volume of American poetry, so variously selected, presents so many pages imbued with a high feeling of devotion." This is, in truth, the loftiest praise that can be bestowed upon our writers,—that their genius is a purified and sanctified, not a defiled and unhallowed, one. Genius itself is a gift, for which the Divine Giver alone deserves praise, not the receiver: the latter is entitled to credit, only when he makes a good and worthy use of it, as he should be branded with infamy, when he abuses it to unhallowed ends. It is the highest praise, that America, in her young and rising literature, has taken a high stand in this respect. The writings of our authors,-with very few exceptions -are found to be imbued with a lofty moral and religious spirit. This, it is probable, results in a great degree from the pure character of America's founders, the high-souled Puritans. All praise to those brave and noble spirits, whose lofty daring and heroic endurance in the cause of truth and right, have already, in their results, benefited the world to an incalculable extent, and will continue to do so through coming ages:-and this, not only by the example of American civil liberty, but also through the influence of an American religious literature ! SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-PLACE AND TOMB. What needs my Shakspeare for his honored bones Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a starry pointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? MILTON. IN visiting remarkable places, in the course of my travels, it has often happened that I reached them just at night-fall. This has occurred so frequently, that my attention was at length drawn to the circumstance; and it seemed to me, on reflection, not accidental, but providential. For I believe, and love to believe, that there is a providence over the minutest affairs of daily life; and that our Heavenly Father, whose nature is all Love, takes a Divine delight in providing for the innocent gratification of his children in every possible way. And the circumstance above alluded to, has, I am sure, been a source of peculiar gratification to me. It may be more pleasing to some, to enter a place like Stratford-on-Avon at broad noon, whisk up to the inn-door in coach and four; and, jumping off, dash into the Shakspeare house with a party see the place and then off to the church, and see that,-mount the coach again, and away—all "done up" by daylight. But that is not my turn. I love to approach a place like this quietly, thoughtfully, and alone; and at an hour when the shades of evening are drawing on, and throwing around objects a shadowy indistinctness in which the imagination finds opportunity to exercise itself; in which only enough of the real is visible, for the ideal to hang its garland fancies upon; in which, in fact, the material fades from view, and allows the intellectual and the spiritual to take its place. For, after all, it is not the material object that excites the interest, but the associations connected with it; and these are all intellectual, invisible; they are to be sought for, not without, but within,-in the recesses of one's own mind and memory; they are found, not by gazing at the wood or stone with the outward eyes, but rather by looking within and calling up to view the mental fabric which information and imagination have reared there together. So far, indeed, as the sight of the outward object aids this inward contemplation, it is a source of pleasure; and hence the delight in visiting famous scenes. But if the material object is permitted to displace from the mind the ideal one with its cluster of associations, then the pleasure is lessened rather than increased; the true source of delight is extinguished; and the vacant mind, staring hard at the stone, demands, "Is this all?" Hence the feelings of disappointment so often experienced by tourists. They had better have stayed at home and read of the place, than visited it. Now, as realities in this lower world seldom come up to the mind's imaginings (because the immortal mind belongs properly to a higher and grander world), therefore, daylight, which shows things in their dull materiality, tends, often, to chill the ardor of expectation, and draw down the plumed fancy to the earth. But the uncertain light of evening, while it shows the object, and thus awakens slumbering associations and kindles the fancy, yet, casting its hazy veil over the scene, leaves your dreamy pleasures undisturbed. By good fortune, or, rather, as I before remarked, by a kindly providence, I have been permitted to have my inclination in this particular very frequently gratified. I first saw London by lamplight; I entered Naples beneath a brilliant moonlight; and our own magnificent Niagara I enjoyed the most deeply, while standing in the darkness on the little bridge that connects Goat and Luna Islands, and listening to the roar of the cataract rushing over the precipice beneath me. It was the same, on the occasion of my visit to Stratford. I happened to arrive there just at evening: I viewed Shakspeare's little birth-chamber by candle-light; and walked round the church that contains his tomb, beneath the solemn light of the stars. Though the theme is hackneyed enough, I must indulge myself with the relation of a few particulars of my visit. As every intelligent traveler sees things from his own point of view, and different persons approach scenes of interest under different circumstances and in different states of mind, there may be an indefinite variety in their accounts, and each may have its own excellence and its own means of affording gratification. I had spent the morning in wandering over grand old Warwick castle, said to be the finest relic of the kind in England;-climbing to the top of Guy's tower, surveying the giant earl's great sword and greater "porridge-pot," and from the hall-windows enjoying my first view of the winding Avon. At four in the afternoon, I mounted the Warwick coach for Stratford, some eight or ten miles distant. The sun had been shining pleasantly most of the day; but now, a cloud gathering in the west brought on a slight shower,-only a few drops, just enough to make a rainbow, the first I had seen in England. I thought it a suitable arch to enter Stratford under. On our way we crossed the Avon; it is a pretty stream, with numerous willows along its banks. How famous has this river become, by the singing of its "swan!" Four miles this side of Stratford, we came in view of Charlecote, the mansion of Sir Thomas Lucy, which Shakspeare's youthful prank has made so celebrated. It is still in the possession of one of his descendants. There was the park which the youthful poet had so lawlessly entered; and, quietly feeding upon it, a large herd of deer, descendants, probably, of the very troop that he assaulted. We reached Stratford a little before six; and, as it was late in the season, it was now near dusk. Yet, as we drove into the town (crossing the Avon over an arched bridge), I caught a glimpse, in the distance, of the spire of the parish-church, Shakspeare's mausoleum. As soon as the coach |