And yet the scene had so inspired us with meditation, that we still lingered within the enclosure. We thought how strongly it must have acted on the mind of the poet (Robert Montgomery) when he visited Stoke Pogis, and was there inspired by one of his sweetest and most tender poems

We cannot recal the poem stanza by stanza; like a strain of music heard long since, it comes in broken fragments to our memory.

But lo!-the churchyard!-Mark those "rugged elms,"

That "Yew-tree shade,"-"yon ivy-mantled tower,"
And thread the path where "heaves the mouldering heap;"

Then, stranger, thou art soulless earth indeed,

If the lone bard beside thee does not stand,
Formed into life by Fancy's moulding spell!
'Twas here he mused,-here Poetry and Thought,
And Silence, their enamour'd sister, came;
And Taste and Truth their kindred magic blent,
And proud Attempt, and pure Conception rose,
While Melody each chord of mind attun'd,
'Till soft Religion, like an angel, smiled,

And bade his genius make the grave sublime.'

the open tracery at the sides is boldly and tastefully executed, and there are few of our country churches which can boast a more beautiful specimen. In the olden time the church porch was the gathering-place for the villagers; and here marriages were solemnised.

of Chaucer will remember the Wife of Bath's declaration :

'Husbands at Chirche-door have I had five.'

The reader

At that time stone porches were usual, which, with the room over them, termed the Parvise, became a sort of little chapel, having a Piscina. Fire-places are frequently found in them. In these rooms it was not uncommon to keep the church chests, within which the various writings and other valuable properties of the church were kept. Some few of these still remain ; as at Newport Church, Essex, where a very remarkable one exists.

The bell ceased, the only living creature lingering on the path, was a pretty gentle-looking girl of ten or eleven years old, using every possible art to tranquillise a child whose thin wailing voice seemed strangely at variance with the quiet beauty of the scene.

The accompanying sketch of the Poet's monument was made before the ground immediately around the testimonial was arranged as a parterre; upon our page it appears broken and uncultivated, whereas, in reality, it is exquisitely arranged, and contains numberless flowers,-breathing incense to the Poet's memory.

Before we entered the church (whither the little girl, having won the child to tranquillity by her caresses, had gone before us, and as if fearing the renewal of a disturbance, to which she was most likely accustomed, had crouched down just inside the door) we turned for a moment to look at the tomb, consecrated by the Poet to the memory of his mother and also marking his own resting-place

We could hear the tone of the minister's voice, and almost fancy we could distinguish the words; but there was no mistaking the 'Amen' of the congregation, so earnest, so solemn, rolling round the building; the fervent So be it' of a Christian church, not shouted forth in ecstacy, or with fanatic exultation, but a deep-hearted solemn aspiration that thrilled the very heart, inspiring resignation and hope, and all the meek yet mighty virtues of our exalted faith. Those country churches are wonderful landmarks of history and religion; the aged and low bending trees that have stood the storms of centuries, the massive ivy, the grey, stern, steady walls, tell a State's history, as well as one of a higher and holier origin: for ourselves we feel strangely moved when we see the spire of the village church pointing to the heavens, or hear the faintest sound of the distant church bells float above the landscape.

We passed the little maid and her infant charge as we entered; it would have been difficult for an artist to catch the anxious yet most lovely expression of the young girl's face; her divided duty' well performed, yet most unsatisfactorily to herself; her uplifted finger arrested the child's attention, while her eyes were for a moment fixed upon the fine intelligent head of the clergyman, eager not to lose a syllable of those time-honoured and most faithful and touching petitions to the throne of mercy which abound in our church-service, and yet chained back to the worldly duty of restraining the temper and tears of her fretful charge, whose wandering eyes, and sharp, pale, pinched-up features, denoted a precocious intelligence and the acid temper of a fragile or diseased body.

The interior of the church is picturesque and well-cared for, and after service, which was performed throughout with dignified simplicity, and completed by a sermon sufficiently plain to be comprehended by the unlettered, while its graceful language and unaffected piety carried the listener beyond this world to the happiness rather than the terrors of the next; we were shown the private entrance-porch from Stoke-Park, and the pew appropriated to the use of the family-the old seats, the richly stained glass, the subdued light, the beautiful domain beyond, the overhanging trees, the full-bosomed melody of the birds, the murmurs of the half-whispered greetings and retreating footsteps of the congregation as they passed out of the public porch, the manner of our guide, whose attention

increased in proportion to the expression of our sympathy with the sceneare all vividly impressed upon our memory.

The churchyard was full, very full,' our guide had said, 'and a wonderful quantity of persons visited it and read the epitaphs, and even scratched their names on the church walls, though it was forbidden, and took away bits of the yew and wild flowers. It was,' he thought, 'a pleasant churchyard to be buried in. Not too full, but not lonely;' and indeed he said truly, for in those country churchyards-once at least each week-the children's children of the silent dead pass beside their graves; the modest head-stone and the light waving grass seem more akin to humanity and human feeling than the dungeon-like vaults, or huge slabs,' pressing so heavily upon what we loved so well in the churches or churchyards of our towns. Again we stood beside the poet's grave, read the epitaph on his mother, and cast many a "longing, lingering look behind," while leaving the churchyard immortalised by the most perfect Elegy in our language.

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

HATTERTON-poor Chatterton! We had been brooding sadly over his fragment of a life, ending at seventeen-when ordinary lives begin-and turning page after page of Horace Walpole's literary fooleries, to find his explanations and apologies for want of feeling and sympathy, which his flippant style, and heartless commentaries, illustrate to perfection; and we closed with an aching heart, the volumes of both the parasite of genius, and him who was its mightiest creation and most miserable victim:

The marvellous boy who perished in his pride.')

It was only natural for us to recal the many instances we have ourselves known, during the past twenty years, or more, of sorrow and distress among those who sought distinction in the thorny labyrinths of literature:those who

I waged with Fortune an eternal war,

Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,

And Poverty's unconquerable bar;'

and those who, after a brief struggle with untoward fate, left the battlefield, to die, unpitied and unknown!'