 the Franco-Prussian war, the whole canvas had 
 to be buried. 
 
 The picture which, next to this of the Prztori- 
 um, commanded our most undivided attention 
 to-day, was a canvas of the same size, the sub- 
 ject being “Moses before Pharaoh, after the 
 Death of the First-born.” It is a dark, rich, in- 
 terior picture, conceived in the spirit of the most 
 elaborate Egyptian orientalism. Its details are 
 carried out very finely, and there is that grand 
 sense of space, which Doré surely has the re- 
 markable art of giving to his creations. The 
 fearless figure of the great Hebrew leader, from 
 the lower step of the throne, confronts with stern 
 majesty, (strong because He feels the power of 
 the God of Israel behind Him,) the sullen, angry, 
 and yet quaking king. Moses stretches his hand 
 toward Him, saying, ‘ Thou shalt see my face no 
 more.” And one observes how Pharaoh quails be- 
 fore the majesty of that eagle eye, although his 
 proud courtiers around him are striving to buoy 
 him up to a feeling of sovereign contempt. The 
 spectator realizes that they are failing to do this 
 
 
 

 
 THE DORE GALLERY. — 203 
 
 and that the king is half spellbound in the pres- 
 ence of the prophet. At the foot of the throne, 
 agonized mothers press forward, holding aloft in 
 their arms, with awful reproaches on their lips, 
 their dead children. Between his anger and his 
 fear, the irresolute king vacillates, and neither 
 listens to his courtiers, nor succumbs before the 
 majesty of the seer. 
 
 The conception of the picture is certainly a 
 powerful one, and we find nothing here that we 
 would fain omit. It is characterized by a severe 
 unity; and yet we have here, as in the canvas 
 of the Pretorium, the extremes of passion, the 
 defiant courtiers, the scared yet indignant king, 
 the stern bravery of the prophet, the shrieking 
 of the bereaved mothers, and the white stillness 
 of the dead children. One feels a strange so- 
 lemnity in the presence of a scene so vividly ren- 
 dered. 
 
 There is one other picture of the same colossal 
 proportions as the two already mentioned; it is 
 “Christ Entering into Jerusalem,” but the theme 
 has been often treated, though probably never bet- 
 ter than here. The canvas is full of light, move- 
 ment, color, variety, and feeling. But there is 
 not that unity of treatment which we find else- 
 where in Doré’s best work. There are separate 
 
204 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 groups of marvellous beauty; but these detract 
 somewhat from the general effect, inasmuch as 
 they divide the interest with the central figure, 
 the ineffably sorrowful Christ. The contrast of 
 this lofty, mysterious sadness with the rejoicing 
 faces around Him, is very striking and powerful. 
 But we have not space here for further details. 
 One other picture I may be allowed to speak 
 of more specially, since it made a very positive 
 impression upon us all. The subject is medizval, 
 and gives evidence of Doré’s wonderful versatil- 
 ity. The canvas is a moderate-sized one, and 
 represents a vesper scene in a monastery chapel. 
 The motif of the picture makes itself felt at once, 
 and it is as strong a protest against the old mon- 
 asticism of the Romish Church as any reformer’s 
 sermon could well be. In the centre of perhaps 
 a dozen monks, sits a youthful one, who has just 
 assumed the final vows, having entered the con- 
 vent, which he supposes is the retreat of only 
 purity and peace. He is heart-sick of the wicked- 
 ness of the world, and brings hither his longing 
 aspirations, his holy enthusiasms, and his self-de- 
 nying zeal, expecting to find truest help and sym- 
 pathy, among the Brotherhood. For the first 
 time, the now fully admitted novice takes his 
 place among them, as one of the community. He 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 THE DORE GALLERY. 205 
 
 is suddenly confronted with a scene which dashes 
 all his hopes to earth, and makes him aware that 
 he has committed a terrible mistake which is to in- 
 volve his whole life. On not a face about him is 
 there a trace of reverence, or interest, or worship. 
 One paunchy old monk has evidently been down 
 to the abbot’s cellar, and is ready to tumble from 
 his seat in drunken helplessness. The head of 
 another has dropped upon his breast in stupid 
 sleep. Another is stretching his arms, gaping 
 wearily, his missal lying upon the floor beside 
 him. Two or three are whispering together, with 
 a wicked leer in their old eyes. One old fellow 
 has pulled off his cowl, and is scratching, uncon- 
 cernedly, his shaven crown. The only monk who 
 seems to be somewhat intent upon the service, is 
 a very aged one, doubled up in the weakness of 
 senility, with his Psalter held all awry, in an ap- 
 parently vain effort to make it out. In the midst 
 of all this, with his hands clasped in a sort of 
 paralyzed disappointment over his open service- 
 book, the young neophyte sits, with a look of 
 despair on his pale, pathetic face, on which is 
 plainly written: “Is this the holy refuge I have 
 sought? Are these to be my helpers heaven- 
 ward? Am I to grovel among them till I 
 die?” The pathos of the moment is irresistible, 
 
206 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 and one feels a tug at the heart, that compels 
 one’s eyes to turn away. This picture is a fine 
 illustration of the skill with which Doré freights 
 his canvas with some single, central, burning 
 thought. 
 
 There is another medizval picture, a companion 
 to this, which is as full of tender and pathetic 
 beauty as this one is of bitter disappointment, 
 “The Young Monk’s Dream.” It tells astory, as 
 plainly as words could do, of love, loss, sorrow, 
 and death. The young monk sits at the cathe- 
 dral organ, his hands wandering dreamily over 
 thekeys. Heis unconscious of the cowled monks 
 and the kneeling congregation in the background. 
 Grief has driven him hither to find alleviation for 
 the burden of his sorrow, but he has not found 
 it. The vision of the lost one comes ever be- 
 tween him and the dreary rounds of his monastic 
 life. He turns his pleading eyes toward the spec- 
 tator, as if craving sympathy and help—unaware, 
 the while, that a figure, so faintly defined that it 
 seems but a shadowy mist, is leaning over his 
 shoulder. I think it will be long before I forget 
 the haunting sadness of those wide-open eyes. 
 
 “The Dream of Pilate’s Wife” is a strong con- 
 ception, which anywhere, save among these finer 
 canvases, would arrest and hold the spectator. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 THE DORE GALLERY. 207 
 
 I can understand now, as I could not under 
 stand before, why Gustave Doré turned away 
 with impatience from all the praises that were 
 lavished upon him, on account of his superb illus- 
 trations; and refused to be consoled, because of 
 the wrong he. thought the critical world of Art 
 had done him, in refusing to acknowledge that 
 among modern masters, he was supreme. 
 
NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET. 
 
 “THERE are four spots which I don’t like to 
 leave London without having visited,” I said to 
 the Professor; “and with such skies above us, 
 how can we hope to accomplish anything to- 
 day?” 
 
 “It is one of your raw American ideas to mind 
 weather,” was his rejoinder; “with a close car- 
 riage, anything is possible; name your four 
 places.” 
 
 “T have always said,” was the reply, “that, 
 whatever I did zof see in London, I would be 
 sure to hunt out Cripplegate Church, where 
 Milton lies buried; Christ’s Hospital, which 
 Charles Lamb and Coleridge, and the rest of 
 them, have made so familiar to us; the Charter 
 House, where I may hear Colonel Newcome 
 whisper ‘Adsum’; and last, but to me not least, 
 No. 50 Wimpole Street, the house in which Elis- 
 abeth Barrett lay for such long years an invalid, 
 and out of whose door she passed as Mrs. Brown- 
 ing.” 
 
 “You shall be gratified, the weeping skies tc 
 
 (208) 
 
 
 

 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET, 209 
 
 the contrary notwithstanding.” So in a brief 
 space we were seated behind protecting glass, 
 and were whirling through London streets, defi- 
 ant of the persistent drizzle. 
 
 “Do you know where Cripplegate Church is?” 
 asked Julia, of the gray-headed old coachman. 
 
 “YT can find it,” he said. Though why we 
 wanted to say our prayers in such an out-of-the- 
 way place as Cripplegate Church seemed to 
 puzzle him. It proved to be situated in one of 
 the very narrowest of London streets, with a 
 pavement in front of it, not three feet wide, 
 From what I had read of it, I expected to find it 
 in somewhat of a dilapidated condition, as it was 
 one of the old churches that had escaped the 
 great London fire. Instead of this, however, it 
 turns out to be a fine restoration, and its living 
 is said to be one of the best in London. MHap- 
 pily the restoration has not been so thorough, as 
 to do away with any of the old wood-work of 
 the interior. The main change has been in the 
 windows; in all of them, except the rose-window 
 over the chancel, the stained glass has been re- 
 newed. What a pity it seemed, that the soft 
 harmonies of the old stained glass are giving 
 way, in so many cathedrals and churches, to the 
 more garish hues of our modern day! Those 
 
 14 
 
210 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 old workers had a finer sense of color, than be- 
 
 ‘longs now to modern artisan or artist. We re- 
 alized this, as we compared the oldest glass in 
 York Minster with that of a later day. 
 
 We sat down in Milton’s pew, at the entrance 
 of which, under the flags of a broad nave, for a 
 hundred and fifty years, the poet had lain buried. 
 Somewhere in the early part of this century, his 
 remains were removed to the end of one of the 
 side aisles, and laid beside those of his father, 
 that a suitable monument might be erected over 
 both. A slab at the pew’s entrance announces 
 this. As we sat there, looking up at the rose- 
 window, which contains a choir of singing 
 cherubs, we called to mind that before the poet’s 
 eyes grew sightless, they must have rested many 
 a time on these same angel faces. 
 
 As we were passing down one of the side aisles, 
 the guide stopped us to point out a handsome 
 entablature on the wall, enriched with heavy 
 carvings, saying, “That is in memory of a 
 daughter of Shakespeare’s Lucy.” 
 
 ‘“‘Shakespeare’s Lucy? why, he never had a 
 daughter of that name.” 
 
 “QO! I mean Sir Thomas Lucy, who took 
 Shakespeare up for deer-stealing.” 
 
 The first thing that made me assuredly aware, 
 
 
 

 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET, 211 
 
 two months ago, that I was driving through the 
 streets of London, was seeing a “ Blue-Coat Boy” 
 on the pavement, with his bare head, his flat 
 cap being carried under his arm, as all Blue- 
 Coat boys have carried them for four hundred 
 years (they are too small to be worn on the head, 
 and it would outrage all precedent to have them 
 made big enough), his long indigo-colored coat, 
 and his yellow breeches and stockings, and low 
 shoes. So I was glad to pass from Cripplegate 
 Church into the stately cloisters of Christ Church 
 Hospital. Everybody knows the history of this 
 old eleemosynary establishment, founded by the 
 boy-king, Edward VI., with the status impressed 
 upon it at the time of its endowment still un- 
 changed. The clothing, the customs, the food,— 
 indeed, everything connected with this immense 
 foundation, remains as it was when Edward VI. 
 gave it itsname. It is one of the most interest- 
 ing features of old London, for it carries one 
 back so thoroughly into the far past. The foun- 
 dation is immensely rich; and it would be im- 
 possible to estimate its value as an educational 
 system for the poor boys of London. 
 
 As we passed in, under the heavy, gray-stoned 
 archway, we asked the white-headed porter, whe 
 stood there fully uniformed and equipped, like 
 
212 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 a soldier on duty, what the number of scholars 
 had been during the past year. He replied, 
 “Eleven hundred and fifty-six ; the largest num- 
 ber admitted at any one time.” He seemed very 
 proud of being the protector of such a huge 
 -monastic-looking pile, and spoke of it and of the 
 boys, of the gardens, the playgrounds, and the 
 quadrangles, with a sense of ownership that was 
 refreshing to observe,—his identification with 
 the establishment being so entire. It was vaca- 
 tion, so we failed to see the boys; but we wan- 
 dered under the long arcades, and peeped into 
 the beautiful shrubberies, and took the gauge of 
 the playgrounds, with a keen interest: for did 
 we not hear the stutter of Charles Lamb behind 
 
 us? and did we not-see the boy Coleridge curled’ 
 
 up in a dusky corner of one of the quadrangles, 
 with his dreamy eyes upon a dog-eared book? 
 and did we not hear old Boyer growling out 
 some command from one of the recitation doors 
 beside us? Every inch of the ground was instinct 
 with memories that form the warp and woof of 
 so much of our later English literature, that we 
 felt like remaining there for the rest of the day, 
 and hunting out for ourselves names hacked upon 
 the desks, and the pillars, and the doors, which 
 have been familiar to us from childhood. But 
 
 
 
 + gag et 
 

 
 
 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET. 213 
 
 we had promised ourselves four distinct impres- 
 sions for the day, and so we might not linger. 
 
 It was not long before we found ourselves 
 walking about the quadrangles of the old Char- 
 treuse Monastery, which was confiscated in the 
 time of Henry VIII., and afterward became the 
 home of the oldest ducal family in England, the 
 Howards. Out of its gates Thomas Howard, 
 Duke of Norfolk, passed to his execution; and 
 we could not but think, as we looked up at the 
 archway, how long the arm of the last prior of 
 the monastery hung there, where it was nailed 
 after his execution, by Henry VIII. Weall know 
 how it became, through the gift of Thomas Sut- 
 ton, a religious foundation for eighty-five poor 
 gentlemen pensioners, and for forty-two unpro- 
 vided-for London boys. The names of many 
 eminent men who had been educated here, are 
 too familiar to make it necessary to allude to 
 them. 
 
 The old cloisters have been very much altered 
 since the times of the Howards and the Arundels; 
 but some of the larger apartments still retain 
 traces of former magnificence. The wet day 
 kept the old pensioners within doors, so we did 
 not meet with Colonel Newcome out on his daily 
 constitutional. The whole place seemed even 
 
214 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 more alive with historic memories, and the dark 
 nooks more haunted with the shadowy person- 
 ages of the past, than Christ Hospital. 
 
 “You are not often required,” I said to our old 
 
 coachman, “to drive to Wimpole Street”; and 
 
 why we should want to go to Wimpole Street he 
 could not understand. ‘But Ican find any street 
 in London,” he replied. We soon found that our 
 Jehu must have been in the habit of showing 
 tourists up this short, rather grim street; for in 
 
 a little space, he had landed us at the house once 
 
 occupied by Hallam, the historian. “ Here is the 
 
 ’ 
 
 house,” he said, “ you want to see.” But we con- 
 vinced him that we had no special interest in 
 Middle-Aged Hallam, but that he must carry us 
 a few doors higher up. 
 
 London streets and London ‘houses form the 
 grimmest combination, on a drizzly day in au- 
 tumn, we verily think, that can be found in this 
 
 world of ours. The soot goes up, and the fog 
 
 comes down; and between them they form a 
 
 black coating that seems to cover everything 
 with a drapery of mourning. Almost all the 
 London monuments look as if swathed in black 
 crape. This street, in which the finest woman 
 poet England (or perhaps the world) has ever 
 produced, lived so long, has walls of houses rising 
 
 
 
 £ 
 ar 
 
 ” 
 
 \ wi 
 ; Oh age Ret ee 
 dad grees. a : “9 i. mi s -_ 
 
 sta) 
 

 

 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET. 215 
 
 to the height of four or five stories, which are as 
 dark as a child’s school-slate, albeit it has an air 
 of quite aristocratic propriety. 
 
 The house in which Elisabeth Barrett lived, is 
 as begrimed as the rest; and, as I looked up at 
 the windows behind whose curtains she lay for so 
 many years, a weary invalid, I marvelled how it 
 were possible for even so subtle a spirit as hers, 
 to free itself from the influence of its environ- 
 ments. How did it seem within the compass of 
 realization, that her “ Drama of Exile” could be 
 wrought out where nothing could be seen but 
 black opposing walls, with a bit of gray sky 
 above them? What was here to recall “Lady > 
 Geraldine’s Courtship,” with its wide breeziness, 
 or the “Rhyme of the Duchess May,” with its 
 passionate and fiery movement? 
 
 One can conceive that “The Cry of the Chil- 
 dren” might well have been written here, or 
 “The Cry of the Human,” but never “The 
 Vision of Poets.”’ The name of a home in which 
 much of her childhood was spent, was Hope- 
 End,—an ominous name for the home of any 
 one, much less that of such a poet. But the in- 
 fluence of this London residence could not have 
 been even as cheering as the pine-surrounded 
 one of her early years. 
 
216 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 She speaks, in some of her earlier letters to 
 Richard Hengist Horne, the author of “ Orion,” 
 of the comfort which the outline of the Malvern 
 Hills was to her, in this isolated dwelling-place, 
 and how often the billowy curves acted as spurs 
 to her imagination; how she peopled them, and 
 made them seem to herself, like the kingdom be- 
 yond the mountains, of which she makes “ Ellie” 
 dream, in “The Romance of the Swan’s Nest.” 
 The house in which she lived at Torquay, fronted 
 the bay, and had a boundless sea-view. It was 
 from the windows of this home, that Elisabeth 
 Barrett witnessed the drowning of her favorite 
 brother, by the capsizing of his boat,—a sad 
 catastrophe, which threw a singular shadow over 
 her whole life. 
 
 To come from the pure, saline breezes of the 
 Devonshire coast, to the dim atmosphere of Lon- 
 don, and the sombre sounds of its dark streets, 
 must have seemed to the lark-like spirit some- 
 thing akin to being immured within prison walls. 
 And yet what a power genius has of transmuting 
 everything into what it would have it be! What 
 were London’s soot and grime to her, whose 
 outspread wings of thought cleaved the pure 
 empyrean ! | 
 
 Under the small portico were placed benches, 
 
 
 
 Si ae 
 

 
 NUMBER FIFTY, WIMPOLE STREET. 217 
 
 on which it did not require much fancy to see 
 dear Mary Russell Mitford sitting to rest, after 
 one of her hurried journeys up from Three-Mile- 
 Cross, to spend a few hours with her most 
 cherished friend,—waiting for the servant to 
 open the door. One could almost hear her 
 cheery voice crying out: “O, my love! if you 
 would but let me carry you back with me to 
 eat strawberries and cream in my garden at 
 Three-Mile-Cross, it would give you a new in- 
 sight into life.” 
 
 An English friend of mine, in whose family 
 Miss Mitford was a familiar intimate, tells me 
 how she was accustomed to go with her mother, 
 when a little girl, on visits to Three-Mile-Cross; 
 and how, one day, as they had taken their seats 
 in the well-known summer-house to eat straw- 
 berries, Miss Mitford exclaimed: “O, my dear! 
 I wish you had come an hour earlier! My pre- 
 cious Elisabeth Barrett has only just gone from 
 the very seat you are occupying. If you had but 
 come in time to hear her delicious and inspiring 
 talk!” 
 
 As the door was flung open, we could imag- 
 ine the good cousin, the rich John Kenyon, 
 stepping briskly forth; and as we recalled the 
 sympathetic face, we recalled, too, the fine act 
 
218 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 of generosity which placed ten thousand pounds 
 in the hand of his frail cousin, at his death. And 
 up and down these steps, and along this passage- 
 way, it delighted us to think how the young 
 Robert Browning had gone, with some “ Pome- 
 granate” of love in his hand, for his “moon of 
 Poets.” And it gave us an absolute sense of re- 
 lief, to think that from this home, girded in by 
 dark walls on either hand, he had borne her off, 
 as his bride, to that land of sunshine under which 
 her genius came to more perfect flower, than it 
 ever did under the murky skies of England. 
 
 
 

 
 IN CRIPPLEGATE CHURCH. 
 A SONNET. 
 
 I STAND with reverence at the altar-rail 
 O’er which the soft rose-window sheds its dyes, 
 And looking up, behold in pictured guise 
 Its choir of singing cherubs—Heaven’s 4/7 Hail 
 Upon each lip, and on each brow a trail 
 Of golden hair ;—for here the Poet’s eyes 
 Had rested, dreaming dreams of Paradise, 
 As on yon seat he sat, ere yet the veil 
 Of blindness had descended. 
 Who shall say, 
 That when the “during dark” had steeped his 
 sight, | 
 And on the ebon tablet flashed to view 
 His Eden with its angels, mystic bright, 
 There swept not his unconscious memory through, 
 
 The quiring cherubs that I see to-day! 
 (219) 
 
CONCLUSIONS ABOUT DEMOCRACY 
 IN EUROPE. 
 
 It is curious to observe how one’s life-long 
 ideas of things which one has not seen, are up- 
 set or modified by being brought face to face 
 with them. The traditional pity for the down- 
 trodden masses of Europe—“ the oppressed hu- 
 manity” of the Old World—had been instilled 
 into my mind as a religion, by a father whose 
 reverence for American institutions and their 
 founders, almost amounted to worship. Subse- 
 quent experience has taught me that there was 
 some sentiment mixed up with so much catholic 
 pity. We find that the democracy of Europe at 
 bottom, is not greatly different from our own. 
 
 The farther we travelled, the more we were 
 disposed to soften down our American preju- 
 dices about the tyranny and injustice of the 
 ruling classes in monarchical countries. Our 
 sympathies were by no means so overpoweringly 
 wrought upon as we had been taught to expect 
 that they would be. 
 
 Among the rural districts of England, we were 
 (220) 
 
 
 

 
 DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE, PAPA | 
 
 constantly struck with the air of content upon 
 the faces of the working classes. To be sure, we 
 saw women weeding the turnip-patches, hoeing 
 the potatoes and beets, and making hay side by 
 side with the men. Never in all our lives in the 
 South, did we see so many women at work in 
 the fields; but they had no overburdened look; 
 and as we watched their children often scamper- 
 ing about them, it did not seem to us worth 
 while to waste pity on them. 
 
 In Scotland there was nothing among the lower 
 classes that gave us any heart-wrench whatever. 
 Plenty of poverty we did see, but it was that 
 decent poverty for which one always has respect; 
 and the clean and careful thrift of which we were 
 constant witnesses, made us ashamed of the reck- 
 less waste which characterizes the poorer peo- 
 ple in our country. From the Duke of Devon- 
 shire, of whose thrift we had some curious ex- 
 perience at Chatsworth, down to the pretty 
 laundry-maid near London, there seemed to be 
 absolutely not a penny’s waste. We noticed 
 this in the management of the first-class hotels. 
 Our home in London was at one which is con- 
 sidered among the best. Yet we noted there 
 what would surprise, if it did not shock the 
 habitués of our American hotels, viz.: the pass- 
 
222 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 ing around of the head - waiter, as stately as 
 black broadcloth and immaculate linen could 
 make him. with a silver fork which he thrust 
 into every broken piece of bread and deposited 
 on a silver tray; and when diplomatic pudding ap- 
 peared on the menu, next day, we were not at a 
 loss about its constituent parts. This was done 
 at table d’hdte every evening. 
 
 The only places where we met barefooted 
 children, were in the old High Street, Edin- 
 burgh; in Liverpool, and, of all places, in Hyde 
 Park in the height of “the season.” On the 
 Continent, the wooden saéot is so universal, that 
 one never sees a child of the people without 
 them. Raggedness is very uncommon. We 
 have often observed more between Philadelphia 
 and Baltimore, than during the whole of our 
 foreign travel. 
 
 No question about the poverty of the working 
 classes. Their food and dress and lodging are 
 of the very plainest; but they get more out of it 
 than do our poor. There is never the slightest 
 attempt at finery. I have seen infinitely more 
 display during one Sunday among our Virginia 
 negroes, than I ever saw among the menial class- 
 es abroad. ; 
 
 In France we were struck with the zzsouciant 
 
 
 
 ee a A 
 
 a ay Thee ae 
 
 Lode 
 
 tia ae 
 
 pice 
 
 ile tists 
 

 
 DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE. 223 
 
 contented look of the common people, and with 
 the thorough zest which they threw into their 
 enjoyments—a zest our lower classes never know. 
 They did not seem the sort of people out of 
 which communists could be made. Our favorite 
 cab-driver said to us one day, “It is not fair that 
 you should see only the fine parts of Paris—only 
 good Paris. Let me drive you through the streets 
 of dad Paris, and T’ll show you the communis- 
 tic quarters.” Accordingly he drove us to the 
 points he indicated, and we were obliged to re- 
 mark the general air of decency and comfort that 
 prevailed. The main thing that offended us, 
 was the frequent recurrence of meat-shops for 
 the selling of, horse-flesh. In the central por- 
 tions of France, we were struck with the serene 
 contentment of the men in blue blouses, and 
 the bonnetless women, in short petticoats, who 
 thronged the old streets of the towns and the 
 paths of the provincial highways. 
 
 In Germany the ruling hand is more obvious, 
 and stolid faces were common. Our American- 
 ism rose triumphant when we saw women and 
 dogs yoked together pulling carts, heavy laden, 
 through the streets. Along the Rhine there was 
 poverty enough, but still it was not painful pov- 
 erty, and seemed to have no element of wretched- 
 
224 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 ness mixed with it. In Holland and Belgium, 
 the uncommon thrift and industry of the labor- 
 ing classes give an air of brightness to every- 
 thing, and we were hurt by no sign of suffering 
 in either country. 
 
 Switzerland has little besides its inheritance 
 of sublimity and beauty; and as we travelled 
 through its entire length, its pathetic poverty 
 was a constant oppression. But the meagre 
 possibilities of the country accounted for this. 
 There is no tyranny to hold down its people; its 
 government is as free as our own, and is admin- 
 istered so economically that its taxes are not 
 burdensome. Yet the poverty is piteous and 
 appealing. The barest necessaries of life are all 
 that the dwellers in the little Swiss hamlets ever 
 hope for. Their faces wear a look of sad resig- 
 nation, and the children seem never to laugh. 
 Nowhere did we see women made such use of— 
 they are not only wives and mothers, but beasts 
 of burden like horses or donkeys. We saw them 
 carrying great panniers of compost, strapped to 
 their backs, up rocky steps cut in the mountain 
 sides, to the ledges where vines were planted. 
 We saw them cutting their little harvests on 
 hillsides so steep, that they had to kneel and 
 hold on by tufts of the grain with one hand, 
 

 
 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE. 225 
 
 while they cut with the other; and then they 
 piled their shocks on their backs, and carried 
 them away. But this poverty can be predicated 
 only of the rural population of Switzerland, not 
 of the towns and cities, 
 
 There were other features in the positions of 
 the foreign democracy for which we were not 
 prepared. With our American ideas we had sup- 
 posed that no intrusion of it was ever allowed 
 “betwixt the wind and the nobility” of the 
 privileged classes. Our experience showed that 
 we were mistaken. 
 
 Spending a day in and about Windsor, when 
 we presented ourselves at the entrance to the 
 Castle with a number of other tourists, we found 
 a score or so of the English commonalty wait- 
 ing also to be admitted. They were evidently 
 abroad for a day’s holiday; most of them were 
 decently dressed, husbands with their wives, and 
 some twelve or fifteen mites of humanity that 
 never had been out in the sunshine before—the 
 youngest babies we had ever seen out of doors! 
 It was no marvel that these people should be 
 permitted to see the inside of Windsor Castle, 
 ‘inasmuch as they have some proprietorship in it. 
 But when they crowded, babies and all, into the 
 Albert Memorial Chapel so sacred to the Queen, 
 
 15 
 
226 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 where the beautiful cenotaph of the Prince Con- 
 sort is placed, and we heard its splendid mosaic 
 walls resound to the wails and pipings of this 
 
 same squadron of infantry, we were amazed to 
 
 see how good-naturedly the epauletted officials 
 took it all, And when the same crowd pressed in 
 through the doors of St. George’s Chapel, where 
 English royalty is wedded and buried, we won- 
 dered if such.a phalanx of screaming babyhood 
 in our Capitol at Washington, would be smiled 
 upon by the porters. It gave us an idea of free 
 and equal rights in this monarchical land, to 
 see a row of these poor mothers seat themselves 
 on a bench just outside the small chapel in which 
 the Queen has placed a beautiful recumbent 
 figure of the Prince Imperial, and proceed with- 
 out any show of offended modesty, to give the 
 babies their dinner! 
 
 In London, some friend suggested that the best 
 way to see the nobility during The Season was to 
 don our best toilets, take the finest liveried turn- 
 out we could hire, and join the procession that 
 on fine afternoons rolls up and down Rotten 
 Row, and along the Serpentine through Hyde 
 Park. We did this, and were rewarded, not only 
 by seeing the English Peerage in all its glory, 
 but the English Democracy as well, in all its 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE. 227 
 
 independence and freedom. Here were coronet- 
 ed and crested carriages, with their powdered 
 _ Jeemeses, in all the splendor of cocked hat, plush 
 coat, and silver shoebuckles, guarding the proud 
 dowagers sitting with noses in the air; and as close 
 to them as the barriers would permit them to come, 
 were also the pressing crowds of indigent poor 
 from the very purlieus of London. Mounted 
 guards, with their swords held before them as 
 rigid as the Horse Guards at Somerset House, 
 were on duty all along the drive; but never once 
 did we see them chide the troublesome curiosity 
 of the bareheaded and barefooted and dirty- 
 faced children, who pressed against the barriers. 
 We saw little creatures of ten dragging, in old 
 champagne-baskets, lean babies; but no attempt 
 was made to keep them from crowding forward 
 to see all that was to be seen. In the great cir- 
 cle of greensward which the drive borders, were 
 scores of unkempt, barelegged boys and girls, 
 rolling on the grass and playing at leap-frog, 
 and disporting themselves as they pleased. And 
 yet Hyde Park is the aristocratic core of aristo- 
 cratic England ! 
 
 On the Continent, we remarked the same wide 
 margin for outdoor enjoyment allowed to the 
 poorest people. Driving in the Bois de Boulogne 
 
5 A HANDFUL OF MONOGRAPHS. 
 
 at Paris, we would come upon groups of the very 
 poor, sitting upon the benches with their chil- 
 dren all about them, eating their dinners, while © } 
 a big basket near, contained the family mending. 
 We observed this in the parks everywhere—in _ 
 Brussels, in Antwerp, at The Hague, in Wies-. 
 baden, and in most of the German cities. We 
 doubt if Central Park ever has such scenes of 
 democratic domesticity to show, as were con- 
 stantly presented to our eyes in the parks of 
 some of the most beautiful Continental capitals. 
 
 We noticed, too, another custom differing from 
 our American habit. Foreign servants are in all. 
 respects better than ours; yet they are not kept 
 as much at arm’s-length, no doubt because caste 
 lines are so rigidly fixed among the old civiliza- 
 tions, that there is no danger of their being over- 
 stepped. At the pretty hotel where we stayed 
 in Paris, we were accustomed to see some of the 
 maids and garcons assemble nightly under a gas- 
 light just outside the open glazed doors of one 
 of the drawing-rooms, with knitting and papers, 
 the guests passing in and out through the group. 
 The porter and other officials seemed to consider 
 it all right. We wondered if the Hotel Brunswick 
 or Fifth Avenue would have permitted it. 
 
 At Wiesbaden, a city of palatial hotels, we ob- 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE. 229 
 
 served the same sort of freedom. We had not 
 ‘become so used to a Continental Sunday, that 
 we did not feel a little shocked when some of 
 the servants of our hotel gathered on a balcony, 
 fronting our apartments, and occupied them- 
 selves, the women with sewing, the young men 
 with playing chess. 
 
 Upon the whole, we returned to our own land 
 with a heart considerably lightened as to the 
 hardships and oppression of the laboring classes 
 abroad. When we talked with our guide in Ed- 
 inburgh, about the misery that we occasionally 
 saw in the Closes and Wynds, he said: “These 
 people are wretched just because they are wicked. 
 If they would behave themselves, leave off drink, 
 and do work which they can always get to do, 
 there need not be any such suffering.” 
 

 

 

 

 

 
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