it the first time, but you soon get satisfied, and are content to find your way into a cheerful parlor along-side of a comfortable fire, where you can look through the window, and see the mist without feeling its damp breath. There's no use to go looking at "magnificent buildings" where it prevails, and as for a walk in the parks, if you happen to get into one, you will be wonderfully lucky if you find your way out short of three or four hours. There you lose the latitude, and longitude, and all the landmarks are obscured, and there is considerable difficulty in finding a policeman to direct you the proper course. Take it all in all, a London fog is a poser and a mysterious thing-a damper to the spirits, and a generator of disease-a villanous compound of noxious gases, and a very plague; and I'll have no more of it.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CAMBRIDGE AND ITS UNIVERSITY-THE EASTERN COUNTIES.

THE railways of England soon whirl a man from the smoke of London into the broad fields of the country, and in an hour or two one can be set down miles away from the metropolis. My time, for six weeks, had passed very agreeably in the city; but, as there were unexplored fields before me, I determined to visit them, and directed my course to the eastern counties and the University of Cambridge. The train soon left the capital behind, and on we dashed through a low level country, intersected by canals and sluices, farms and villages, streams and turnpike roads. The hedges were bare, but the fields green, and, although midwinter, the atmosphere and landscape gave no evidence of the frosty breath of the season, except the absence of foliage from the trees. The waters were unfrozen, and it was a difficult thing to convince myself that this was an English winter. The day of heavy deep snows has passed in Britain, and the reader of Irving's graphic descriptions of Christmas weather in England can never, with reason, expect to see those descriptions realized, either in the coldness of the season or the cheer of the time. The spirit of the age has swept away the festivities of old, and aside from the dinner, and the pleasant custom of kissing ruby lips under the mistletoe, there is nothing of the glory of the ancient Christmas time remaining in the land of roast beef and homebrewed ale.

We passed hamlets at a distance, and the square towers of the old churches peeped from among ivy and leafless boughs, and presented a solemn appearance to the eye. Several places of note lay on the route, but no time was allowed for close observation, and I was obliged to be content with a rapid glance at Waltham Abbey, the burial-place of Harold, and a distant prospect of the famous parish church of Saffron Walden, with its tall and graceful spire, the highest in the county of Essex. The sun had sunk to rest ere we reached the celebrated seat of learning, and when I alighted from the carriage, a clear bright crescent moon was shining on the earth, with more than Turkish serenity, from among a host of dazzling constellations. I sauntered slowly into the town, sought out a comfortable inn, where I met a number of gentlemanly fellows, and then rambled about the place, peering into the court-yards of the colleges, or admiring the fine Gothic buildings in the pale light of a silver moon. The avenues were alive with pedestrians, but, save the footfalls of the busy citizens, or the slow leisurely tread of the robed and square-capped students, there were no sounds to disturb the quiet of the collegiate city. The pilgrims to the wells of learning were more numerous than the plain denizens; but I was surprised to see so large a number of fallen women as was following the footsteps of the scholars. Prostitution is one of the curses of University towns, and one of the most fearful of the snares that beset the young and inexperienced seeker after knowledge at the English colleges; and Cambridge is said to contain more lewd females than any other place of equal size in Great Britain. They literally swarm its streets at night, and it requires the most rigid rules and careful police regulations to keep them within the bounds of common decency. They gaze lasciviously upon every male they meet, and invite attention by every artifice known to their sex, and seldom let a person escape them until they have exhausted their entire stock of scheming to entrap him.

A clear bright day is a godsend to the sight-seer in any place, and to the stranger in Cambridge nothing can be so favorable for his purposes of observation. The colleges attached to the University number seventeen, and some of them are noble edifices. The most renowned is Trinity, the Alma Mater of many of England's celebrated authors, among whom may be enumerated Newton, Coke, Bacon, Donne, Herbert, Cowley, Dryden, and Byron. The majority of the edifices lie on the banks of the Cam, and all have spacious grounds attached to them, the greater part of which are beautifully laid out and ornamented with rows of stately elms, groves of oak, and wide shaded avenues. The river flows noiselessly through these splendid parks, and the halls of classic learning repose on the banks of the famous stream in stately dignity, bearing in their every feature the secluded characteristics of the houses of knowledge. In my rambles around these college inclosures, I frequently met studious young men, with book in hand and eyes intently bent upon a favorite page, slowly sauntering under the leafless trees, regardless of the curious passer-by. Deep thought was traceable in many a countenance, and the intensity with which some studied was a proof to me that aspirations to be great filled the hearts of the pale students, and visions of future renown prompted them to increased diligence in the pursuit of knowledge. There stood one against the trunk of a stately elm, clasping in his hand a Greek or Latin tome; another paced the shores of "revered Cam," where, of yore,

"The melancholy Cowley lay;"

and, as the breeze of winter moaned and whistled through the leafless branches over his head, he heeded it not, but drank in the rich draught of learning. I envied those young fellows, and longed to be a participant in their delights. The splendid parks are so admirably designed for the purposes to which they are applied, and the old halls so classic in their appearance, it seemed to me that learning falls unsought like a mantle upon the student who is fortunate enough to be an inmate of the University of Cambridge.

When the day had somewhat advanced, I entered the great court-yard of Trinity College, and, procuring the services of an intelligent guide, traversed the principal halls of the old pile. I visited the great dining-room, an apartment adorned with portraits of distinguished English scholars, and passing from it entered the grand library of the college where Thorwaldsen's splendid statue of Byron stands conspicuously. It is a noble production of the chisel, and the great Swedish artist has thrown into the speechless marble of Carrara the very semblance of the wayward bard. The figure is in an easy sitting posture, resting one elbow on a number of volumes, while the right hand holds a crayon carelessly in the fingers, one end of which is against the chin, and the eyes upraised as if the soul were drinking in the sweetest inspiration. The whole aspect of the figure is extremely youthful; but the librarian, who knew Byron, informed me that it is remarkably like the great bard, both in form and expression of face. The body is clothed in modern costume, with a single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned carelessly across the chest, so as to leave the throat exposed; and over the shoulders is a loose mantle, which falls in graceful folds around the form and feet of the figure. The expression of the countenance is angelic, and the dullest mind would experience pleasure in contemplating it. Aside from the subject from which it originated, the statue is sublime, and when the beholder reflects that it is a faithful representation of the erratic and wonderful author of "Don Juan," he stands in admiration of the intellectual and personal beauty of the man. Such figures as that of Byron are worthy of immortal marble, and generations yet to come will gaze with delight upon the petrified form of the bard left us by the genius of Thorwaldsen.

There are other productions of the chisel in the room, but none of them deserve particular mention. There is one object, however, of the greatest interest to the lover of the sublime in literature, and that is the original* of "Paradise Lost" in Milton's own

* A correspondent of the "New York Courier and Inquirer," in which journal this chapter was published in letter form, raised a doubt as to the existence of the MS. alluded to, and, after quoting from the third book of handwriting. It is preserved with the greatest care, under a glass case. I was not aware that it was in the place until my

"Paradise Lost," some lines in which the poet makes mention of his blindness, closed his communication with this confident interrogation:"Now, gentlemen, do you think that your correspondent saw the 'original of "Paradise Lost" in Milton's own handwriting?" "

To which the editors of the "Courier" replied as follows:

"In spite of the views presented by our correspondent, and of his triumphant query, we do think that Pedestrian' saw the original of Paradise Lost' in Milton's own handwriting. 'Pedestrian's' assertion that he he did so would be very satisfactory to us upon the point, if not perfectly conclusive, even if it were not entirely consistent with the recorded facts in the case. 'A Subscriber' seems to take it for granted that, because Milton was blind during the composition of a part of 'Paradise Lost,' he was so during the composition of the whole of it; and also to be ignorant of the fact that Milton's great poem was written first in the form of a Dramatic Mystery. Such, however, was the case. It was written twice thus by his own hand: and then, abandoning that plan, he was ten years in writing the Epic as we now have it. A perfect manuscript copy of this epic Milton showed to Elwood the Quaker in 1665, taking it out of a bureau where it had probably lain completed for some time. Now, as Milton was not blind until 1652, or perhaps 1654, it is very evident that the original of Paradise Lost' must have been composed when he had the full use of his eyes.

"But as to the existence of the MS., the following from Mitford's 'Life of Milton,' Pickering's edition, is conclusive:

""Milton describes himself as long choosing, and beginning late the subject of his poem; and when that was selected, it was at first wrought into a dramatic form, like some of the ancient Mysteries. There were two plans of the tragedy, both of which are preserved among the manuscripts at Trinity College, Cambridge.'

"The noble apostrophe to light in which the allusion to the poet's blindness occurs was probably not included in the first plan of the poem; at least, it does not follow of necessity that it was, and the allusion itself was certainly an after-thought. Some have found in the third book which this apostrophe opens, an internal evidence of Milton's blindness, aside from his direct assertion. They reason thus. Milton's early poems show, in their descriptions of nature, a strong feeling for color, which is comparatively wanting in the description of Paradise in this book: this was the result of the blindness of the writer, in whose memory the glow of nature had faded out. We think not thus. Milton had merely passed