Old Charon's self shall make him mellow,

Then gaily row his boat from shore;
While we and every jovial fellow
Hear, unconcerned, the oar

That dips itself in wine ! The charming stanzas with which I conclude my extracts form part of a poem written to illustrate an engraving in Finden's Tableaux; one of the many kindnesses which I owe to Mr. Kenyon. It would be difficult to find verse more melodious, or more pure.

THE SHRINE OF THE VIRGIN,
Who knows not, fair Sicilian land !
How proudly thou wert famed of yore
When all the Muses hymned thy strand,
And pleased to tread so sweet a shore.
Bacchus and Ceres, hand in hand,
To thee their choicest treasures bore,
And saw upreared their graceful shrines,
Mid waving corn and curling vines.
Yes ! land thou wert of fruits and flowers,
The favoured land of Deity ;
By Jove made glad with suns and showers,
By Neptune cheered with brightest sea ;
E'en Dis, beneath his gloomy bowers,
Had heard and loved to dream of thee,
And, when he willed to take a bride,
Snatched her from Enna's sloping side.
Those hollow creeds have passed away,
Those false, if graceful, shrines are gone ;
A. purer faith, of stricter sway,
For our behoof their place hath won;
And Christian altars overlay
Yon temple's old foundation stone ;
And in Minerva's* vacant cell

Sublimest wisdom deigns to dwell. * The present cathedral of Syracuse was formerly a temple of Minerva.

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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 he 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 traveller 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 care
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 tendrilled plants, in many a ring
Creep round the grey 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 ;

As if it came that brow to greet,
Then whisper praise beneath thy feet.

I love the ever-open door
That welcomes to the house of God!
I love the wide-spread marble floor,
By every foot in freedom trod!
Free altars let me bow before,
Free as the pathway or the sod,
Whence journeying pilgrim, mid broad air,

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

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 readymade bits, wanting only to be put together; the courts and laues climbing like ladders up the steep acclivities; the hanging-gardens, said to have been given by Queen Elizabeth to the washerwomen (everything 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

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Woods clothing the steep hill side, 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 inhabitantsthat would have been too ungrateful), and the wide open downs restored to their primæval 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 ac