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him by reason of his careless hitting; and I began to fear that he had taken to drink something stronger than malt liquor, and was rapidly treading the downward path.

At about this time I got married and went to live out of the house, so that I saw less of Bob than formerly. Many times I pressed him to come and see me at my little domicile, but he rarely did so; he seemed to avoid me, and his once handsome face began to look puffy and blotched, bearing witness to his dissipated habits.

Before the twelve months of probation had expired, Sophie Bangham, tiring of single blessedness, married a journeyman tailor.

Bob was furious, he grew more and more reckless, and ultimately was taken very ill. Mr. M- sent for me and said how much he had been pained to witness Mr. Roberts' failings; "but," he added, "it will not do to desert the poor fellow now that he is down; go to Mr. Brown, the surgeon, and instruct him to attend Roberts at my expense." I offered to take Bob to my own little house, where he would be quiet and could have better attention. He agreed, and I conveyed Bob thither in a cab. Mr. Brown said it was a very dangerous case, and recommended that his mother should be sent for. The good old lady came, and by her tender nursing, aided by that of my dear little wife, Bob was soon pronounced to be out of danger.

His mother's solicitude was very touching to witness; she never spoke in an angry manner now, but her sweet, low tones must have sunk deep into Bob's heart as she pleaded and prayed for him. I did not know the words but I could not fail to understand their meaning.

Bob got gradually better and became fully purposed to alter his mode of life, for he could not fail to see how dangerous became his headlong will, when he acted merely on impulse; and he agreed with me that if he could but have restrained himself until Sophie Bangham married the tailor, he would never have given way to despondency on her account.

Notwithstanding that Mr. Brown predicted that in a few weeks Bob would be as strong as ever, he liked to cherish the fancy that he was broken-hearted, and in a moment of peevishness he said "order my tombstone, Jemmy, and on it inscribe the words, 'Robert Roberts, Bachelor,' for whether I get well or not I shall never love another." When Bob returned to business he threw the full ardour of his nature into his work, and so much was Mr. M- pleased with his assiduity, that, on the death of Mr. Everard, he promoted him to the managership. Many years have passed since I left Barchester, but Bob (who is now a partner in the concern) frequently visits me; and he never tires of attributing his rescue from vice, and his consequent success in life, entirely to his love for his mother.

He is now deacon of his chapel, and walks behind a double chin, which in nowise diminishes the pleasing effect of his cheerful, everbeaming countenance. Latterly, he has paid much attention to my good sister, Patience, who was forty-five last birthday, and my wife is confident that they will shortly make a match of it; and then there will be an agreeable end of Robert Roberts, Bachelor.

A. L.

ADIEU.

What mighty magic fills that word, “ Adieu,”
That it should move the soul's foundation,

In every clime and every nation;

Hard hearts or tender;-King and peasant too
Not one but must obey

Its universal sway.

*

I stood beside a vessel near the sea,

And crowds of men and youths and women there
Were uttering this little word,—this prayer-

By signs and sounds as myriad as could be.
Some laughed aloud ;-

Vainly pretending thus to hide their grief!
Some with heads bowed

And covered, in sobbing found relief.
With fixed gaze,

And lips compressed,

Some struggled with the pain;
But briny haze,

And heaving breast,

Soon show'd the struggle vain!

Some faces wore a beaming, radiant smile,

But glistening tears bedewed the eyes the while!
Most bitter was the sight

Of little ones, who care not what men think;
For who could offer cup of comfort's drink

To their sad plight?

Ah me! to part with one that love calls mine,
E'en though we pray à Dieu!

How small our trust in Love and Power Divine
When dear ones pass from view!

And yet to each at times, the trial's given

To say "Thy will be done:"

Let each, when uttering "Adieu," so trust in Heaven
As to bid grief be gone!

*

*

The ship sail'd forth; the busy quay was cleared,
But, day by day, the like sad crowd appear'd!

I almost wept

As home I crept

To think how few of these will cast their care on God;
How few, in meek submission bow before the rod
Yet Time will fan to sleep with his soft wings
All those to whom sweet Faith no comfort brings.

B.

FROM WINCHESTER TO STONEHENGE.

I.

(Winchester) "Com'st thou with deep, premeditated lines,
With written pamphlets, studiously devised?"*

THE warning voice of the haughty prelate rings in my ears, as I sit down to write a few words about the fine old city, and the glorious pile where his monument is an historical landmark. But I answer "No," and I have set the remark at the head of this paper as a text from which to avoid preaching.

Have you been to Winchester? If not, then save the expense of your next Continental journey, give up the mountains, bogs, or moorlands of Wales or Scotland, secure the first week or fortnight that depressed trade will admit of, and go South. Tarry not even at the towers and spires of learned Oxford, that "City and a University," where the classic Cherwell and the Isis unite their waters amid the smiling valley of the Thames. Still press southward till you are "on the Chalk" where the downs and dales of Hampshire sweep along, here and there shaggy with forest, or at rarer intervals rising with bold undulations. Stop at Winchester till you know it; till you have seen it from all its surrounding hills; till you become interested in, if not familiar, with its carved and epitomised history; till you have tasted the travellers' morsel at St. Cross; or till you have stood by moonlight beside the stone table in the old men's cloister, and mused upon the England of five centuries ago. Then go on to Salisbury and vary the sweet picture, closing your travels with the sad and solemn majesty of our rudest, earliest temple at Stonehenge. There you may turn back, well satisfied; but if time or inclination serve, thence to Southampton, an hour's sail to "the Island," and at pretty Shanklin or bolder and more brilliant Ventnor, you may conclude a journey which shall contain as much special beauty, and more real interest to an English mind, than a visit to Antwerp or Cologne, or even the tour of the hackneyed Rhine.

"I'll to the church anon!" Not that I would lead you to imagine that I rushed there without regard to the comforts and amenities of travelling; but I need hardly say that the first morning after my reaching Winchester, I conspired with my hospitable friend, whose house lay well within hearing of the Cathedral bells, to spend a good three hours in the edifice. I have a fancy for walking round a great building, wherever practicable, before entering it, although an amused observer might describe such progress as "cat-like;" and in this instance, as before, the plan led me into unsavoury alleys and narrow passages, strangely out of keeping with the grey and solemn majesty of

*First part King Henry VI., Act iii., Scene 1.

the Cathedral. But I was repaid. The long, simple, massive lines of the architecture, the Norman here and there appearing as the basis of the Gothic completion; the low, massive tower, the stern and stately front, clearly marked by the cool light and the long shadows of the morning, were viewed and enjoyed in every aspect. It was set down as

a vast, solemn fact, upon the soft grassy carpet that grew almost into its walls. It was not as in centuries ago, when four smaller towers surrounded the present one, and when, moreover, two mighty towers, standing forty feet beyond the present west front, must have produced an effect as impressive as that of York Minster. Still, when I mention that the total length even now is 560 feet-greater than that of any other English Cathedral-and that all, save the tower, is in proportion, I need not say how it fills the mind with a sense of a great conception grandly wrought out.

But let us enter. We will not ask to see the skins of the captured Danes, which still hang like shreds of old parchment on the doors, where they were nailed, as those of rats have been, in country places, outside the door of the barn. We will leave outside all thought of ancient rapine and revenge, as we enter the house of prayer. Passing from the dark side porch into the western part of the interior, we are in one of the most glorious, as well as the longest of our English Cathedrals. Not a dark and awful avenue of Gothic magnificence, but one where the sweet light of heaven flows in from all quarters, only to display the pure, yet elaborate loveliness of column, tracery, and roof. The vaulting shafts rising from the very floor, the pillars, like a forest of trees shooting up, spreading their intervolved branches about the roof, and bursting into bossed flowers and conventional foliage at the terminations, combine to render it one of those peerless specimens of the perpendicular style which are the glory of our land. That great authority Mr. Fergusson regards it as "perhaps the most beautiful nave in England or elsewhere," and, for myself, although making no technical comparison as to architecture, I confess that it produced the same emotions in my mind, which my first entrance into Cologne Cathedral had aroused some years before. It gave the sense of one great religious desire, expressed in fullest harmony, like the tones of the great organ rolling along the aisles, and ascending in spires of sound amid the arches.

I will not say there was no discord of style, but that very discord was wrought into a superber harmony, just as the great musical composer often startles by a few harsh notes which are then caught up and woven into an anthem, whose main features it brings into nobler prominence. If we look closely, we see the rude Norman base or framework, and then we appreciate the wondrous skill with which William of Wykeham, without removing a single stone of the fabric, has transformed it into "the elegance of the best age of the pointed style." As we wander down the nave, thinking of the great old builder-bishop, famous also as builder of New College, Oxford, still more so as founder of Winchester College, we suddenly come upon his tomb. It is enclosed in a sweet and beautiful chantry; and as the attendant has turned the key we enter

and look reverently at the painted marble monument of the calm and placid old man, on whose forehead with loving fidelity the sculptor has engraven three wrinkles (shall we say one for each of his three great works?), and at whose feet are kneeling three figures in monkish habits, probably one a New College student, one a Wykehamist of old, and one a young Samuel of the Cathedral. The learned and pious William has the bishop's ring on his finger, and the pastoral staff reverently placed by his side. After standing awhile and giving full range to the many thoughts which arise in our minds, let us leave this exquisite monument of that Gothic simplicity which Wykeham has exemplified in his Cathedral, and go to the south transept to see how modern Gothic art has declined. Go to the memorial of Bishop Wilberforce, and see how Sir Gilbert Scott has built up a mass of decorative symbols, brought a troop of persecuted angels in Greek drapery, to groan under the weight of his ponderous marble; how the sculptor, Armstead (worthy of better things), has given us an effigy of the unfortunate Bishop, which is an injury to Gothic art. The face is good, but how the figure is befrilled and bedizened, while the crozier is laid across the effigy more like a carter's whip than is fitting for such a symbol. Here we have lavish decoration instead of design; ornaments instead of ideas. The subordinate figures and animals are mere contract work, without finish or feeling, and there is not an angel in the whole display which is fit to be compared with the three little figures in monkish habits, sitting at the feet of the monument of the pious founder of the place.

Let us return to the past. Here, if anywhere, is a glorious past, and every old carven stone has a history. I do not know whether it is safe to pin our faith on the statement that in A.D. 180, King Lucius, a descendant of Caractacus, first founded a church here, or whether Cerdic, King of Wessex, in the sixth century, slaughtered the clergy and converted the place into a "Temple of Dagon." But it does appear evident that in the seventh century a Saxon King, "Kynegils," himself suddenly converted, commenced building a third church here, two others having been destroyed; and with the savage generosity, characteristic of the times, gave all the land for seven miles outside the city for the support of the monks attached to the place. It never rains but it pours, therefore we need not be surprised that another century of good fortune brings us the "rain" of St. Swithun. This saint is authentic, whatever his connection with the weather may be, and as his arms, or what are given as such, appear on the Wykeham monument as those of the bishopric, I may be pardoned this digression into ancient records. Swithun, afterwards patron saint of the city, was tutor to King Alfred. His connection with the weather, or rather the connection of his bones with the weather, was purely involuntary, and it is worth recording how this curious legend arose. I regard Swithun as a sensible man, who did not believe in "dead men's bones" being placed inside the House of God. His last wish, therefore, was that his remains should be buried outside the north door of the nave, near the west front. His wish was at first complied with; but a few years after, some fussy ecclesiastic,

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