entirely hid from the road, and within sound of the gently rippling sea, sleeps John Sterling, the friend of Archdeacon Hare and Carlyle; and here also William Adams, the author of "The Shadow of the Cross," is buried. Ventnor itself is getting to be too grand and town-like for such a little "Aiden" as the Isle of Wight; and the great prim English stone villas accord ill with the wild verdurous chaos of "Undercliff."

St. Lawrence Church, a little way beyond Ventnor, is said to be the smallest church edifice in England. It has been lately enlarged, and is now just twenty feet by twelve, and has held, when crammed as full as it could be, one hundred and seven people! One actually looks down on the eaves when standing upon the outside of the church, which is built on sloping ground. One minute window is twelve by eighteen inches; two small stone crosses crown either end, and rough beams cross the ceiling which are not even straight, resembling the bent oak ribs of a ship. Lord Yarboro's large pew took up about one fourth of the interior; but still it had every thing that belonged to a church, even to a painted window. It was a Lilliput cathedral; yet from its high antiquity and touching lowliness, it had a certain dignity of its own. The view from it is superb over the darkly fringed cliff and the broad blue serene ocean. could not carry out my intention to return to the Isle of Wight and visit the southern and western coasts, the Needles and Scratchell's Bay, where the

I

scenery is said to be truly magnificent, with the pearly-white sharp-edged cliffs towering in great isolated masses from the ocean, and in a storm looking wan and strangely threatening against the gloomy sky. Things there are not upon such a miniature scale of prettiness as is the rest of the island.

Near Freshwater Bay, at Farringford, was then the residence of Alfred Tennyson. A good opportunity had been afforded from a high source of an introduction to the poet, which would doubtless have secured for me a pleasant reception, but I did not avail myself of it. In the case of Maurice and Kingsley, and also of Miss Marsh, I had another object than personal curiosity; and the interview with old Mr. Brontë at Haworth was also entirely unsought by me. It is quite unsatisfactory to present letters of introduction in England, and it is far better to receive the spontaneous invitation of a fellow-traveler, as it was my good fortune to do in two or three instances, thus winning for me delightful visits to pleasant English homes, where every kind of generous hospitality was heaped An American friend who visited Tennyson about this time told me of his pride in the grove of ilex-trees growing near his house, of which he speaks in his poems. In his ordinary conversation he would be taken for a man of science rather than a poet; for he is an accurate student and keen observer in the natural sciences.

upon me.

Although they may be quite familiar, I will repeat his lines to Rev. F. D. Maurice :

"Where, far from smoke and noise of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown,

All round a careless ordered garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.
You have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,

And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous under a roof of pine.

For groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand;
And further on, the hoáry channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand."

CHAPTER XIX.

SOUTHAMPTON TO SALISBURY.

IN going from Southampton to Salisbury on the Southwestern Railway, I stayed for a few hours at Romsey, Hants, where is "Broadlands," the seat of the late Lord Palmerston. I wished to hunt up some records in the Abbey Church, for which I was furnished every facility. The fine old church itself is a genuine specimen of the early Norman, and it stands in its primitive simplicity. It struck me as having some architectural resemblance to Bakewell Church, Derbyshire. The sexton grew pathetic over a long tress of auburn hair which he had himself exhumed, and which he said belonged to Alfred's daughter, or a Roman princess, I have forgotten which. I spent some time in turning over the ponderous vellum church archives; but it was like looking for the grave of Merlin, to find any particular name in such a vast unsystematized mass of extinct names. Three miles from Romsey is "Embley Park," the southern home of Florence Nightingale.

It is a culminating point in one's English travel when he catches his first distant sight of Salisbury Cathedral. If there is any thing graceful it is the

spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and above all when it is seen etherealized through the misty English atmosphere, which transmutes solid into aërial forms.

At this season of the year, when the fashionable travel was nearly over, and only business men, or, as they are termed, "commercial travelers," are abroad with their "mackintoshes" and carpet-bags, I was doomed to interminable conversations in railway carriages and coffee-rooms, with hard-brained and plain-spoken men. I met among them oftentimes exceedingly well-informed individuals, and if one is a little cautious not to arouse national prejudices, there are few more interesting and graphic talkers than this class of persons. They are men who blurt their thoughts out without fear or favor. They are practical men, who despise humbug and pipe-claying. Louis Napoleon, to be sure, was determined to burn and sink England before his reign was over; and they did not know but he could do it, though he would find it a tough job; but, on all other topics, no people are more sensible and clear-headed. I fell in with some of these men at the "White Hart Inn" in Salisbury. They did not spare their national idols, their leading men. Even Gladstone, who was one of the best of them in their estimation, came in for his share; they called him "a book-man" who knew no more of finance than "Boots here. They berated the boarding-houses of London, and in fact London trades-people generally, and said that any of these would coin his soul for a guinea. This