of the necessary funds, although they have had the mortification of witnessing the rearing of some of the greatest architectural abortions and monsters in the way of churches.

In the present case, the town of Stratford, finding its holy temple tottering to its very foundation, has at last mulcted itself to the extent of three thousand pounds, to stay the ravages of time, and remedy the ill effects of neglect on the part of those whose duty more immediately it is to see that the existing churches do not fall into decay, and become an object to sneer at by the more zealous Dissenters or Romanists, who liberally subscribe to keep their own places of worship in proper repair.

The dilapidation going on in Stratford church was particularly visible in its interior, where, from dampness, the walls from the floor to a height of nearly four feet had assumed such an appearance as to make it dangerous to attend Divine service in it. This arose from the soil having been suffered to accumulate against the wall, on the outside, until it covered the latter as high as four feet. When this was removed, as it was even then in progress of being done, the walls behind and parts of the foundation were found to be rotten. It will scarcely be credited that in this adventitious and accreted soil, burials had taken place to a very considerable extent; so that had the double process gone on much longer, of accumulation of soil and burials of dead in it,-the House of God must, at last, have itself been buried among the dead.

Monuments and inscriptions, of every date, and to the memory of people of various degrees, adorn the chancel of this Saxo-Norman temple, which had been renovated a few years before by the care and under the immediate inspection of the Shakspearean Club. But the eye of the stranger, forsaking all these, is at once irresistibly attracted by and fixed upon a projecting architectural monument on the north wall, bearing the carved resemblance of the Poet, which the written and traditional report of his contemporaries and relatives, under

whose direction the indifferent work was executed, tends to make us believe to be true to the original.

What a noble fabric is here displayed over the pupilless eye-balls, to hold its inmate brain, from which the corruscations of a genius that has no second to compare it to, scintillated for a period of twenty years in rapid succession, until quenched by the hand of death! The cunning of the artist who wrought the lineaments of the bard may have been but indifferent, as some contend, especially "one of the most distinguished sculptors of our days;" but in the admirable geometry of his forehead here represented, nature and truth alone could have been the guides of the stone-carver.

And what wisdom, wit, philosophy, morals, religion, and keen appreciation of the beautiful, did once animate that stupendous part of Shakspeare's perishable frame! And that brow, too

a throne where honour may be crown'd Sole monarch of the universal earth!"

England may indeed be proud of this highly-favoured child of hers, whose unaided efforts of the mind alone have sufficed to place her, at one single bound, on a par with the more enlightened and intellectual nations of the earth-a post no kindred spirit or genius of hers had tended to secure to her before. Truly may one of the many admiring critics of the ever-living productions of Shakspeare say, that to estimate the benefits this country has received from them is quite impossible. "Their influence has been gradual but prodigious, operating at first on loftier intellects, but becoming in time diffused over all, spreading wisdom and charity amongst us. There is, perhaps no person of any considerable rate of mind who does not owe something to this matchless poet. He is the teacher of all good-pity, generosity, true courage, love. His works alone (leaving mere science out of the question) contain probably more actual wisdom than the whole body of English

learning. He is the text for the moralist and the philosopher" (and why not for the statesman, the poet, and the painter?). "His bright wit is cut into little stars; his solid masses of knowledge are meted out in morsels and proverbs; and, thus distributed, there is scarcely a corner which he does not illuminate, or a cottage which he does not enrich."

It is thus that the spirit whose corporal effigy I stood contemplating with admiration, in the church of the Holy Trinity at Stratford, ought to be viewed, as connected with the history of the human mind, of which, take him for all in all, this nighty genius unquestionably forms the most remarkable, astonishing, and unparalleled epoch.

Of him as a painter of the human passions in his writings, it was probably the intention of the artist that we should be reminded by the posture he has given to the half-length figure of the poet in the monument, where he is placed between two pillars and under an arch, with a pen in one hand, and the other resting on a scroll. It is in that character that all the nations of the earth blessed with enlightenment and civilization acknowledge and reverence his unrivalled superiority over all poets, ancient and modern; admiring and extolling him in consequence. Pens, too, without number, have at all times been engaged in commending the same wonderful peculiarity of Shakspeare's writings. But how incomparably more forcible is the bard's own language, (of which I was reminded as I viewed his effigy, with my feet standing on the "envious grave” that encloses his dust,) when applied, and by no violent stretch of

* To the admirers of Shakspeare who would wish to have a manual of his "Wisdom and Genius" always at hand, a sort of rich casket of his gems in moral philosophy, delineations of characters, paintings of nature and the passions, to dip into at pleasure, and so adorn their minds with them,-I would strongly recommend a beautiful pocket volume, published a short time ago by the Rev. Thomas Price, from whose preface I borrowed the quotation just given in the text, ascribed to a writer in the Retrospective Review.

interpretation either, to the delineation of that same striking feature of his GENIUS!

"So on the tip of his subduing tongue

All kinds of arguments and question deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep.
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passions in his craft of will;
That he did in the general bosom reign
Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted."

POEMS.

284

CHAPTER XIV.

CHELTENHAM.

No sooner got than lost!-Approach to CHELTENHAM-FOUR Establishments-The MONTPELLIER SPA and the ROTUNDA-HENRY THOMPSON -Profitable Speculation-Well digging-Taps one, two, three, four, &c.-Which is the best?-MULTIPLICITY of Analyses-All differentAlleged Quantity of Iodine-Query to the Discoverer-The ORIGINAL SPA, or Old Wells-Venerable Avenue-Numerous Spouts-Good Old KING GEORGE Sir George BAKER-Cheltenham Mineral Waters one and the same.

THAT the reputation of Cheltenham as a Spa is on the wane-nay, escaping fast from it—is a fact, the announcement of which will not sound new to a great number of my readers. I entered the place on the occasion of my present visit under such an impression, and I found that impression confirmed by the contrasting difference I observed between what Cheltenham then appeared to me as a mineral wateringplace, and what I had known it as such, personally and from experience, fifteen years before.

So soon acquired, and so soon gone! Is the nation then whimsical and capricious, by which such reputations are thus vouchsafed and withheld in the short period of a few years?