imagined, but from its indubitable indications, what event it was designed to commemorate. At the first glance, on approaching, I stopped suddenly and involuntarily and the next succeeding emotion, instantaneous indeed, was a strong and almost irresistible impulse to fall prostrate and weep before the spectacle. Had I fallen as unexpectedly upon a fresh and actual calamity, of which this was the mere picture, it could scarcely, in the first impression, have taken a stronger hold. There lay evidently on a table a corpse, the breath of life but just departed, inclining nearly on the left face, the frame drawn up and distorted, as an expiring agony may be supposed to have done, the whole covered with a sheet of the purest and finest linen lightly thrown over-the right arm dropping down over the table, exposing only the fingers of the hand, which were as white as the sheet itself. At the two front corners of the table kneeled two female forms, as might be supposed from their slender make, each in positions various from the other, and both with their heads dropping in their hands and weeping, with no other garb but other sheets of the finest and purest linen, thrown lightly over their entire frame. At the ends of the table, and a step in elevation, kneeled two other female forms, in positions still varying from the other two, and each from each, their heads also dropping in their hands, and weeping -both concealed in the same manner under pure white linen-and all the group inclining towards the corpse. Over this table and its burden, as if just breaking forth from a cemetery behind, another female form, fresh, fair, and joyous, as the resurrection of the just, unconnected with any apparent object except her drapery, is rising triumphant, with heaven-directed eyes, with every limb and muscle springing and mounting upwards, disregardful of the scene beneath her feet. On either side an angel is mounting with her, but more slow in flight, both gazing upon her, and one of them bearing and clasping in his bosom the infant child. And all this done and expressed from the purest marble. Who, meeting unexpectedly such a spectacle, would not feel it? KENILWORTH CASTLE. From Coventry to the borough of Warwick is 10 miles. A little more than half this distance towards Warwick is Kenilworth. The main road and every feature of the country here are truly delightful-enchanting. The ruins of Kenilworth Castle are magnificent, as they are venerable. Independent of that interest with which Scott has invested them, standing in the light of sober history, and in their own naked and majestic forms, they are sufficiently attractive to arrest the footsteps and fix the intense gaze of him who, in connexion with their historical suggestions, ap proaches and looks upon them for the first time. Yonder, some half mile or more in the distance, as he rides along the gently undulating country, the heavy, towering, decaying, falling, ivy-mantled walls-massive, grand, isolated, silent, and exceedingly imposing-appearing to rest partly on meadows, groves, and hills, and partly on the clouds and sky-burst at once on his view! As he advances and changes his relative position, the features and outlines of the object that absorbs his attention change also. Imagination gives it life, though so long mouldering and dead. It moves before the eye-every moment presents some new, living, and eloquent expression. The birds are floating over it, and lighting on its towers. They have made their nests there, and forget not their young ones. And that was once the home of a high, proud, and puissant English lord! There his haughty queen, the boast of English history, was his guest for seventeen days, with her court! What splendour-what entertainments, what prodigality of wealth-what instruments and means of pleasurewhat life and animation-what banquetings, revellings, and mirth within-what sports without-what demonstrations of royalty and princely greatness-have been exhibited there! What a magnificent and perfect thing of human creation was that! And what is it now! So fades the glory of this world! Where is that princely lord? Where is Elizabeth, whom he entertained? Where are they who moved and figured in that extraordinary, protracted, costly, splendid fête? Was it all pure? Was it all without sin? Desolation has spread its mantle alike over the grounds and over the walls. Silence reigns without and within. History tells us what has been there, and Time has written upon it all-how irresistible is his dominion! How great the changes of human society! The change of customs and modes of living! It is instructive-it is melancholy—it is the poetry of history. WARWICK CASTLE. Lady Chapel, in St. Mary's Church, of Warwick, is the most remarkable thing of the town-the most remarkable of the kind I have seen in England—a curious, superb, little, young, chicken church, lying under the wing of the old one. I should think that Popery, monkery—the virgin genius of Mother Church-had exhausted her own pro-creative energies when that was conceived. It might be supposed the very end-the last little baby of fancy-and that fancy will never try again. I advise all who go to Warwick to see nothing else, and think of nothing else-unless, perchance, it be the castle. There lieth the king-maker, the renowned Earl of Warwick; and there lieth the Earl of Leicester. Monks have counted their beads there, and thought, per haps, that the eye of Heaven looked upon them. Certainly no one from this world would have thought to search for them, if he had not been told there was such a place. The beautiful Avon runs under the town, and on its sweet banks is built that far-famed castle-the house and citadel of the Warwicks. To say that it well deserveth its reputation, is perhaps saying enough-especially when one is tired of castles, and is willing that they who own them should enjoy them. This, however, is by no means a common one. It is the most perfect, the most stately, the most picturesque, the most romantic of its kind in the British Isles. Windsor Castle makes a greater pile; but the king might well resign his own if he could obtain this in barter. The cannon's mouth would laugh at such muniments; but for the age, for the periods to which they belonged, it must indeed have been a strong hiding-place. He who had once entered its gates, and made them fast behind him, might bid defiance to a pursuing foe; he might sleep as quietly as if he had not an enemy in the world. It is indeed a wonderful creation of man. The castle rises, an impregnable wall, directly on the bank of the Avon; and the entire line of state rooms, 330 feet, filled with a countless costliness of furniture, and a richness indescribable, look out on this sweetly-flowing stream, and on the pleasure-grounds and park, which stretch far away to bounds not discoverable. The tops of the cedars of Lebanon, brought and planted there, and majestic as in the land of Israel, whose roots fasten in the crevices of the rocks at the base of the castle, are under its windows. It is a nest fit for kings, high and inaccessible, with nothing but the beauties and glories of creation to look out upon, and all within peace, and quietness, and princely splendour. The access to the castle, after entering the outer gate, is a long, deep-cut serpentine gallery, spacious enough for a carriage, walled up to heaven by the natural rock out of which it has been blasted, and overhung by the wood. THE CITY OF YORK. "Of hoary York, the early throne of state, Such is the pompous pretension of the guide-book to the City of York. In any thing else but a guide-book-whose ministering services are somewhat akin to those of the donkey, and the brains of their authors, with few exceptions, equally worthy of respect-these lines might possibly strike us as being something not altogether un-apropos. York is an ancient city built upon the ruins of an ancient city; and the foundations of its ancient and magnificent cathedral have been set up in the midst of the foundation stones and among the stupendous columns of some other magnificent, but now forgotten, monument of the pride and glory of man. Some recent excavations for the repairs of the minster have exposed the lower sections of the columns of some ancient edifice, standing undisturbed upon their primitive foundations, and in their first architectural relations to each other. Underneath this mighty fabric, the history of which in all its earlier parts can itself with difficulty be traced, you may walk among the ruins of a like and perhaps still greater thing, though distinctly diverse in all its features, and belonging to another cycle of the generations of men, whose history is forgotten. I cannot describe the awe with which I was struck, when, having just received my first impressions on approaching and entering York Cathedral-having compassed the vast building for once, and merely cast a glance upwards now and then as I passed along-having crossed the threshold to its inner and awful spaciousness, and listened for an hour to the solemn chant, the echoing voices of prayer and the word of God, as they lifted, rolled, and multiplied themselves among the many arches above-having seen and learned just enough to know that this great piece of human art could not be known in all its history-it is so old and so infinite-and then to be conducted downward into a subterranean chamber, with just light enough thrown in to show us a forest of columns, standing in their original order and place, as parts of some stupendous structure, whose history is too ancient to have any relation to this other ancient and stupendous building, which now lifts up itself in awful grandeur above these ruins ;-no, I can hardly express my sensations at the sight of these subterranean relics, exhibiting such proofs of the art, labour, and expense by which the whole thing, of which they were parts, was created, and of the importance of that generation whose history has principally perished. It seemed as if the builders of this old city, and of this mountain-like cathedral, in the selection of their site, had blundered upon these buried ruins without ever knowing what was under their feet-and that mere accident in this late day had made the discovery. These ruins, thus exposed, are directly under the choir of the Minster. York Minster, or Cathedral, has been often described, and is justly celebrated, as one of the most stupendous and wonderful architectural monuments in the British dominions. There are many others admirable, but this is awful, and altogether imposing. One cannot see it, cannot go round it, cannot walk within, look up, and survey its wondrous greatness and equally wondrous variety, but he is lost, bewildered in any attempts.to conjecture how many cen turies it must have occupied, how many hands it must have employed, and how much waste of treasure it must have cost, in building. At one time he imagines it is enough to have occupied all men of all generations. And yet he must know it is a small affair among the rest of the works of human art. The external of this edifice has so many features, that one who has but little time for observation cannot pretend to be minute in tracing them. He delights to go round and round, and receive the general impressions of every new glance; and to catch now and then the more striking and admirable minutiæ. He sees the waste of time even on the rock-how the blasting storms of many centuries have blotted out inscriptions, defaced and transformed the statuary, converted every image into some other image of monstrous shape, and furrowed deeply in every direction the hardest materials that have been drawn from the bowels of the earth. This massive, towering, and stupendous pile has not only become hoary with age, but literally hangs in tatters by the waste of its external decorations. For all that is within it is vain to attempt the declaration of one's respect. Here again a brief inspection must be contented with its general impressions. Even though the awful temple be revisited day after day for no inconsiderable period, there is no diminution, but rather increase of interest. The arches and windows of York Minster can never be seen enough not to wish to see them again. The positions for the endless and ever-varying perspective are so numerous, that one can never be satisfied with shifting and seeking some fresh delight. While the solemn chant is reciting, and the peals of the loud organ are rolling through the vaults above, the temptation is great to neglect the purposes of devotion, and to walk through the long aisles, to observe the peculiar and impressive effect of the multiplication of the echoes of every note and of every word, as it floats, and rises, and tumbles along from one region to another, until succeeding notes and words, like wave following wave in the sea, attract the attention, and fill up the scope of sensible observation. It is known that a large part of York Minster was burnt down in February, 1829, by the incendiary torch of a deluded fanatic, who imagined himself commissioned from Heaven to reform the Church of England. He was instructed, it would seem, to begin at the City of York, and in this very striking and impressive way. It happened that the beginning of his work was the end. For the poor fellow was overtaken, and is now atoning for his temerity in the prison of New Bridewell. This fellow, whose name is Martin, had secreted himself behind a sarcophagus, or some other monument in the ca |