is also there, in the handwriting of Tasso. There too are the relics of Nineveh, sent home by Layard, the indefatigable. English gold has been potent in drawing together such a fine collection.

You have heard of GoG, the Roman soldier, and MAGOG, the Ancient Briton, who preside over Guildhall, and have in their keeping the ancient municipality. Well, we saw the old genii, sure enough. Quaint and odd-painted in divers colors, and looking very grandly foolish, stuck up in their corners, they constitute one of the sights of London, never to be omitted. As soon omit seeing the Bronze Wolf at the Roman Capitol, or the bears at Berne.

Rain and sunshine alternate here every other hour. The air is thus kept delightfully cool. The nights are beginning to grow cold. Indeed, we have had plain indications of the approaching fall. Driving through St. James's Park, we noticed the maples already shedding their leaves, and bestrewing the walks. Royal parks and American woods own a kindred nature, and together obey the great law of decay and growth. By analogy we would conclude that the same great law comprehends the royal occupants of St. James and the humblest tenant of our log cabins, a simple truth which will bear pondering with profit. Death knows no distinction or rank. God knows none, save that which distinguishes the pure in heart from the vile.

What a home for crime and vice is London! To the traveller this does not appear so readily. A few hours' observation in the Mayor's court revealed more than I could have learned by going about the streets for a year. During those few hours, a crowd of tattered, miserable beings were lodging their complaints, or being tried for petty crimes. Police officers were bringing in offenders of high and low degree. They have curious and rapid modes of justice here. Immediately below the court-room are the prisons, which consist of little wicker cages. A trap-door opens, and after the manner of Banquo's ghost, there arises from below, the prisoner. By his side is the

policeman. The attorney for the city states the charge. Tho judge requests the policeman to give evidence. He thus propels: "I found three and a half pounds of tobacco hid upon the prisoner's person, after I had asked him if he had any contraband goods, and after he had denied having any. There is a duty of nine shillings and threepence per pound, your honor." Judge." What have you got to say to this?"

Prisoner." Please your honor, I gave three shillings for it, to send it down to my friends at Ramsgate." Judge." Why did you conceal it?"

Prisoner-Mum.

Judge."You are sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment, or to pay a fine of twenty shillings."

The trap door opens; exit prisoner, saying, “ I gave my last shilling for the tobacco; I can't pay the fine, zur.”

I would have liked exceedingly to have had the privilege of visiting the courts of Westminster, but they will not be in session till November. The Old Bailey must repay in part for the disappointment.

I visited the 'Old Bailey' to see that famous criminalmill grind out a batch of offenders. My friend, the City Solicitor, was on hand at the indictment office, preparing his indictments for the Grand Jury; but he found time to give me a prominent place from which to observe the operations. In the first court, they were arraigning the newly indicted, which was done in droves, classified according to their crimes. The other court was more interesting. It moved like clockwork. The court-rooms are not so fine as those of the Palais Justice; and I missed the beautiful painting of the Saviour upon the cross, which always hangs over the heads of the French judges. Neither does the judge demean himself so attentively and sympathetically. I did not look for much sympathy in the Old Bailey. I would as soon have looked for pearls in a puddingstone. The lawyers sat on circular benches, in whitish curly wigs, and gowns. I had no idea that so respectable a profes

sion could be dressed up so as to look so assinine. Of course they are used to the absurdity; but is it always to continue? Now it does not look so ridiculous to see the officer of the court in a great blue cloak-dress, fringed with furs, and the crier (I believe it was) with his sword dangling about a pair of spindleshanks, dressed in tights, while his head was queued and ribboned in gala style; for these officers "have no discretion;" they are executive-machines. Lawyers are supposed to be thinking men, not fantastic harlequins. But there I sat, almost choking because I could not laugh, at the grave and gay wigs (some looked in the face to be not more than twenty-one years of age) which surrounded me. A gentleman thief was on trial for stealing a box of silver. He was standing in the dock, counterfeiting a tremble, and using a handkerchief to brush away imaginary tears. An old wig (I have no respect for men who place themselves in such a guise) was trying his best to bamboozle a jury that seemed utterly indifferent to every thing. If you remember a sketch of the jury that tried Bardell vs. Pickwick, by Cruikshank, you will have an idea of this jury. Pretty soon the old wig, after having disposed of each tittle of testimony, calling it nothing, multiplied them together, and produced nothing-against his client, and sat down to his infinite satisfaction.

"My lord," the judge, summed up in a few words: the jury leaned over the bench, and without going out (they never go out in the Old Bailey), returned a verdict of guilty, almost as soon as I can write this sentence; the judge immediately sentenced the prisoner to ten year's transportation. The prisoner asked if he could be permitted to use spectacles. A voice (female) from the gallery," My lord, he's blind." "Silence!" growls an officer. That was all the attention shown to the request. Previous to sentence, two policemen swear to the prisoner as one of the "swell-mob" (genteelly dressed thieves), which did not mitigate the sentence. And so they go on. I suppose an ordinary case is tried in ten minutes, on which a man's whole life and reputa

tion is staked. The court has no more soul than a threshing machine, and the bar no more sympathy than is in their wigs.

What a relief—a contrast, to turn from this harsh home of justice, to the silent homes of the great, who are buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster. With what fear and awe are we inspired, as we pass over the graves where Campbell and Sheridan sleep, to see the monument of Shakspeare—so gentle, so meek, so graceful, as he stands upon it, with a scroll of his own verses about the cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces of human greatness, that fade, how unlike his own name, and leave not a rack behind!.

All about him are names familiar to us as those of our own family, Rowe, Addison, Goldsmith, ("poor Goldy!") Southey, Dryden, "rare Ben," and rarer Samuel Johnson; but why name them? Is not this the repository of England's most precious dust? What a spirit speaks from the urns of these princes and kings of song! How silently, through the mighty medium of type, does it bear on its pinion the elements of beauty, humor, truth and goodness, to make the world purer and holier! How kindly does it bear down to future ages and to the extremest parts of the earth, the riches of our noble Anglo-Saxon language! And even now, in the polished poetry of Longfellow, and the graceful prose of Irving, is verified, but not to its splendid fulfilment, the prophetic rapture of an old English bard, Daniels, as he speaks of that language which these mouldering forms spoke and wrote:

"And who in time knows whither he may vent

The treasures of our tongue? To what strange shores

This gain of our best glory shall be sent

T enrich unknowing nations with our stores?

What worlds in th' yet unformed Occident

May come refined with th' accents which are ours.”

XXXI.

The Ereat Exhibition Revisited.

I would rather believe all the fables of the Talmud, the Legend and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without MIND!"

IT

Lord Bacon.

T is utterly impossible for me even to essay any further expression about the Exhibition, which will in the least degree reflect its great and little wonders. As I entered it again, the same bright and glittering array and the same multiform variety marched before me in sections, regiments and battalions, completely capturing my senses and depriving my pen of its ordinary volubility. I entered with the intention of studying closely certain branches, say that of agricultural implements (having an intelligent farmer friend, Mr. Buckingham, along), but the shortness of my stay here and the immensity of the objects to be studied, admonished me not to undertake so hopeless á work. Upon each entrance to the different departments, I have found some new modification of a familiar thing, some new principle of mechanics, and some additional beauty in Art. The most useful things that I have seen have been the most beautifully finished; and in this, is confirmed a very pleasant truth. Even the locomotive which is marked with a ribbon around its pipe, and a card of the prize medal, is a piece of exquisite beauty, dazzling as a mirror in its steel and brass, and carved into grace at every point where ornament may give grace without detracting from strength. Is it not ever thus in the mental world? Are the sterling and strong metals of thought, any worse for being wrought into rich and elegant figures? Ask Milton, or