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And Christian altars overlay
Yon temple's old foundation stone;
And in Minerva's* vacant cell
Sublimest wisdom deigns to dwell.

And where, within some deep shy wood,
And seen but half through curving bough,
In silent marble Dian stood,
Behold! a holier Virgin now
Hath sanctified the solitude;
And thou, meek Mary-Mother! thou
Dost hallow each old Pagan spot,
Or storied stream, or fabled grot!

The devious pilgrim, far beguiled,
How gladly doth he turn to greet
Thy long-sought image, 'mid the wild
A calming thought, a vision sweet.
If grief be his then, Lady mild!
Thy gentle aid we will entreat,

And bowed in heart, not less than deed,
Findeth a prayer to fit the need.

There, while his secret soul he bares,

That lonely altar bending by,

The traveler passing unawares,

Shall stay his step, but not too nigh,

And hearkening to those unforced prayers,

Albeit the creed he may deny,
Shall own his reason less averse,
And spirit surely not the worse.

Thy shrines are lovely, wheresoe'er,
And yet, if it were mine to choose
One, loveliest, where fretted lore

Might come to rest, or thought to muse,
'Twould be that one so soft and fair,
That standeth by old Syracuse:
Just where those salt-sea waters take
The likeness of an inland lake.

Green tendriled plants, in many a ring
Creep round the gray stone tenderly,
As though in very love to cling
And clasp it; while the reverent sea
A fond up-looking wave doth bring
To break anon submissively;

* The present cathedral of Syracuse was formerly a temple of Minerva.

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I wish more people would write such lucid and melodious verse; but I have a suspicion that among the many who call themselves poets, there are very few indeed who can.

R

ΧΧΧ.

AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES.

THOMAS CHATTERTON-ROBERT SOUTHEY-SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

FROM Bath we proceeded to Bristol, or rather to Clifton, traversing the tunnels this time with as gay a confidence as I should do now. Of Bath, its buildings and its scenery, I had heard much good; of Bristol, its dirt, its dinginess, and its ugliness, much evil. Shall I confess-dare I confess, that I was charmed with the old city? The tall, narrow, picturesque dwellings with their quaint gables; the wooden houses in Wine-street, one of which was brought from Holland bodily, that is to say in ready-made bits, wanting only to be put together; the courts and lanes climbing like ladders up the steep acclivities; the hanging gardens, said to have been given by Queen Elizabeth to the washerwomen (every thing has a tradition in Bristol); the bustling quays; the crowded docks; the calm, silent, Dowry Parade (I have my own reasons for loving Dowry Parade) with its trees growing up between the pavement like the close of a cathedral; the Avon flowing between those two exquisite boundaries, the richly tufted Leigh Woods clothing the steep hillside, and the grand and lofty St. Vincent's Rocks, with houses perched upon the summits that looked ready to fall upon our heads; the airy line of the chain that swung from tower to tower of the intended suspension bridge, with its basket hanging in mid air like the car of a balloon, making one dizzy to look at it;-formed an enchanting picture. I know nothing in English landscape so lovely or so striking as that bit of the Avon beyond the Hot Wells, especially when the tide is in, the ferry-boat crossing, and some fine American ship steaming up the river.

As to Clifton, I suspect that my opinions were a little heretical

in that quarter also; for I could not help wishing the houses away (not the inhabitants, that would have been too ungrateful), and the wide open downs restored to their primeval space and airiness. How delightful must the Hot Wells have been then! and how much greater the chance of recovery for invalids, who could add the temptation of such a spot for rides and drives to the salubrity of the waters!

I had an hereditary interest in the Hot Wells; my own mother having accompanied her only brother thither to die. It was one of the brief romances which under different forms most families probably could tell : a young man of the highest promise, a Fellow of Oriel, as his father had been before him, and just entered of Lincoln's Inn, who galloped to Reading after dark to dance with a county beauty, and returned the same way the moment the ball was ended. He had offered his hand for more than the evening to the lady of his love, and had been accepted. But the chill of a snowy winter night, after such exercise and such excitement, struck to his chest; rapid consumption ensued, and the affianced lovers never met again. It is often the best and the fairest who die such deaths. Every one knows Mason's fine epitaph on his young wife in this very cathedral:

Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear,
Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave!

To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form: she bowed to taste the wave
And died.

The first place that I visited was connected with a far deeper tragedy, the beautiful church of St. Mary Redcliffe. I climbed up to the muniment room over the porch, now and forever famous, and sitting down on the stone chest then empty, where poor Chatterton pretended to have found the various writings he attributed to Rowley, and from whence he probably did obtain most of the ancient parchment that served as his material, I could understand the effect that the mere habit of haunting such a chamber might produce upon a sensitive and imaginative boy. Even in that rude and naked room the majesty and grandeur of the magnificent church make themselves strongly felt. The dim light, the massive walls, the echoing pavement under foot, the vaulted roof overhead, all tend to produce the solemn feeling

peculiar to a great ecclesiastical edifice. Even the two monuments of Cannynge down below, one in the secular, the other in the priestly habit, impress upon the mind the image of the munificent patron to whom St. Mary Redcliffe owes its sublimity and beauty. The forgeries of Chatterton will always remain among the wonders of genius; but they become less incredible after having breathed the atmosphere of that muniment chamber. The humbler buildings connected with

The marvelous boy

Who perished in his pride,"

have been nearly all swept away by the barbarous hand of Improvement; but every one whom I met showed me some site or told ine some tradition bearing on his lamentable story. There his father taught a little school; there he was born; there his widowed mother dwelt: one person shows you the dress of the charity boys on whose foundation he was placed; another recites to you the verses (quite as remarkable as the juvenile poems of Pope or Cowley), which he wrote at eleven years of age; a third relates anecdotes of the attorney to whom he was articled; while a fourth produces a copy of the newspaper which contained his first successful attempt at deception,-the description of the cere monies which attended the first passing of the old bridge by the Friars, which he sent to a Bristol journal upon the opening of the new. After this the number of forgeries, antiquarian, heraldic and poetical, was astonishing. Local interest was engaged, and personal vanity. The beauty of the poems was acknowledged on all hands; and had, perhaps, no small share in the general credulity; for it seemed easier to believe in the alledged Rowley than to assign their authorship to the real Chatterton. Nay, even to this hour, one of the most accomplished men whom I have ever known (to be sure he has no objection to a paradox) professes, chiefly on this ground, his entire faith in the genuineness of the manuscripts.

Confident in his own powers, and full of proud anticipation, the luckless boy set forth for London; seized on every word of praise as an earnest of fortune; sent nearly all his poor earnings to his mothers and sisters, accompanied by letters full of the brightest hope; and at last, disenchanted, maddened, starved, took poison, and was interred in a shell in the burying-ground belonging to

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