she airs in these woods. Prince Albert has a farm of 500 acres in the midst. It looked as neat as a model. The hay was put up as smoothly as if it were to remain for ever. The stock consisted of a large variety. I should venture out of my sphere if I undertook to tell about farms and their appendages. Silence is discretion. There is a horticultural phenomenon in the for est at the Belvidere worth naming. It consists of one grapevine, off of which was gathered last year over twenty-three hundred pounds of grapes. But under cover. Oh! bless you-if Apollo had not had a glass medium he could not have hit, with his quiver of beams, old Bacchus so plump in the eye,— not in England at any rate.

One may ride 101 miles in this park over the most beautiful road, and surrounded by the most grateful prospect. Yet of the 6000 acres here, only 500 answers God's law. Five thousand five hundred acres will have a poor account to render in their day of judgment. It will not do then to say, "Poetry and beauty required of us our service and our shades. Royalty wished to press our smooth velvet sward, excluded from the vulgar gaze. Aristocrats delighted to drive down our green lanes in fine coaches with arms on them, to indulge flimsy raptures upon the scenes they could not comprehend in their deeper significance. Fairies had their favorite resorts upon

"The bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where cowslips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine,
Where slept Titania."-

Inquisition will be made for the English poor, and the inquiry will be, Why were these, His own image, famished, while a few -in His eye-no better, are suffered to lord it over such an immense area of bread-growing soil, in search of an antidote to ennui? I believe with Emerson, in the idea of compensation, and would carry it somewhat into the after-life.

The Merry Wives of Windsor, as Shakspeare draws their characters, were never great favorites of mine. I should not put them down as patterns of domestic sobriety, nor of delicate refinement. They would have been unfaithful to the idea of the comedy, had they been so. They would, according to my observation, have belied their locality, had they been otherwise. The day we visited Windsor happened (how fortunate!) to be he anniversary revel of the Bachelors of Windsor. Of course, I had a fine chance to see the merry wives. Indeed, I did not see a soul that was not a little cracked with the glee of the day, except those who had been stupefied with too much "sack."

I looked into, it may have been, the Garter Inn, to see where Sir Jack drank sack, and Dame Quickly gossiped; but I only saw a crowd of revellers dancing to a fiddle; the young fellows with long clay pipes in their mouths, shuffling the sandy floor, with red-cheeked, flaxen-haired country damsels.

The revel was established many years ago, by a rich lady, who bequeathed a sum of money and the ground, in the very midst of the town, for the sports. These consist of the old English games, and they are conducted on the old principles. When we went on the ground, some such scene as the following was presented. About twenty thousand people were standing in and around the side hills, overlooking the rings, stage and booths. The folk in our vicinage were holding mugs of ale and stout, with a noisy hilarity as gross as that of the ugliest villein in the time of the Conqueror. Soldiers and policemen were numerously interspersed.

Flaxen heads were uncovered in dishevelled riot. The "merry wives" are by no means idle or unconcerned. They were moving among the crowd, enjoying the rude brutality of the hour. The stage was the great object of interest. Two flaxen heads upon it were woolling each other, and trying to trip. A shout announced the result in a fall. Another shout announced a tumble of both off the stage. Again they are at it; the tall one, who is a Northumberland man (says our driver, who knows

the peculiarities of skill), gives the lesser one a jerk, which flings his coat over his head, and while blinded, he gives him the soundest fall, amid shouts of merriment. In the mean while, wooden horses, circular boats, and other riding establishments, in the shape of overshot wheels, are gyrating. Dancing, and Punch and Judy, with other entertainments, enliven the booths. Chimney-sweeps are climbing the three greased poles near the stage, in vain-the oily lubricity of the poles is too much for them; and amid derisive cries, they slide down. At last one skilful fellow attained the top, and the noise became deafening. Next came the game of whipping the ball out of the hole. A half dozen are blindfolded. They have long whips with sharp crackers. When the ball came out, the signal was given by an officer, when the blindfolded began most severely to whip each other. Ha! ha! HAW! in hearty great guffaws, rung from side to side. The damsels, all crimson, left their partners in the rustic dance, and rushed out to see. The mugs were dropped -the stupid, beer-besotted fellows in white overshirts, open their eyes. "Gad! Tommy! 'ow the little one catches it! Don't they lay it on right soundly, man? Hoorah!" This brutal game of the ball is repeated. It seemed to be one of the most approved sports. We had been too late to see the cricket, and other matches. But we saw enough to know that it was rightly named the Windsor revel.

The corporation of Windsor, to their honor, have tried every means in their power, which included a strong litigation, to get rid of this revel. They have tried to build roads over the place. They are gradually encroaching on the spot. But the Bachelors, who belong to a most ancient order, take great pride in these sports, and have resisted successfully every encroachment upon their prescriptive rights. Besides, the Queen gives ten pounds for it, and her mother a considerable sum.

In passing out of Windsor, we drove by a magnificent equipage, with liveried servants, within which was seated a maiden lady named Miss Harvey Bonnell, the owner of a large estate

in the vicinage, with an annual income of $150,000. She was dressed in the style of Queen Anne, consisting of a great white ruff, and a black hat with black ostrich plumes, which waved finely as she bowed to us from her carriage. The lady from whom she inherited the immense estate wore the same costume, and her devisors had the same habit. We would commend the style to the attention of our countrywomen, as we understand that novel modes of dress are in quest among them. The reputation of Miss Bonnell is that of a sane, charitable, noble lady. She is a peculiarity worth notice. Her residence is beautifully situated amidst her elegant grounds, and is a peer even among the royal abodes.

But we must hasten to London; congratulating ourselves on having seen so much of the present and the past, and on our way drawing conclusions not at all unfavorable to the decency, good sense and humanity of the American yeomanry, compared to the "revellers" of Windsor.

25

XXXIII

Avon---Ihakspeare's Bome.

"What needs my Shakspeare for his honor'd bones?
The labor of an age in piled stones;

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a starry-pointing pyramid ?

Thou our fancy, of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."

Milton's Sonnet.

ORE than a week had we been at London, studying it from

MORE 3 We which

the little boats which fret the Thames; from the top of the omnibuses that meander through its winding streets; from St. Paul's cupola; from amid its gardens and parks, its palaces and courts of justice; endeavoring to see every phase of that stirring life called London, and of that strangely industrious and perseveringly active race from which we derive our habits, our laws, and ourselves. Of all the people I have yet seen, if I had to have an ancestry (which is exceedingly uncomfortable sometimes to some people, especially if it happens to run back into a shoemaker or a tailor), I would prefer our own AngloSaxon stock. It is a shaggy old oak, rough, intertwisted and stubborn; but it spreads a large and gracious umbrage, and is destined to spread still, a larger and a better shade. The French are too much like their own tall, military-looking, topplumed poplars, constantly bending to the lightest breeze of fickleness, and only affording slim lumber with the best of sawing.

One thing noticeable among the English is, that they care