England Revisited

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

IT was pleasant once more to feel the soft English turf under one's tread, and to see the fresh-complexioned, robust men and women of this humid isle, where, if it rains every day, yet, between the showers, one can get a good deal of fine weather out of each day ; and then, after walking and driving about in this insular drizzly atmosphere of the blended sea and land, with the energy that it inspires, one is quite ready at night for a solid cut from the heart of a mighty sirloin. A chatty English gentleman whom I met in Germany told me that when he came home to England after a continental tour, the first thing he did was to call for a large slice of cold roast-beef, and then he felt as if he could go about his business. Then he had a foundation to build upon. Taine, in his free, satiric vein says, "much grass, much cattle, much meat ; large quantities of coarse food ; thus an absorbing and phlegmatic temperament is supported ; the human growth, like the animal and vegetable, is powerful but heavy ; man is amply but coarsely framed; the machine is solid, but it rolls slowly on its hinges, and the hinges generally creak and are rusty." Sincerely as I love Old England and her institutions I am always content to exchange her monotonous plain joints for artistic French and German cookery ; for it does require a strong English stomach to support English food in the manner in which it is usually served. If in our own New England there is the well-defined geographical region of " perpetual pie," the domain of " meat pie " and other dishes of the " indigesta moles" order is universal in Old England. Those remembered dinners of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and cheese, with that sole flash of invention, the gooseberry-tart, when regarded in the retrospect are something fearful, and it is quite time to drop the subject.

I am always freshly impressed when coming to England in the first hour in the country with the marked difference between the pronunciation, and even phraseology, of Englishmen and Americans, as if they were truly separate peoples, as they are, though with one language, like the old Greeks and their Italian colonists ; and I give the palm to Americans for distinctness and clearness of articulation, with too pronounced and too monotonously frequent emphatic accent, and a certain flatness of tone ; and to the English for naturalness and pleasantness of tone, ending their sentences as they do with an upward inflection, combined with thickness of speech, however, from the habit of running words confusedly together in regard more to sound than to sense, or in accord with rhythm rather than meaning. The English has more unevenness, variety, picturesque light and shade, than American speech, and it seems to me more like an original language, as Chaucer and Shakspeare spoke it. We hear men talk about " example," and " command," and " master," with the broadest grave accent. The speaking in the House of Commons struck me as being exceedingly easy, natural and refined. It was like earnest conversation among gentlemen. The oratorical period has evidently passed. There was no declamation, no affected loudness, no excitement of manner, and the only method of marking emphatic statement was by a change of modulation, or pitch, that was agreeable in breaking the monotony of colloquial address. Very much of English preaching is in this style. Such popular preachers as Canon Liddon and Dr. Vaughan of London are varied (sufficiently so) in their delivery from this simple reason, for they have little or no oratory, in the usual sense of the word. They talk straight on, trusting to the weightiness of their thought and the interest of their theme. Some expressions and abbreyiations that one hears are peculiarly English. An American would say, " Just as soon as he drank it he died ; " but an Englishman would be as apt to say, " Directly he drank it he died." We would talk about " not doing justice to a piece of work ; " they might say 'scamping it." In a cultivated English family you could possibly hear one remark, upon a chilly day, " Why, my dear, I am nearly starved with the cold ! " To drop the " g " at the end of a word, as a little affectation of sentiment, is often notice-able in a person who is far too well educated to do the same with an " h " at the beginning of a word. An American acquaintance of mine, sitting in a railway carriage next to a respectable English dame, spoke to her of the appearance of the sky as betokening a storm : " Yes," she re-plied, " the weather is quite thunderfied." It takes us long to understand the English abbreviations of some of their proper names, such as " Marshbanks " for " Majoribanks ; " " Hewel " for " Whewell; " and the more familiar " Chumley " for " Cholmondeley ; " but if these occur among well-to-do people, what should we say to the broad English county dialects? It then, in fact, ceases to be the English language, in our sense of the word. We sometimes read specimens of these dialects in detached sentences of " Punch," in novels of English social life, and in Tennyson's imitations ; but when heard in common conversation among the people themselves we are utterly puzzled and astonished, and can no longer recognize our own mother tongue. No Yankee dialect, as it is called, can compare with the extraordinary and utter perversion of what both nations consider pure English by the York-shire or the Devonshire homespun speech. It might be asked, Which nation has receded fur thest from the original speech? Ale not, in fact, the two nations somewhat receding from one another in their ideas of the absolute integrity of their common speech, and shall not America from henceforth continue to exert a great and legitimate influence upon the growth and future modifications of the English language, since, while the highest standard may exist in England, yet taking the whole country through, among high and low, rich and poor, the language is spoken more purely and correctly in America than in England?

On landing at Liverpool, and having passed through the rapid and easy ordeal of the Custom House (rapid and easy in comparison with the same process in New York), I drove at once to the station of the North Western Railway, and, with hardly time to snatch a hasty lunch, I started on that swift road for London. The transition was, to me, marvelous. Perhaps no more sudden change to one's thoughts can be conceived than to come up from the endlessly barren ocean and whirl across this island in the first days of the rich and lovely month of June. The melancholy gray expanse of the sea horizon is exchanged for the most delightful green of any land in the world. No unsightly objects meet the eye no ragged fences, or stone walls, or waste places. The thick blossoming hedge-rows, the bosky hill-tops, the magnificent trees and velvet lawns, the perfect cultivation of every square foot of land, reminding one of Dr. Johnson's saying that in England is the best cultivated soil in the world ; the numerous flocks of sheep and herds of big, red cattle reposing in the meadows ; the radiant sheen of the young wheat-fields ; the towers of great catheldrals mistily blue in the distance as we rushed along over the land ; the little thatched cottages smothered in roses, — all make it " Merrie England," of tale and poetry. But what a miniature country it is when one can thus cross it from shore to shore in the space of a summer afternoon ! And I had, too, a curious impression when I reached London, thus coming to it directly from the sea and from America : it seemed as if great London town were but a huge aggregation of low brick buildings, and that I could stretch out my arm over the tops of all the houses like a city of Lilliput. Thus the wide ocean and our broad American land dwarf the Old World until we be-come used to it. This magnificent and " spread-eagle" feeling soon wears off, I grant, but it was no illusion of vanity, it was a genuine feeling, and it gave me a momentary sense of triumph as a citizen of the New World.

My lodgings in London for a little time, on ac-count of the central situation, were at the upper end of George Street near Hanover Square, which during the reigns of the Georges was one of the most fashionable parts of the city, and it retains a look of stateliness and faded magnificence. Down the street a little way is St. George's Church, with its still handsome portico, where so many aristocratic weddings have taken place, sung by poets and described by story-tellers. Just opposite once stood the mansion of Lord Lyndhurst, where he lived and died, and where John Copley, his father, the American-born painter, also lived and died ; and on Hanover Square (so Mr. Thornbury in his Old and New London " says), Mrs. Somerville, that Newton among women and peer of the first men, resided for a while in her youth, and dabbled in astronomical studies in mortal fear of being detected. In the neighboring Savile Row, George Grote, the historian, lived ; and Richard Brinsley Sheridan died, in a good enough house but in poverty and in want of the necessaries of life.

I often stopped in Hanover Square to admire the spirited bronze statue of William Pitt, by Sir Francis Chantrey, representing him in the act of speaking. He was one of Homer's " kings of men," at the age of twenty-five the most powerful man in England ; and, as a statesman, he was in advance of his times on the great questions of Catholic emancipation and free trade, but even his giant strength was broken by the stronger genius of Napoleon. With one or two exceptions like this fine statue of Pitt, London has not been happy in its statues of great men. Lord Nelson is a modern Simeon Stylites hoisted out of sight on the top of a tail column ; the Duke of Wellington is military primness stiffened in everlasting brass ; and our own George Peabody sits smiling on the mart of custom as goodness colossal even to his boots.

I was glad to be in London at the time of the " Caxton Loan Collection " at the Kensington Museum ; and very fortunate, also, to have my friend Mr. Henry Stevens, of the British Museum, to act as cicerone to the vast treasures of antiquities in the " black-art " of printing and book-making. It took one back to " Faust," or " Fust," and his legend of being aided by supernatural intelligence. The collection illustrated the complete typographical career of that old hero of the printing-press and leader of the " children of light," William Caxton, who, until his death in 1491, published at least ninety-nine works, of which ninety are represented in this collection by original copies, and nine in facsimile. There is to be seen the first book ever printed in England, " The Dictes and Notable Wise Sayings of the Philosophers. Folio, 1477." This book formed the nucleus of the Caxton celebration this year.

One is struck with the fact that the first books printed in England until we come upon the Bible itself are story-books, legends, and romances. It was indeed the childish beginning, and a healthy one, too, of English literature. But it should not be forgotten that Caxton was the first publisher of the " Canterbury Tales" about 1476—78; and Le followed up his first edition with other moro perfect ones.

Admiration and awe culminate with the unique exhibition of Bibles, beginning with one of the first printed books, if not the first, in the world, and still one of the most beautiful, — the famous " Mazarin Bible," which dates about 1455; its true name is the "Gutenberg Bible." Then there is the " Mentz Psalter," on pure vellum, and doubtless the most magnificent printed book in existence. This superb volume, which modern art has not been able yet to surpass, was loaned by Queen Victoria, — a royal contribution. Then, after Tyndale's versions of the New Testament, comes the first Bible of the Old and New Testament ever printed in the English language, " faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latin into English," by Miles Coverdale, 1535, venerable book, whose history comes down to us like a line of celestial light broadening through the centuries ! This precious book belongs to Earl Spencer, who is the largest contributor to the exhibition. But even this sacred collection of Bibles has a human and grotesque side to it. There are to be seen editions of those noted Bibles, with their odd popular titles, which illustrate the imperfections in the art and history of printing : the Bug Bible," in which Psalm xci. 5 reads, " So that thou shalt not nede to be afraid for any Bugges by night, nor for the arrow that flyeth by day ; " " the Breeches Bible," so named after the peculiar translation of Gen. iii. 7, — and, from 1560 till 1640, the most popular Bible in England, running through two hundred editions; " the Wicked Bible," thus profanely called from the fact that by a typographical blunder the negative had been left out of the seventh commandment; " the Vinegar Bible," because the heading of the twenty-second chapter of Luke reads, " the Parable of the Vinegar," instead of " the Vineyard."

I was also exceedingly interested in the exhibition of national portraits which were loaned this year to the Kensington Museum, in which were to be seen the originals of many of the classical likenesses of famous Englishmen that are familiar to us above all, the " Chandos portrait" of Shakspeare, representing a much darker, richer, more passionate and even Italian face, than we commonly get the idea of, especially from that smooth, unlined, wooden countenance of the Stratford-on-Avon bust. There, too, was the portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, beautiful, but more subtle and French than her common portraits. The most decidedly handsome faces were those of some of the worst men, like Judge Jeffreys, the Duke of Marl-borough, and the famous picture of Lord Byron in his Albanian costume. The beautiful and sympathetic portrait of Coleridge by our own Washington Allston, the only satisfactory likeness of that dreamy, gray-eyed seer, whose character was itself so well suited to the style of Allston's poetic and mystical genius, gave me more pleasure than even Landseer's picture of Sir Walter in his study at Abbotsford, for the one is a true poem, and the other only a fine picture.

All the interest of early English story is concentrated in the old Westminster palace of the ancient kings, and in that abbey which was built, or begun to be built, at the command of St. Peter himself, on "Thorney Island." How can we indeed imagine that the spot where this stately building now stands, and has stood for ages, was once a weedy, brambly island in the Thames, far to the west of all the town and houses of London !

But there can be no doubt that Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall are the grandest places in England. William the Conqueror was crowned in the one, and Charles the First was sentenced to death in the other. Whatever may be our personal opinions concerning these events, they mark great epochs in England's history. Westminster Abbey attracted me more upon my last visit than ever before ; I found myself frequently drawn into it, and I was more thorough and patient in the study of every part of the building than at any previous time ; but I thought often while there of a kindly speech made to me in America by Canon Kingsley, to the effect that if I would come to see him in London he would show me some things in Westminster Abbey, as well as some archaeological discoveries in the neighborhood of London, which few foreigners, or even Englishmen themselves, had seen. What he referred to he did not explain at the time ; but how fine it would have been to have explored this venerable pile with such a guide, who had the historic imagination that could call up the gorgeous past, and the scholar's ready learning as well as the poet's fancy.

A remark of Dean Stanley's concerning the sepulchral monuments of Westminster Abbey is shrewd as well as amusing : that the oldest monuments always have the sculptured effigies in a recumbent position, as if asleep ; then, as time goes on, the figures are partially raised, as if waking up; then they assume a sitting posture ; until those of the present day stand bolt upright, showing, perhaps, that this age is the most wide-awake age of all. There is assuredly a jarring want of harmony in the tall, staring modern monuments with the free and simple lines of the old edifice itself, and only the more ancient tombs, in their ow, quiet, horizontal lines, fall in with the majestic repose of the long-drawn aisles and the dimly lighted perspectives. As to those who lie beneath these monuments, some of the men seem to have been born and lived just in order to be buried in Westminster Abbey, such a man, for instance, as Macaulay; but other men, greater even than he, were better buried beneath the greensward and under the starry roof of heaven, like that nature's king, William Wordsworth, and — long may the event be delayed — Thomas Carlyle. Nature and not art is alone grand enough for the fit memorializing of such souls ; and, were Shakspeare laid by the river-side so sweet and beautiful at many spots near Stratford of his own willow fringed Avon, it would have been a fitter resting-place than the parish church.

In visiting the British Museum, from some enthusiasm or idiosyncrasy of early education, I am always especially attracted to the classical antiquities, and, of these, to the effigies of the old Roman emperors ; and this year I tried to combine a study of the British Museum and of the Louvre in this somewhat favorite line of observation. The British Museum is much richer in Greek antiquities, but the Louvre in Latin, though from both I obtained a truer impression than could have been gained from one alone. In the numerous repetitions of the busts of the same emperor we can read the rapid deterioration °of the character of Nero, from the smooth-faced youth to the bloated, sensual man, — the demoniac man with every expression of higher humanity taken out of him, a terrible symbolism of irresponsible immoral power. We can read also the growth of virtuous character from the beautiful and angelic boy face of Marcus Aurelius to the saintly countenance of the crowned and laureled monarch, bowed with the weight of empire and of great sad thoughts of humanity. There, too, is the wicked countenance of Caligula, who had some flashes of rough-hewn sense under his savageness, as instanced by his witty criticism of Seneca's writings ; the dandified Lucius Verus ; the voluptuous Hadrian, who still had his pensive moments, and could say to his soul, "Quce nunc abibis in loco; " above all, the visage of the mighty Julius, a real man, a true likeness wherever you see it, and not one made up by the artist to flatter imperial vanity : lean and ploughed by deep lines of thought, an unevenly shaped head bent forward as if by the burden of imperial cares, a hooked nose, protruding lips, and large mouth firmly closed, with strong lines about it ; no dream of calm Cesarean power like that even of the first handsome Napoleon, but of a man of conflict, who fought his way to greatness, and who built the foundations of an empire to last for ages. I do not think one sees the face of a mere soldier in the portraits of Julius Cesar, as shown in the busts now in the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Vatican, but of something more, — of a man who determined to gain mastery by the exertion of every means, of arms, as then the necessary, but perhaps in his own estimation the most insignificant, instrumentality of all. If he had lived longer, his achievements in arms would have been surpassed by his achievements in letters and in government. Such portraits, preserved to us by art, are invaluable. Art lights up history so luminously that, where it is practicable, our colleges should never be with-out their careful instruction in art, which is so especially essential in the study of the classics that this study is almost a dry and juiceless exexoise without the living illustration to be derived from the more picturesque side of the human mind. This is the concrete of thought, breathing the very life, or the life of the more humane qualities and affections of the soul. The study of art combined with the kindred branches of archaeology, history, poetry, rhetoric, ethnology, and geography would put a new life into the pursuits of classical literature as followed in our American schools and colleges, where (though this is now greatly modified in our larger universities) it sometimes has seemed as if only the barest frame-work of the science were built up, a kind of philoiogic skeleton-stringing, — and it was left without life, aim, or practical interest for the student. The classics, of all studies, should be taught in a living way. We have yet to learn much in this regard from England and the Old World. If the plan suggested should be adopted, it would, I am sure, make a different thing of this study, and the old controversy between the classics and the physical sciences would come to an end. Mental discipline would be secured, and the logical and critical powers cultivated, but not at the price of mental disgust and the death of healthy enthusiasm for scholarly pursuits.

The above little digression upon classical studies puts one in mind of Oxford, and I was made forcibly to see how different a place may look at different seasons, and under favorable and unfavorable aspects, by visiting Oxford for a few hours in vacation time in hot July weather, and, of all days in the year to see a town. when everybody is in the country, on a bank holiday. Oxford was, under these circumstances, as dull an old place as one would wish to see. The tumble-down, narrow, creaky little coffee-room at the " Mitre " was receiving a disagreeable coat of paint ; the streets were altogether deserted of students, and even of townspeople ; the colleges looked solitary and worn, like uninhabited monasteries; " Tom Quad " at Christ Church and Peckwater Quad " were strewed with stones and mortar-beds, and the carpets and furniture of students' rooms turned out for airing and cleaning ; the cavernous kitchen and huge chimney-place no longer glowed ; the grim " oak " was sported at every door, and even the amiable scout, ready for loose shillings and crowns, was absent on some junketing frolic in the country. Where were the venerable Deans and Dons ? Where were the lively gownsmen ? The sounding beaches and cliffs of Scarboro', Brighton, and Devonshire, the heathery moors and blue lakes of Scotland, the airy hotels and sky-piercing mountains of Switzerland could give the answer much better than these hot, battered old walls. To be sure everything was dry and dusty, and the Isis and Cherwell had shrunk to their tiny accustomed channels ; and how good it would be, I thought, if they could be kept there ! It is, indeed, a most serious question for the health of the generations of English youth educated at Oxford, how the overflow of the Thames may be prevented ; and it is certainly a singular fact that the two great universities of England should be an the lowest, wettest, and among the most un healthful towns in all the land. For many miles in the neighborhood of Oxford the Thames overflows its banks (probably on account of the bends in the river) in the winter and spring, as it has done for ages, and all the science of all the schools seems to be unable to devise a remedy. We would venture to say to this learned fraternity, " Send for Mr. Eads of Mississippi fame, who will tell you how to do it in the shortest time by the a fortiori method."

Notwithstanding these drawbacks to old Oxford, my admiration for the town and the university has suffered no diminution, but grows stronger and stronger. It is the school of great English-men in church and state, and by its generous nourishment of young intellects, and its princely system of scholarships and rewards, it sustains the cause of sound learning and spiritual intelligence in these materialistic times, and enriches and deepens the educated mind of England, that combines, as Emerson says, " the highest energy in affairs with supreme culture," and that is, on the whole, superior to the culture of any other country in the world ; or, as Arthur Hugh Clough gays, " the old wells of learning are there."

Circumstances did not permit me to travel much in England upon my recent visit there, but going out of London I spent some time with my family at Tunbridge Wells, which is so delightful, a health-resort and the centre of a very rich re. gion. In a preceding chapter I have already given some little description of this place, but it never looked more charming than in this month of June. The roses and rhododendrons were it full bloom, and poor, indeed, is the mansion or cot that does not boast heavy patches of these brilliant flowers in its door-way and front-yard. The cool breezes from the English Channel attemper the fiery heats of summer, and here flock the tired Londoners, wearied out with the noise and fashion of a " London season," just as they did in the days of Lord Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson.

The drives about Tunbridge Wells are of almost unrivaled beauty, surpassed alone by the region about Leamington and one or two places in the neighborhood of " the lake country." Deep-scooped Kentish lanes, overhung with tangled shrubs and vines, bring one, as in a romance, be-fore he is aware, to the entrance of an ivy-hung castle, or a ruined monastery. It is a region of surprises, and no more lovely poem of the olden time is to be found than is Penshurst Castle, the birthplace and home of Sir Philip Sidney, where he wrote the greater part of his prose poem of " Arcadia," which, like the " Faλrie Queene " of Edmund Spenser, so many praise but so few read. I once lingered and dozed over its unreal pages during a former long summer vacation, hardly knowing whether I were awake or in a dream yet there is a spirit that breathes through it as from a golden age; for, although the production of a young man in the period between the ideal and the actual of life, and full of dream-like melancholy, it has gleams of a noble soul awakening to its immortality of action, and clearing itself of the splendid but uncertain mists of fancy. As to Penshurst Castle itself, one sees in the midst of a wide deer-park long lines of low, gray, battlemented walls, which inclose a spacious baronial hall hung with old armor, with an open, round fireplace in the centre ; rooms furnished with the same furniture, and glass chandeliers and hangings, as in the time of Queen Elizabeth ; and a trimly bordered Pleasance, or ornamental gar-den. Portraits of Sir Philip Sidney in his early youth, of his sister the Countess of Pembroke, of the beautiful " Sacharissa," and of Algernon Sidney, with an odd painting of Lord Leicester dancing with Queen Elizabeth in a very free and easy way, adorn the show-apartments. There is an air of antique repose, and of simple breadth and majesty about this dwelling, going back to the times of the Norman Conquest ; and, associated as it is with such high spirits as Sir Philip and Algernon Sidney, it is a place of interest peculiarly English and noble.

Not far removed from Penshurst is Hever Castle, belonging to the Tudor period and associated with Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn ; but a perfect gem-like antique is Ightam Moat, and in all ny walks about England I never saw anything equal to it for its exquisite air of well-preserved mediaevalism. It is at this day kept as a gentleman's residence, and is a charmingly cozy place to live although it is approached, as in the olden time, by a narrow stone bridge over a moat filled with running water that completely surrounds it. It lies in a shady hollow of delicious greenery and you come upon it when least expecting, as the child in the German legend discovered the elfin-palace in the deep bosom of the forest.

A longer drive, in the direction of the weather-beaten town of Hastings on the bluffs of the sea-coast, brings us to the remains of Battle-Abbey, built by William the Conqueror as the monument and thank-offering of his great victory. There the fluent-tongued servitor will tell you the exact spot where the English royal standard was planted and where Harold fell ! The ruins of this im-mense abbey stand now in massive fragments, an isolated tower here and a mouldering gateway there ; but from its walls you may see the green but once wooded hill of Semlac, and the rolling country towards the sea, over which the Norman host came up in all its pride of banners to wrest the sceptre from the stubborn grasp of the Saxon king, thereby bringing an element into English civilization that has made England the subduing and law-giving nation that it is, organizing colonies, extending itself, and bringing into order and established forms the various peoples under its sway ; while the old Saxon or the Anglo-Ger man element gives to this mixed English race its freedom, its poetry, its art, its manners, and its moral characteristics, — truly a subtle mixture of mental forces that tells to this day on the best fortunes of man. We may compassionate the Saxon Harold in the glowing pages of Lytton and Tennyson, but we know now that God meant that the wrath and pride of Norman William should conquer, and that the residue of wrath should be restrained for the good and progress of humanity.

One of the most magnificent modern residences of Tunbridge Wells is Eridge Castle, the seat of the Earl of Abergavenny. The park alone con-tains some two thousand acres, and the rides and drives through the estate are said to exceed seventy miles in length; and this is but one of the earl's many domains, and not the largest of them. There can be no doubt that the soil of Great Britain is almost exclusively held by the landed gentry. The statement is made by a competent writer that " 12,791 persons are returned as own-ers of four fifths of the soil of the island, their aggregate property, exclusive of that within the metropolitan boundaries, being 40,180,775 acres, and in point of fact the number of owners of four fifths of the soil of Great Britain is nearer five thousand than ten thousand." Of these, five hundred are noblemen, and four or five of them, like the Dukes of Buccleuch and Bedford, swallow up the rest. They are the whales among the minnows. Where this system of land-monopoly is to end, and how the joint right of the people in their native soil, the right to buy land, to culti-vate it and to live upon it, is to be secured, is more than the political wisdom of the times can compass.

The Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne have a place at Tunbridge Wells, called " Dornden," whose grounds and gardens are said to be quite beautiful, although the house from the outside is dull and unattractive. The Princess Louise, like her sister Victoria of Prussia, seems to be in genuine earnest in her efforts directed to the good of the poorer classes, and especially of friendless and orphaned girls ; and let us give to these titled personages, who from no choice of their own are " born in the purple," the credit of high-minded benevolence whenever they possess this quality, and at the same time rejoice that our own land is not burdened by an aristocratic class, beyond what intelligence and worth may raise up among us. At all events there is no nobility now left in Europe which is worth much, except the English nobility. That has wealth and culture, ancestral dignity and virtue, with something in acre and bank to back it up ; neither can it be bought for a quarter's revenue of a German banker, or the price of a third-rate Italian picture. The thoroughly rotten side of the English aristocracy, how. ever, is not so pleasant to contemplate, and, un-fortunately, decay is ever more rapid than healthy growth.

While in England for even a short time one cannot avoid becoming somewhat interested in the great questions that move the country ; and, passing by the Eastern question, which, while I was in England, was going through the Gladstone anti-Turkish blaze of excitement, on the whole of a noble but unfortunately quite ephemeral character, we come upon the Church question, which, in England, is a chronic one, and is, it appears to me, of more profound reach and importance than most Englishmen, when they speak of it, profess to think, since it enters into the conscience of the people and touches their dearest rights. The simple condition of things now seems to be that the national church in England, representing in the main its religious life, is unfortunately subordinated to the civil power, so that its officers might almost be regarded as government officers, and all parties in the church, and all classes of religionists outside of the Established Church, feel the unnatural and disturbing influence of this mixed, system of church and state which has been handed down from the time of Henry VIII., and, as some think, is at the present time specially aggravated by the fact that the royal supremacy of former times in the church has passed entirely into the hands of the Parliament and its self-elected courts of appeal. The Liberal party in England have, it is true, gained extraordinary successes within the Last quarter of a century, as evidenced by the abolition of church rates, the removal of university tests and disabilities, and the establishment of a national system of education ; but more radical re-forms than these are called for, and are inevitable. The next great issue made by the Liberal party will be, it is said, the plan of disestablishing the English Church. That this plan of sud-den and violent " disestablishment " so energetically and boldly urged by the Liberal party is to be the panacea of all evils in England, ecclesiastical and political, I cannot see so plainly as some do ; but I am of the opinion that while dis-establishment is but a question of time, and may take place, — some predict in twenty-five years, but this to me seems incredible, — yet with the march of progress in other things, and with the changes that are surely to occur in the whole political and social constitution of England, whereby the popular element will acquire greater strength, and moral forces in both church and state. take the place of prescriptive laws, in other words, when the sphere of conscience is freed from the dominion of civil government, and, on the other hand, the state is relieved from all ecclesiastical interference whatsoever, then this matter of the mutual adjustment of the spiritual and temporal interests of the land will come about more easily and naturally. The English national church has a grand history, and is a vast power for good, and it is very much like the English monarchy, having an essential identification in all its forms with English life and English Christian life, and when England changes it will change. But wherever the present ecclesiastical system presses unjustly upon the rights of other Christian bodies it must yield. The best men in it see this. The English people are the same that they were in the times of Cromwell ; they have the will to assert their rights when it is perceived that these are denied them. The sneer of a prime-minister cannot now set aside a popular movement in the direction of what is clearly just, and there are currents of influence at work in the world deeper than the subtlest combinations of statesmen, or the schemes of church councils. If broad-minded men in the English Church, like the Archbishop of Canter-bury and the Dean of Westminster, were permitted to conduct its affairs, there can be no doubt that matters might be harmonized without violence being done to any party ; and, for one, I bless God that there is a broader light diffused upon religious matters throughout all divisions of the Christian church which shall shame the pettiness and presumption of sectarian pretensions. I can even honor the sincerity of the High Church party, or the Ritualists, in England, who are willing to forego the privileges of church connection, for the sake of their independence, though others Eee, if they do not, that the moment disestablish-ment comes they will lose their prestige and sink to the level of a numerically insignificant sect. I am of the opinion and it is by no means original with myself) that it is, after all, the fact of the social inequalities of English life, the immense arrogance of the caste-principle in English society, which is the rub. Doubtless, much the greater part of the wealth and culture of England is to be found in the Established Church, but not all. One quarter certainly of the inhabitants of England may be reckoned to be among the Non-conformist orders, and this great body is continually increasing in numbers, intelligence, wealth, and influence. I heard a London clergyman exhort his flock, in what he seemed to think was the excess and con-summate crown of Christian toleration, not to cherish scornful feelings towards their schismatic neighbors of various sects, though indeed they were but poor illiterate folk who knew no theology but what ranting preachers in conventicles taught them, and, the inference was, who had no culture or breeding that entitled them to respect. He left the impression that this was the sober truth respecting all who worshiped outside of the pale of the Established Church. This was an exhibition of ignorance at least. I must suppose that it was an exceptional case of fatuity which any decent Churchman of average ability would not render himself liable to be accused of, but much remains to be done in England to teach men breadth, catholicity and charity. Charles Kings-ley could recognize in Norman McLeod a peer ntellectually, socially, spiritually ; he could also recognize the nobility of American faith and the genuineness of American culture. We would see more Englishmen like these who, while scholars and thinkers, are willing to acknowledge that some things in religion as in politics are not yet quite settled and understood ; who respect worth wherever found; and then there would be less of narrow prejudice on our side of the water toward the old country.

Nothing have I regretted more in my last brief visit to England than that I could not have seen two men very different in their mental characteristics but unsurpassed intellectually, — John Henry Newman and Thomas Carlyle. The melancholy Tennyson, Browning " Der Einzige," Ruskin, Morris, Matthew Arnold, —I could have contentedly left them all unseen, but I did earnestly desire to look on those two foremost living representatives of English literature, and, above all, upon the face of the Scotch Jupiter, whose rugged brow has been the forge of Olympian thunderbolts. The deep stirrings in one's own intellectual history, the spiritual up-heavings and renewals wrought by such master-minds are matters of profounder import and interest than Westminster Abbey or Saint Paul's Cathedral, and I would reaffirm here the simple statement made years ago in this volume, that it is, after all, our common English literature, which binds us as nations together, above all other influences. I have felt this in my own inmost being, and, from this reason perhaps, am inclined to judge others by myself.

How noble a plant indeed is this English literature, and yet how slow-growing a tree ! Its seed, brought from the far East, was sown long ago in German soil ; it shot its roots under the sea into the little island ; it. was watered with the tears of the Celt and the blood of the Saxon; it was grafted by the Norman sword and the French steel ; it was tossed by the winds and tempests of revolutions ; it felt the quickening heats of the Reformation ; its fruits were borne over the ocean into distant regions, and they have sprung up among us in America, where the old stock is flourishing under brighter suns in its tender and rapidly growing renewed life. But blessed be the dear English soil where still its sweetest and noblest life has been. May the suns and dews of heaven keep it ever in perpetual green !