these things, it should be remembered, that, a few months later, it becomes dark before five o'clock; the weather has the reputation of instigating suicide, and there is "nobody in town," i. e. nobody but several hundreds of thousands of people that "nobody knows."

On the Monday after my arrival I paid my first long visit to Westminster Abbey. Its grand and gorgeous architecture impresses the gazer with awe and admiration, but, as the mausoleum of England's mighty dead, the ancient gothic pile possesses a far more potent charm. As you pass within its hallowed walls, you seem to leave the breathing world, the shadows of dim antiquity darken around you, and you feel almost as if introduced to the august presence of those whose monuments and statues, silent, yet eloquent, greet you on every side. The east end of the Abbey is semicircular, and around it from the north to the south arm of the cross, extends a range of chapels, nine in number, enclosing a great number of monuments, : some of them dating as far back as the thirteenth century. There is something very impressive in the numerous ancient effigies, of warriors in full armor, bishops in their canonical vestments, kings and queens with the insignia of royalty, extended at full length over their tombs. As you gaze at the marble figures, composed as if in slumber, you feel that such beings have lived, and that now they sleep that sleep that knows no waking. I felt this with strange and thrilling emotion, as standing by the magnificent monument of Mary Queen of Scots, I surveyed the recumbent figure of the lovely but ill-fated queen, and thought of her mournful history. The oppressor and the victim sleep near together. In an adjoining aisle of the same chapel, (that of Henry the Seventh,) is the lofty monument of Queen Elizabeth.

In the chapel of Edward the Confessor, the only one which is enclosed in the body of the church, are several monuments of the early sovereigns of England, many of them mutilated and defaced by ruffian hands. Here is the empty tomb of Edward I., the invader of Scotland, by whose order William Wallace was condemned to an ignominious death-the tomb of Edward III.-the black marble monument of his Queen Philippa-the tomb of Richard II. and his Queen-and the monument of Henry V., of Falstaff memory. The old oaken Coronation chairs are kept in this chapel, and here, surrounded by the monuments and effigies of departed monarchs, the sovereigns of England are crowned.

Henry the Seventh's Chapel, at the east end of the Abbey, is a spacious and gorgeous church of itself. The entrance to it is beneath a magnificent arch, through richly wrought gates of brass. According to Hollinshed, this chapel alone cost nearly a million of dollars. So exquisitely delicate and minute is the ornamental stone work of this structure, that a connoisseur has well described it as appearing" as if the artist had intended to give to stone the character of embroidery, and to enclose his walls within the meshes of lace work." Here is the magnificent tomb of Henry VII., and Elizabeth his Queen, the last of the house of York that wore the English crown. Beneath the pavement are several royal vaults, where lie the mortal remains of James I. and his Queen, Charles II., William and Mary, Queen Anne, and George H.

As I walked amid the sepulchral monuments, so thickly clustered in these caves of death, and, pausing on some marked spot, reflected that I was standing over what once had been a king, the sense of the emptiness of all earthly power and pageantry, of the vanity of all human ambition,

was awfully overwhelming. Beneath my feet reposed the dust of sovereigns once renowned, who had filled a large space in the eyes of mankind, and whose actions form no unimportant part of the enduring record of history; but of all their glory and kingly state, what now remains? A little dust is all. "Mors sola fatetur quantula sint hominum corpuscula." I thought of that passage in Isaiah, where the deceased monarchs of the earth are represented in the regions of the dead, reposing, in grandeur suitable to their former dignity, each on his royal couch, surrounded by his arms and trophies. "All of them lie in glory, every one in his own sepulchre." When the funeral vault in this ancient Abbey is opened anew, and another monarch is gathered to his fathers, one can almost imagine the awfully sublime description of the prophet verified, and the shades of the mighty dead rising from their couches to receive to their companionship another of their race. "Hades from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it raiseth up from their thrones all the kings. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?'"

After visiting the chapels, I next sought out the most remarkable monuments in other parts of the Abbey, such as those of the Earl of Chatham, Lord Mansfield, Sir Isaac Newton, and others whose names are conspicuous in the annals of England. In one spot beneath the pavement, William Pitt, Charles James Fox, the Marquis of Londonderry, and George Canning, lie very near each other. The grave has composed the differences of discordant statesmen ; side by side they sleep in death. Near them is a beautiful monument to Wilberforce, the Christian statesman.

But the most interesting part of the Abbey is the Poet's

Corner. Here are congregated the memorials of departed genius, whose more enduring monument is in the minds of myriad men. Here the eye rests on the Statue of Shakspeare, to which the sculptor's art has imparted all that intellectual dignity, that intense and sublime expression which we so readily believe must have marked the aspect of the great poet, when lofty themes were working in his soul. His hand grasps a scroll, on which are inscribed his own well-known lines, whose power can nowhere be more deeply felt than within the walls of Westminster Abbey:

"The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all that it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind."

On the pedestal of the monument are three heads, representing Henry V., Richard III., and Queen Elizabeth, three sovereigns whose histories are lastingly associated with Shakspeare.

"O RARE BEN JOHNSON," is the inscription which designates Shakspeare's distinguished contemporary. Of the lines on the monument to GRAY, I recollect only the last two, where England is represented as rivalling ancient Greece in the choiceness of her poetical treasures:

"She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains,

A Pindar's rapture in the Lyre of Gray."

Feelings not easily expressed crowd upon the mind, as the eye distinguishes the names of Chaucer, Milton, Dryden, Goldsmith, Thompson, &c., and glances from monument to monument of those whose sweet strains have been familiar from early youth, and incorporated, as it were, into the very texture of the mind. Addison has a statue. One

of the more recent monuments is that to David Garrick, who died in 1779. A flat stone in front of it, marked "Eva Garrick," designates the grave of his wife. Dr. Johnson lies near Garrick. Close to these is the recent grave of Campbell.

I lingered in the Abbey, on this first visit to it, till the close of the evening service, which is held daily in the Choir. The solemn notes of the organ, swelling through the vast edifice, penetrating to its dim recesses, and echoed back from its lofty arches, was inexpressibly grand. As I glanced for the last time, at the sombre magnificence of the august pile, how perfectly did it realize the poet's conception.

"How reverend is the face of this tall pile,

Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight; the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart."

The House of Commons is a plain unadorned hall, about 80 feet by 40, convenient enough for the members, but evidently constructed with no reference to the great public, who in order to get in, would have to shrink like Milton's demons in Pandemonium. Perhaps if the profane and vulgar could gain admission, they would sometimes greet the ears of the legislators, in the style of said demons, with "a dismal universal hiss, the sound of public scorn;" to prevent which, it is thought best to exclude them. Behind the Speaker's chair is a small gallery, appropriated to the reporters; but even these are admitted only by sufferance, as there are laws in existence authorizing their exclusion. The side galleries are for privileged persons, such as the