man of the wardrobe, and harbingers. Three tables were served in the hall at the same time. The Archbishop's for peers of the realm, and gentlemen of eminent quality; the almoner's for chaplains and other clergy and guests; and the steward's for the other gentlemen. What a pity to leave so good a kitchen, to be burnt at Oxford ! A great advantage one has in England, is the convenience of filling up a letter any where with little historic bits, without any other expense than of memory. The English (though the assertion may seem violent) admire us as much almost as themselves; but unless they write satires against us, how make a book? Now of this palace I could tell you, if I had time, a great deal more; how Essex was imprisoned here; how a queen of England took shelter here in a cold December night; how Queen Mary, to see Cardinal Pole, paid a visit here at five o'clock, P. M., July 21, 1556, and dined here with the Cardinal the eighth of August the following year; how Wat Tyler and his rebels plundered the palace, beheading Archbishop Sudbury, and drinking all his wine; dolia vino referta confregerunt, hauseruntque; how Peter the Great came hither to an ordination; and how the palace was robbed of £3000 worth of plate: finally, how Queen Elizabeth was entertained here by Archbishop Parker; and being toasted, how she rose and made a speech, thanking the prelate for his hospitality, and concluding with an acknowledgment to Mrs. Parker in the following complimentary manner: And you Madam I cannot call you, and Mistress I am ashamed to call you, so that I know not what to call you nevertheless, I thank you.' What would they call Mrs. Parker now? As the Archbishop takes rank next the royal family, his lady has no doubt some honorary designation. What an infinity of things a villager of Schuylkill county, coming into Britain, knows nothing of! I should be as puzzled as the Queen. The palace contains now a fine gallery of paintings, and a library of 25,000 volumes; and a library of Ms. registers of the church, on a variety of subjects. The Gate-House is a superb building; at the entrance is distributed to thirty poor of Lambeth the Archbishop's dole. It consists of fifteen quarter loaves, nine stone of beef, and five shillings in half pence, in three portions, thrice a week. This dole, which used to be dispensed at the gates of royalty, and of all the nobility, is now confined to his grace of Canterbury. The Lord Mayor-under what pretext? - comes hither upon the annual procession, in his barge, to receive also his dole; sixteen bottles of the Archbisop's prime wine. It is well his grace has £60,000 a year, if it is to be doled out in this manner. I passed to the left of Battersea, where was born (and died) Bolingbroke, and not far from it, Gibbon; an infidel neighborhood, too near the religious odor of Lambeth. In a quiet and romantic spot in its vicinity, Wellington and Earl Winchelsea fought their little Waterloo. Next, in a delightful plain, rose up to view Clapham and its cockney villas. The traders both of London and Paris having acquired a certain sum, usually procure themselves houses and gardens in the environs of the capital, and retire; there to lead a monotonous life of gossip, reading news, going to town and returning on foot, on a nag, or in a carriage of one or two horses, according to their revenue. Happy American! who closes his eyes upon his hoarded chest; struggles through his thirty years of restless toil, dies, and leaves his heir the glorious privilege of doing nothing! I bribed a passenger, with a smile and good words, to show me the villa of Wilberforce, elegant in its neat simplicity, and quite enough of itself to give dignity to this unfashionable district. And now I reached the goal for which I had set out, the country house of Mrs. Thrale at Streatham. I walked about the gardens with such reverence as becomes one who treads upon consecrated ground. The genius of the place, you know, is Doctor Johnson. With feelings not very different, I have entered one of those long-forsaken Presbyterian meeting-houses, overgrown with brushwood and moss, by the lonely Juniatta; where one feels yet the presence of the Deity once worshipped there. There is a spacious dwelling, with out-houses, hot-houses, vineyards, and a walled garden; all which have been left to moulder away, or grow into a wilderness, since twelve years. The unpruned branches of the lime trees are drooping over the damp aisles; jessamines are straggling about in a hundred entanglements; flower-beds are choked up with weeds and briars, matted and clotted over the walks; walks that once so gently kissed the light foot of the beautious Thrale. The present proprietor of the estate is called Philips, a miser and barbarian, who has wantonly cut down the best trees, and even a cedar, planted by Johnson himself, under his window. I have procured a piece of it made into cups, in which we may one day drink 'Old Sam's' health in the new world. I added half a crown to the price, with injunctions upon the farmer to preserve a favorite Maytree of Mrs. Thrale's, and a threat of bad crops, if he suffer a leaf of it to be touched. As I come from afar, the prophecy and malediction may perhaps not be disregarded. If this Caliph Omar, Philips, comes ever into Adam-street, have him tarred and feathered at my expense. But the sun yet shines sweetly upon the decaying tenement; the honey-bee gathers its nectar from the thyme; and the humming-bird is buzzing upon the ragged honey-suckle. Cold-blooded Mammon, with all the devotedness of his worship, cannot establish an absolute sovereignty upon the earth. I found an old lady here, a kind of she-Boswell, who knew Johnson, and kindly related some particulars of his residence and visits at Thrale's. I used to see him,' she said, 'lie under this tree for hours reading, and all the while sticking his knife into the bark, and he did not seem to know it. I used to stand and look at him going up that long avenue of elms, of a Sabbath, to church, there on the hill. One while he would walk fast, then slow; and then he would stand still altogether, with a book close to his face, and sometimes came into service when it was a' most over. This room, Sir, was the library; a good part of the dictionary was wrote in it, and the Poets; and he had a desk on each side of the window. His bed chamber was just overhead; that was Mrs. Thrale's chamber, with the mahogany doors and closets. The dear woman! There is the very identical paper; and that May tree, opposite her window, was her favorite tree of all the gardens.' And why did Johnson quarrel with Mrs. Thrale? Why, Sir, because she married that fellow Pozzi, her daughter's music-master, that the Doctor did not like. He said to her, (you know her husband was a brewer,) Madam, I thought you entire,* and I find ' Was Johnson ever convicted of this pun in his life-time? I felt something like a sudden tremor of heart, at being within the same walls that had so often thundered with the giant's voice. And now I ran about the house alone. Here Mrs. Thrale brewed mischief, while her husband brewed beer; and here she made a pudding and here a book; recollecting its eventful histories, and imagining more. The kitchen, judging from its size and cooking apparatus, must have been one of the immense considerations of the household. But slimy worms and snails are creeping upon the hearths and walls, once so embalmed with the perfume of good dinners; and a sickly vapor sleeps in its vaults, like the carbonic damp, scarce supporting life. I sat up the best part of a night once, in America, reading manuscript letters of Mrs. Thrale to Conway. In one she says: If you go to Streatham, you will will see the poor library dismantled of books. Över it is Dr. Johnson's chamber.' Only think of her, at three-score and ten, loving this player; 'as fair a soul,' she says, as was enshrined ever in human clay.' Her letters would do credit to sixteen, for vivid imagination, and intense ardor of amorous affection. They would furnish the public a literary curiosity, if propriety would justify their publication. At this village of Streatham, I should not forget that a gentleman, resident of the place, took me to his home, introduced me to his wife, and that they sent me away loaded with kindnesses. If perchance you find near Pine-Hill any one called Smith, (for this is the name,) take him in and give him a hearty welcome; roast mutton, strawberries, gooseberry wine, and a bunch of flowers. It is not the direct way, but no other occurs just now, of requiting this debt of hospitality. One meets here such acts, cold and inaccessible as the people are, more frequently than in any other country I know of, except our southern states. To an Englishman's generosity, ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute. I walked two miles beyond Streatham into Wimbledon Park. Earl Spencer, who resides here, has delightful prospects. Adjoining is a house once occupied by the Prince de Condé. It is quite a military spot. A battle was fought here between Ethelbert and some West Saxon, and at a pretty place called Merton is the dwelling of that most glorious of Neptune's favorites, Nelson. He staid here to let his fangs grow for Trafalgar. The Wandal creeps by, now through the meadows, now the sweet solitude of the woods, till she receives the kisses of her mate upon her maiden cheek. It was here that, 'From courts and senates Pelham found repose, These two streams, uniting their little dignity of rivers, about four miles west of London, pay their tribute to the lordly Thames. On ་ * AS WHITBREAD's Entire,' or pure malt-liquor. + THE English poets, in defiance of grammatical propriety, have made this river femi nine. Wimbledon Common they show the house in which Horne Tooke died, in 1812. I next stood upon the heights of Norwood, overlooking London at six miles distance; a prospect scarce inferior in beauty to Richmond Hill. It presents an endless landscape of green pastures, magnificent villas, forests of rich woodland, houses issuing out from clumps of trees, and the distant spires and towers of the metropolis. I saw here, and for the first time, what forms a part of the poetical machinery of the Island, a collection of Gypsies. About a dozen, male and female, sat on the ground near a road, looking wild as haggards of the rock;' long, soft, and glossy black hair falling profusely about their faces; the women in straw bonnets and cloaks of glaring colors, mostly red. Crazy Nora, so well known in the Philadelphia streets, is a good enough representative of the women. They sit squat upon the earth, and rise, scatter, and collect, with the simultaneous and rapid movement of well-trained infantry. A wagon stood by, with a donkey; in this they carry their tents, kettles, and provisions. They sat about a fire of dry sticks, watching a boiling pot. One of them, a girl with black and piercing eyes, approached, and unsealing the book, of fates, for a shilling made very flattering predictions in my favor. This tribe furnishes a wonderful lesson on the nature of the human species. Talk of our savages: these people have been born and bred in the very heart of the most civilized communities for ages, and in spite of extreme poverty and unrelenting persecution, still cling to their vagrant habits. Beulah Spa is a mineral spring on these grounds. It has about forty acres tastefully laid out, and two hotels, and is much frequented. Here I waited for to-morrow. Beulah Spa has witnessed, in its close and tangled forests, I know not how many flirts: in the sweet opportunities of the night, I know not how many glozing words have crept into the hearts of unwary virgins. How should I know, but from report? I wandered late myself in the tufted wood, and upon the quaint mazes of the wanton green,' and heard gigglings in the hedges, of girls, certainly not on their first rendezvous. I wished to see the exhibition of an English moonlight. It was delightful; but you have seen, in our transparent skies, the large moon look down upon the lonely vale of the Catawissa; where the wailing whip-poor-will brings the still evening on; where the owl hoots upon your windowsill, and the katy-did pours forth its evening song. A short and delightful walk, in the fresh morning, brought me to Beckenham, and its old church. Of all things, give me a church, when there is no one by. It seems like a private interview with the Deity; and beside the religious feeling, there is to me in the churches of these old countries always a sentiment of romance. I can wander back among the Druid priests, the Woden and Thor, and old gothic divinities; or I can see holy friars at their heads, and pretty nuns, prettier in their piety. Sometimes a miserable historian comes across me with his wisdom, and telling me of Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, much to my displeasure, dissipates the delusion. What sad havoc science, experiment, and facts are making of our admiration and our veneration too! We believed once that the Almighty thundered in the clouds, as the Romans that Jove hurled the lightning with his 'red right hand.' Alas! what is our obligation to Franklin for his kites, and to Newton for his school-boy nomenclature of the skies? 'Earthly god-fathers of heaven's lights, Who gave a name to every fixed star, Than those that walk and wot not what they are.' While I strayed through the grave-yard, thinking over the guiltless Cromwells,' and inglorious Miltons,' compounded here with their native dust, and surveying every thing, an utter stranger, as from another planet But where is man a stranger upon the civilized earth? On a grave on which I looked carelessly, I read, 'Lo! where the silent marble weeps! I thought it had been printed only in a book. It was Gray's identical epitaph upon Mrs. Clarke's grave. A delightful walk of a mile now placed me in Dulwich, one of the classical spots of the environs. There is a college here (God's-Gift') founded by an actor, who had celebrity in his time, and played with Shakspeare, named Allen. The master also is required to bear the same name. It was endowed for the support of twelve old men, and as many old women, and the education of twenty-four boys. By the rise of property, the bequest has become of exceeding value, but the government, following the letter and not the spirit of the will, still apply the augmented means to the original number. Allen resided here; and the actress Nan Cately was born here. The place has quite a histrionic reputation. I found a gallery of paintings, an appendage of the college, in which I passed the morning with delight. At my début in Europe, I had no taste in pictures, though very fond of the originals; nor indeed much taste in any thing else. But by dint of standing two hours at a stretch before the snowy marble bosom of the Queen of Love, in the Tuilleries, and living a whole life of twelve months in the Louvre, and going thrice a week to the Chamber of Deputies, now I am a so-so politician, And know a Guido from a Titian; and, as you see, can make my own poetry, to save quotations. This comes of travelling. I have read in Buffon of a man wonderfully stupid; with just sense enough to ride on an ass, but not to stick on. He fell off upon a rock, which proving thicker than his skull, broke it, just over the bump of ideality, and he became one of the 'honors' of the 'Siecle de Louis XIV.' Fontenelle has written his life. Come over; one gets one's bumps enlarged so in this country. there is such collision. And when you come, you will acknowledge your obligations to me for indicating to you this gallery at Dulwich. As friends find a pleasure even in the association of looks, I am going to point out the pieces I looked at particularly, this tenth day of June, Anno Domini, 1836. St. Thomas Distributing Alms. MURILLO. The gravity of the saint is so expressive, one grows a saint in looking at it. If I had died, I could have worked miracles; cured people of the ague. And the beggars, Don Antonio, Fabricio, Señor Roderigo-at your service, |