displays his peaked cap. Macaulay's Lays and Essays are more common than his Histories. Kingsley's vigorous productions abound. Tennyson's poems are rarely wanting. Such books as Hugh Miller's "Testimony of the Rocks," and Liebig's Chemistry, and works upon scientific agriculture, are generally to be found.

It is surprising how many female authors supply this every-day literary food to the traveler. The works of Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Yonge, Miss Mulock, and above all the authoress of "Adam Bede," occupy the prominent places on the crowded shelves a delicate index this of the high and true character of English civilization. In few other countries are women suffered to instruct or give the moral tone to society. The writings of a George Sand, or a Bettina von Arnim, are read, it is true, in France and Germany, for their exciting and novel spicery, but they give no permanent nourishment to the thought or life of the nation. It is gratifying, also, to see how many American books pass daily through the hands and minds of the English public. When I was in England, besides Mrs. Stowe's writings, which appear at all book-stalls and shops, Hawthorne's stories, Irving's and Cooper's works, Arthur Coxe's poems, H. W. Beecher's" Life-Thoughts,' Dr. Holmes's works, Prime's book on the East, Motley's and Prescott's histories, but, above and beyond all, Longfellow's poems, were the famil

.

iar hand-books of every reading person. An Eng lish gentleman told me that Longfellow was even more generally read in England than Tennyson. I could almost believe him, for I have frequently met cultured persons who could quote Longfellow freely. He is really, as De Quincey says, "published" in England. He has struck that happy middle chord of sentiment and fancy that vibrates in the English heart averse to high excitement and pure idealism. Wordsworth was metaphysical, and gathered the select circle about him. Tennyson is, perhaps, too subjective for the present moneymaking age. He is not yet altogether understood. Longfellow plays upon the familiar, pathetic harp, that hangs by the fireside, that breathes of common duties, home affections, pure thoughts, and ennobling fancies; that just touches the imagination and fires it, without tasking thought.

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,

He knows you not, ye heavenly powers!"

Even to such a translated verse Longfellow has given his inimitable grace and music, and one likes to be crooning and singing it over to himself. It eases the heart of pain, and does one good.

Worcester comes next in our course of travel north. Its imposing cathedral is nearly of the same magnitude, and has much the same character, as Gloucester Cathedral. Like that edifice, its crypt

and nave were Norman, and it has no western turrets, but its central tower, with rich open parapet and octangular turrets, is the very flower and perfection of the later style. The choir is Early English, with highly carved canopied stalls, and wonderfully bold flower-work. Those old artists seemed to have brought basketfuls of all the flowers of the field into the church, and flung them over the walls.

As the Early English may be called the second style of architecture to be found in England, we will say a word about it. This style gradually succeeded the Norman, and prevailed from the beginning of the reign of Richard I. in 1189, to the end of the reign of Henry III. in 1272, a period of about one hundred years. We may date the time of transition from the chivalrous epoch of the first crusade, when the troubadour and ballad poetry arose, and new-born ideas of freedom and beauty seemed to be struggling with the old force and tyranny. The simple characteristic of this style is the pointed arch, long and narrow at first like the head of a knight's lance, and then expanding into the great windows, such as those at York Minster, which, filled with painted glass, have such a glorious effect. Still the round lines of the Norman architecture were retained in many particulars, in the trefoil and quatre-foil heading of doors and windows, and in the large circular windows, like those at Lincoln and Peterborough. We can even see how the pointed arch grew from the accidental intersections

To

of round arches with each other, making pointed arches of the intermediate spaces. The pointed arch lifted the building from its heaviness and earthiness. It heightened the ceiling, and as a natural development, it sprung toward heaven as far as it could carry upward its lines in the slenderly pointed spire. We find perhaps the most perfect instance of the Early English style, from end to end, from foundation stone to the summit of the exquisite spire, in the Salisbury Cathedral. support this greater height, this mighty upspringing mass, wide and prominent buttresses were added, which in the compact Norman architecture were usually but small round projections from the wall itself. These flying buttresses with their double stories of arches and their pinnacled tops, form a new and bold feature. In the original contract for the building of Fotheringay Church, it is written: "And aither of the said Isles shal have six mighty Botrasse of Fre stone, clen hewyn; and every Botrasse fynisht with a fynial." A very characteristic ornament of the Early English style is the "toothornament," taking the place of the Norman zigzag moulding around the arches of the windows and doors. It is as much like a necklace of shark's teeth that the Pacific Islanders wear, as any thing. But all kinds of rich and delicate decoration begin to appear in the later period of this style. Profuse flower-work is seen in the garlanded heads of pillars, and the budding tips of corbels. Every thing ended in a flower. There was far more of grace

and delicacy, and yet hardly less of strength, than in the Norman style. The vaultings of the roof at their lines of intersection were ribbed; and crossspringing and transverse ribs were introduced, thus weaving a rich tracery over the plain Anglo-Norman ceiling, though it was just as massive stonework as before. And while the columns and piers were as mighty and ponderous, yet the rounds and hollows into which they were cut gave them a more elaborate and elegant character. So that the Early English style has been judged by some to be the perfection of English architecture, because it retained the strength and simplicity of the Norman united with most of what was truly ornate and beautiful in the later styles. But these old churches were so long in building that we find examples of all the ages of architecture in their various portions, and a practiced eye will take them apart and read their history at a glance. From a little moulding, or hidden newel, the age of the hand that reared the tall tower might be known. For an educated American youth to have no knowledge at all of architecture, this would deprive him of a species of sharpened culture that is not dreamy or vague, but is as scientific and harmonious as the laws of music. It requires study, and taxes the analytic powers. Such a youth would not be fitted to visit Westminster Abbey, and to tread the solemn and storied temples of Old England. Let him defer his voyage a year, until he knows the difference between a tower and a spire, a groin and a gable. Besides,