(we must believe,) tightens the ties of our common humanity.

Ah! how these same words "Old England," crowd the memory with associations! How every Age strives to present itself with distinctness before us!-the Age of the Norman, when the Saxon Serf trod through the land like a lashed blood-hound scourged into silence, yet only waiting the opportunity to fly upon the keeper. In that Age, the only distinction between men was that of Soldiers and Serfs. To be a Saxon was to be a slave. Wherever the light locks, and the mild but powerful blue eye appeared, there was a victim, one of the most terrible of all victims, a being full of mind, conquered and held in subjection by the mere force of sheer brutality. What was Cheapside at that time! Oh it was there, but a widely different place; irregular lines of strangely gabled houses-few indications of happiness,-none of wealth; the streets unpaved, streaming with refuse and with water; and yon man, see! yon man is the lord of all this! He is a Norman, -tall, haughty, striding with contempt by the side of the poor shops. What a fierce, bright, dark eye! his dark locks hanging beneath his helmet; bearded, whiskered, a rough, rugged being enough, surely; the man is covered with armour, and yet he moves as if he carried feathers instead of iron; he embodies the energy of his race. He and his brethren came to pour that energy into the land. The Age of the Normans beheld the heaving to and fro of the great social body. The ploughing

up, indeed, of the soil; the planting of the seeds, which were to vegetate and mature, till their fruits were beheld in the amalgamation of the peoples, in a change in their distinctive characters, and an impartation of a wonderful impulse to the fortunes of the whole nation.

How wonderful were those circumstances which, during the times of the Plantaganets, and of the Normans, too, secured the destinies of the people from wrong. While the crusader carried his banner before his regiment of raggamuffins to the Holy Land, the Burgher found this a noble opportunity for prosecuting the arts of industry, and building his cities; and when the follies of the Holy Land were over, and when the Lilies of France bowed before the Red Rose, and still these wild conquering Normans wanted work, then the Civil Wars of the Roses employed them in all these affrays the interests of Old England did not suffer; the citizens were extending their power, while their lords were disputing about trifles ; the quiet determination of the Saxon was more than a match for the vivacity and the energy of the Norman; the bold trader defeated the bold soldier; the latter was, without knowing it, the servant of the former; he was serving the man he despised; he was aiding the thing he hated; thus the forests of spears that flocked to the battle-plains were drawn from the woods and the fields: the young villages and towns were left to pursue their own nobler work in contempt, which for them was happily placed. Or if we could catch a glimpse of England

at a still later day,-if we could have been about St. James's, when the Cardinal Wolsey was wont to set forth to see the king-the long procession slowly advancing in its magnificence and state, with its pomp of running footmen; the upreared silver crosses, the pole-axes of bright glittering steel, with here and there a fat, mournful friar; or a band of nuns just dismissed from their convents, and released from their vows, hurrying fearfully along. Or to follow, with another crowd, to the execution of Sir Thomas More, for that was an event in the chronicles of Old England! to mark that mild and most celestial face, there, for the last time, before the sun; that vast crowd of wondering and awe-stricken citizens, held back by the lines of military, and to know that a spectacle like this was frequently exhibited to the world, provoking the sceptic's doubt in Providence, and giving to the lewd sensualists apology for their exultation and their crime. The procession of Elizabeth from palace to palacethe defeat of the Spanish Armada-the spectacle of Stubbs lifting up his mutilated hand, fresh from the block, and shouting, "God save Queen Elizabeth!" or Prynne distributing tracts at the pillory, although his ears were bleeding from the executioner's knife; or Charles the monarch on the scaffold, condemned to die by the people over whom he was set to reign; or, the Trial of the Bishops, and the blaze of enthusiasm which kindled over the nation upon the acquittal of those men, not that they were so worthy or so holy, but they represented

the most general sympathies. These, and a thousand things like these, are worthy of noting; they show the temper and disposition of an age, or the mind and character of a people. If we would know England, we must do so by studying the features of the national temperament, as they are revealed to us in old legends and popular stories; in the superstitions and ceremonies; in the architecture of old buildings, temples, and halls, and palaces; in costume and dress; in the animating and conquering spirit of old battle fields; in the airs and choruses of old songs. We must read the history of the people in the scenery, and in the occupations of the land, and in those events which have struck most deeply the chord of feeling in the popular heart. In what did the nation rejoice? In what did the nation mourn? If we had a history, written upon data like these, how different would the story be to that which generally wearies the ear of boyhood, the mere recital of dates, and names and events with neither a beginning or a conclusion, conducted apparently by characters, with neither chivalry nor meanness-puppets, as unmeaning as characters in a show! Yet it is not too much to say that of all lands, the land presenting the most glorious and original events, and the most dramatic characters is Old England.

I will be bound to say, that you can penetrate to no part of the country, but within five miles, there shall be stirring associations. The other day, I went to look at Broadgate, or Bradgate, the old home of Lady Jane Grey;

and I propose to ask you to go with me, in your fancy thither. The simple circumstances of that afternoon are pleasant to look back upon. I had carelessly intimated a wish to see Bradgate, and also, intimated an intention of walking thither; when two kind friends, whom I had seen, for the first time, only a few days before, volunteered company and conveyance too, trivial enough to them, and perhaps, to me, too. But how such instances of frank, hearty kindness, impress the mind, and give pleasing recollections of character, for the memory to work upon years to come.

We were

Well, then, away we went. somewhere in the year about the ides of March, but the day was a good deal more like the ides of April; one of those days, which might be fitted up for a meteorologist's study, and afford him some tolerably ample specimens of weather variety. In the course of our journey, we had all sorts; starting it was fair enough, although, if it must be said, rather suspicious, as we passed through the streets of old Leicester. Nature had not put on her kirtle of green and gold; but for my part, I was determined to enjoy everything I saw, and everything I felt too, even the somewhat ungentle showers, which soon began to fall around us. Here, it comes, up with the umbrella, hail, rain, and a trifle of snow; but how beautifully the blue sky interlaces the more leaden coloured clouds; the streaks of white, lying fleecily along the violet seas, all over-away we go again, talk! talk! talk! as we whirl away, upon all kinds of sub

1