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with the graceful lantern, the angles of the transepts being adorned with small pinnacled towers of chaste proportions. The interior of the nave, although grand, did not impress me with its beauty. The pillars are plain unfluted shafts of considerable height, and as the arches are Gothic, bounded by heavy zigzag mouldings, they have the massive appearance of the plain Grecian column. The windows are rich in colors, and the entire effect upon the mind is impressive, but not imposing. There is a solid grandeur about the interior, rarely observed in Gothic edifices, and not so much of the foliated chiselling and elaborate ornament usual to the style.

The choir is exquisite. The groining and mouldings, the tracery and carvings, and clustered columns are like beautiful embroidery petrified; and when the modified and mellowed light. streams through the immense and gorgeous east window, the largest in the world, that section of the edifice wears an air of grandeur and solemn magnificence it would be difficult to describe to one who has never seen the interior of a richly ornamented Gothic fane of past centuries. The stalls of the prebendaries at each side of the choir are of carved oak, and represent some strange scenes. One of these is two knights playing at dice, and each is completely absorbed in the game. Others defy description, but all are curious, and the most of them decidedly inappropriate church ornaments.

The morning service was begun while I was in the cathedral; but, by speaking to a verger, I obtained a guide to conduct me through the edifice, and point out its attractions. A modest young girl, arrayed in a neat dress of black, was introduced to me, and we soon became sociable. She was intelligent, and well versed in the history of the shrine, and the principal objects connected with it. We slowly paced the lengthened aisles, she pointing out the tombs, and I admiring them. One old, solemn monument, in the chancel, was particularly attractive, in consequence of its position and the excellent preservation of the figure and orIt is in an exquisite florid Gothic chapel, through the stained windows of which the shadowy sunlight wavered, as I

naments.

stood at its side, with my gentle guide opposite, with her arm resting upon the prostrate crusader.

"This," said she, "is the tomb of Robert, Duke of Normandy, the eldest son of William the Conqueror. The figure is carved in Irish bog-oak, and remarkably perfect, considering that it was executed so early as 1134."

The effigy is a masterpiece of work, encased in a coat of chain armor, the right hand crossing the body, and resting upon the hilt of a sword. The face is expressive and the features unimpaired, which are unusual in figures of so great an age. The legs are crossed, crusader-like, showing that the stern warrior, to whose memory the tomb was reared, was engaged in the mad expeditions of his class in the Holy Land, and won honorable distinction there.

Thoughts of the past entered my mind, when gazing on the musty monument-of armed knights and mailed cavaliers, Norman barons and boorish retainers. That figure is well calculated to recall to mind the dim events of the Middle Ages, and the romance of history. The interior of the beautiful chapel was a picture, to me, as we stood on the side of the prostrate crusader, conversing of his deeds of valor and daring.

What a change, thought I, since he who rests below walked upright upon the earth! Then, the noble wielded more power than England's monarch at the present day. Now, a timid, gentle maiden shows, as a curiosity, the tomb of one, once mighty, whose literary attainments are surpassed, at this time, by those of nearly every ploughman in the country.

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In the same chancel is the tomb of Edward the Second, who was murdered at Berkley Castle in 1327. It is near the high altar, and adorned with a figure of the king, in repose, finely carved, and in good preservation. As we entered the north transept, my attention was arrested by a tablet in the wall to the "memory of Gen. Wm. Lyman, of Massachusetts, late United States Consul to London, who departed this life 22d September, 1811!" The incident may not be worth mentioning, but an American is glad to meet his countrymen in a foreign land, dead or alive; and I am sure that, if I did not derive pleasure from

reading the inscription quoted, I came on it so unexpectedly that I read it with more interest than I would have done had it not marked the resting-place of one of my countrymen. And then it was some gratification to know that he was buried beside dukes and kings; although it is more than probable that he was a better man than either of his ducal or royal neighbors.

The cloisters of the cathedral are the finest in England, the roof being embellished with superb fan tracery. The nave is imposing, and adorned with modern monuments and statues, the best being that of Dr. Jenner, the discoverer of the Kine Pox and vaccination. There is a tablet to the memory of a clergyman, who materially aided Robert Raikes, the printer, and founder of Sundayschools, in his laudable endeavors to establish those institutions permanently. The names of both are mentioned on the marble; but it occurred to me that the founder of Sunday-schools deserves. a separate monument, instead of the bare cold mention made of him on the tablet of one who owes his fame to money. Gloucester is his birthplace, and there should be his grave, and a tribute to his worth. Every Sunday-school child in Christendom would contribute something to his monument, if a project to build. one were set on foot; and what more appropriate place for it than Gloucester Cathedral! From the far lands, from the isles of the sea, and remote sections of the earth, contributions would be sent; and lisping children of every clime, by their united efforts, would raise to Robert Raikes's memory a record at once appropriate and honorable to his name.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE WEST OF ENGLAND-BRISTOL-ST. MARY REDCLIFFE-SIR WM. DRAPER'S TOMB-STERNE'S ELIZA-LADY HESKETH— CLIFTON DOWNS-COLSTON SCHOOL-PRONUNCIATION.

THE west of England is mostly undulating, and well wooded. There is less sterility than at the north, and greater diversity of scenery, and none of the flatness of the large eastern counties. The spirit of manufacture is not so much encouraged as in Lancashire, and there are no large cities with clouds of smoke hovering over them to prove the existence of white slavery and great monopolies. The woollen manufacture is on a large scale, but in a more primitive condition than in Yorkshire. The factories are in the country, on the banks of pellucid streams; are mostly clean, cheerful-looking edifices, differing, in every particular, from the dingy, prison-like castles of the northern cities. Capital does not appear to have swept away the man of limited means; and here and there, throughout the rural sections, the traveller sees mills of moderate dimensions surrounded by a village of neat and comfortable cottages. Between Bristol and Gloucester such are They are similar in build to the isolated cotton factories of the United States; and the fact of the atmosphere around them being clear proves that the workmen, when out of their shops, enjoy pure air, a luxury seldom indulged in by the operatives of Leeds and Halifax, towns over which the smoke hangs too thick for easy breathing. Bristol is, perchance, the exception, in respect to cleanliness, among the towns of the west of England; but even it, with its dirt and inky atmosphere, is not so bad as its sister cities of the north.

numerous.

When a man enters a large town alone, and passes along its streets without recognizing a face or meeting a mortal who knows him, he feels a sense of solitude as keen as that which comes over him in the depths of the forest or the wide-foaming waste of

ocean. He presses forward through the throngs that fill the streets without exchanging a word with a single individual, unheeded, but not unheeding. Not one of the hundreds whom he encounters meets him with a friendly look, and he searches in vain among the passing faces for a glance of recognition. His unusual dress may attract the momentary attention of an idle boy or curiosityseeker, but, as soon as the observer is satisfied with gazing, he pursues his way without a word of friendship to the stranger. On the wanderer goes, and the deeper he penetrates into the city the denser becomes the mass of humanity, and the more indifferent he becomes to them. With feelings such as a solitary stranger may be supposed to entertain under like circumstances, I entered the really ancient-looking city of Bristol. A tide of mortals. poured along the thoroughfare in which I trod with my knapsack at my side, and as the haze of an autumn evening slowly settled around, the antique houses on either side of the narrow, crooked, and circumscribed way more forcibly reminded me, than the indifferent crowd, of my isolated and lonely situation. I felt that I was a stranger in a strange land, but it was a melancholy feeling of pleasure, and one that I rather encouraged than dismissed from my thoughts. The lights began to glimmer in the windows before I reached an inn, and as I passed over the old bridge made renowned by the genius of Chatterton, the recollection of him flashed across my mind, and I stopped to survey the objects around me, and breathe a sigh for the "boy bard of Bristol." On I went, looking now on this side, now on that, in search of a place of rest, and at the end of another quarter of an hour came up to an old gable-fronted building, with bay-windows, filled with diamondshaped panes, having a passage-way which led into a court-yard. I was a dusty pilgrim, with staff and shell, and this was, in truth, an ancient hostelrie. There were some servants in the space, and the light of the lamps revealed to my sight a series of stories, one rising above the other, around each of which was a gallery. The attendant took my pack, and ushered me into a cheerful room, where a bright sea-coal fire burned briskly and a number of gentlemen were enjoying their tea. The people did not have the look of the ancient day, and I soon dismissed from my

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