Harry," in the Marquis of Worcester's whole Century. A distinguished writer desires one of our noble families to consider the name of Spenser the poet, as the fairest jewel in their coronet. May we not extend the same remark to the ducal race, whose name will, by this discovery, be constantly in our mouths?"-" Ay, and whose celebrity will thus be kept up, hot and hot," added Sir Peter. “Egad, I'll drink their healths in a bumper, and take another slice upon the strength of it. One ought to encourage such ingenious improvements."

"I am afraid, Sir Peter, that the best side's all gone," said Mr. Blewett, with a whine of pretended regret, which had a prospective reference to the brokerage on the indigo. "That I beg leave to deny," retorted Harry," for it is one of the Peptic precepts, that in politics and gastronomy, the best side is that where there is most to be got, and there are still a few slices left under the bone."-" If we had a good stimulating sauce now," said the Alderman, "I could still go on." "But there," continued the nephew, "we are still nearly as deficient as we were in the time of Louis Quatorze, whose ambassador at London complained that he had been sent among a set of barbarians who had twenty religions and only three fish-sauces."-" Why, Billy," cried the Alderman to Blewett," you seem as down in the mouth as the root of my tongue;-blue as your own Indigo."-" That's a famous lot of Guatimola you have just received, Sir Peter, by the Two Sisters, Capt. Framlingham: may I call to take samples ?"—"We'll talk of that by and by, Billy: meantime take a sample of port: help yourself."-" He can't help himself, poor fellow," said Harry," for the bottle's empty." The Baronet nodded to Rule, who instantly betook himself to a basket in the corner of the room, and began decanting another with mathematical precision. "Take care, Rule, it won't bear shaking--I have had it fourteen years in bottle."- -" And port wine," observed Harry, "is like mankind--the older it gets, the more crusty it becomes, and the less will it bear being disturbed."-"A little tawney," said the uncle, smacking his lips; "I doubt whether this is out of the right bin."--" No, sir," replied the nephew; "this seems to be out of the has been. Troja fuit:-but you have got some prime claret."—" Ay, ay, we 'll have a touch at that after the cloth's cleared: but will nobody take another mouthful of the haunch? the meat was short, crisp, and tender, just as it ought to be." "Capital!" ejaculated Rule with a momentary animation, succeeded by his habitual look of formality. "Then the table may be cleared," continued the Alderman, "but zooks! Harry, how comes it you never said grace before dinner?" "You were in such a hurry, sir, that you forgot to ask me : it was but last week you called me a scapegrace, and I may now retort the epithet." Say grace now then, saucebox." "I have not yet taken orders, Sir Peter." "Yes you have, you have taken mine, so out with it." Harry compressed the benediction into five words-the cloth was removed -- a bottle of Chateau Margaud was placed upon the table to his infinite consolation-the talk quickened with the circu-lation of the wine, and many good things were uttered which we regret that we cannot commemorate without travelling out of the record, as our subject ceased with the dinner, being expressly confined to the "Memoirs of a Haunch of Mutton." H.

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THE Citron groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, and the sigh

Of summer's gentlest wind, the branches wooing,
With music through their twilight-bowers went by;
Music and voices from the marble halls,

Through the leaves gleaming, midst the fountain-falls.
A song of joy, a bridal song came swelling

To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,
And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,

And lights, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd maids;
And thus it flow'd ;-yet something in the lay
Belong'd to sadness as it died away.

"The Bride comes forth! her tears no more are falling
To leave the chamber of her infant

years,

Kind voices from another home are calling,

She comes like day-spring-she hath done with tears!
Now must her dark eye shine on other flowers,
Her bright smile gladden other hearts than ours!
-Pour the rich odours round!

"We haste! the chosen and the lovely bringing,
Love still goes with her from her place of birth,
Deep silent joy within her heart is springing,
For this alone her glance hath less of mirth!
Her beauty leaves us in its rosy years,

Her sisters weep-but she hath done with tears!
Now may the timbrel sound!"

Know'st thou for whom they sang the bridal numbers?
-One, whose rich tresses were to wave no more!
One whose pale cheek soft winds, nor gentle slumbers,
Nor Love's own sigh to rose-tints might restore!
Her graceful ringlets o'er a bier were spread-
-Weep for the young, the beautiful, the dead!

F. H.

SONNET FROM THE ITALIAN.

YE warbling birds, that thus, from bough to bough,
Pour forth, at eve, your melting melodies!

Ye free and happy people of the skies,

Whose loves no stain of sordid avarice know!

Far other feelings in your bosoms glow

Ye reck not of man's vain and empty ties,

Nor dream of broken vows, nor faith that flies
As swift as rivers run, or breezes blow.
O happy ye! whose soft emotions own
No deity but Love-condemn'd to flee
With us before a sullen father's frown.
Alike in age, in beauty, and in love,

The God of Love himself hath mated ye,
Who never links the raven with the dove.

It is a custom among the Moors to sing the bridal song when the funeral of an unmarried woman is borne from her home.

WINCHESTER.

-Great Arthur's seat ould Winchester prefers,
Whose ould Round Table yet she vaunteth to be her's."
MICHAEL DRAYTON.

WINCHESTER is certainly the most quiet, unobtrusive, and unpretending place I ever entered. There is a religious solemnity in its high way and very market-house; a dim and shadowy gloom over its most frequented thoroughfares ;—indeed, one part of the High-street itself is but a monkish cloister, with disproportioned and swollen columns, and flat heavy architrave, instead of slender and reeded shafts, with flowering tracery above them. The by-streets have the same relation to the High-street that the cloisters have to a cathedral :-they are of the same age and character, only more silent and gloomy, more deep and broad in their shadows-so deep, indeed, that having taken up my quarters with "mine host" of the Fleur de Lis, who resides in one of them, I am writing by candle-light an hour before sun-set. All this falls well enough in with my humour; or my humour, cameleon-bred, has taken its colouring from surrounding things. How the gay trappings and rich" harnessing," with the "drums and trumpets," and parading of two thousand military, might have destroyed its quiet during the war, I know not; but I am grateful that at my visitation the sole inhabitant of these splendid barracks was an unobtrusive serjeant, with enough of the citizen about him, in half a dozen civil children, to leave the illusion perfect. But even in those worst of times—at least we poor speculators may be allowed so to speak of them without offence, for our calling," as Falstaff would say, is then secondary to a posting messenger, and our brain labours to the lying nonsense, or hasty nothing, of a third edition-even then, the appearance of this city was never disfigured with the temporary, black, dull-looking, boarded hovels, that in most other places are called barracks. Here it would be no excess to say our soldiers are lodged like princes; for they are quartered in the very palace, and the exterior remains perfect and unchanged, erected by Charles II. and designed and executed by Sir Christopher Wren. It is, on the whole, a fine building, though much inferior to many of his other works. It stands on an elevation immediately above the town, and from all the surrounding country has a good though not a grand effect. It is built principally of brick, with a regular front, which never can have a grand effect, be the magnitude of the edifice what it may. There is a poverty in the material which in an uniform building can never be kept out of mind; and the only instances in which I have seen brick used on a large scale where this feeling has not predominated, have been in the few old bay-windowed, turreted, halfcastellated, deep-courted, and close-wooded houses of the nobility of the Tudors; where you have no long and open approach, but enter direct, from the deep shadows of old trees, into the deeper shadows of the court-yard and the mansion-

66

"Chamberis and parlers of a sorte,

With bay windows goodlie as may be thought,
The galleries right wele y wrought,

As for dauncinge and otherwise disporte."

Most nations are fond of originality, and believe many ridiculous

things that flatter this humour; but, if the English were to put in a claim to this fine old mansion of our ancestors, I question if their pretensions would not be admitted. Your cognoscenti, and professional gentlemen might gibe us with our humility, but a little indifferent originality is worth the Parthenon on the Calton-hill and the newly christened Achilles together. "Well, Sir, but of what order is it-Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Composite, or Corinthian ?" I answer, not one of them; for if it were, how could it be original? But I say it has all the characteristics that distinguish originality, and are its highest pretensions-adaptation, and use. It is well, admirably well, suited to this varying, ever-shifting climate of ours :-instead of looking out for six months together from a "commanding eminence" into the raw air, and over a vast map of indistinguishable melancholy, you look into a warm court-yard against a high ivied tower, with the little sun that may be reflected from it, and with a swarm of birds chattering and joying themselves; or out under the thick branching oaks upon the herd of fat deer sheltered and browsing at the very threshold:-instead of the thin frame-work, and bald poverty of your Italian window, which neither does nor was intended to shut out the bitter cold of our December, or the cutting winds of March, you have the mullions and tracery of the magnificent old bay-window, with its three feet of solid pannelling below, and its deep-stained glass above, the very shadow of which is warmth and positive enjoyment.

On the site of the present barracks stood the old Castle, the history of which is closely interwoven with the early records of our country: indeed, whoever shall visit Winchester has need of some antiquarian lore, or a spirit of research that bids defiance to hard names and many centuries and close adjoining is the County-hall, originally the chapel of the Castle, and enclosed within its walls. Here is preserved the "ould round table" which for so many centuries has been the boast of Winchester. That this table was ever King Arthur's, I need not add, is a fable; but if seven or eight centuries are old enough to gratify curiosity, it is probably of no less age, and if not the festive board when" Arthur held high feast at Pentecost, was that of" King Stephen and his worthy Peers." It is made of thick oak plank, painted over, and portioned into different compartments, each division being labelled, in old English characters, with the name of a knight; except that in one of them, instead of the name, is the full-length portrait of Arthur himself, looking like the knave of clubs on a Pope Joan board. It was possibly to this very hall, that Markham and the gallant young Lord Grey were removed while King James's farce of execution and pardon were going on. They had been both confined in the Castle, and the place of execution was within the Castle-yard, and in sight of Raleigh, who was still confined there; and Sir Dudley Carleton, in the minute and interesting description of this scene, to be found in the Hardwicke state papers, says, that when Markham was on the scaffold the sheriff' was secretly withdrawn by one of the grooms of the bedchamber, and on his return told the prisoner that as he was so ill prepared "he should yet have two hours respite, so led him from the scaffold, without giving him any more comfort, and locked him into the great hall to walk with Prince Arthur." The same ceremony having been gone through with Grey, the same mystery was observed in his removal," and he was likewise led to Prince Arthur's hall."

But, after all, the College and the Cathedral are the real glory of Winchester. The former, according to the hints and insinuations of her affectionate children and historians, might claim a higher antiquity than the "ould round table" itself ever pretended to; they run back, with an occasional halt in its history of an odd century or two, to the very Romans themselves. But without credulity enough to pin our faith on such speculations, it will yet be admitted that Winchester is the parent both of Eton and Westminster, and has undoubted antiquity enough to satisfy any ordinary appetite; and, which is much more to its honour, it has not grown old with passing centuries; it is still full of vigour, and is now, as from the first, distinguished for the reputation of its scholars. The Education Committee, it is true, reported against some abuses; and some abuses, which they did not. report against, flourish here, such as fagging and flogging; but these are barbarities sanctioned by so many ages, so interwoven with early. habits and prejudices, so sanctified by all that makes bull-baiting pleasurable and cock-fighting Christian entertainment, that they excite no astonishment; yet surely it is ridiculous to see the legislature itself, goaded on by the humanity of the age, push beyond the bounds of a wise legislation, to protect animals from the tyranny of power and the. brutality of passion, while the age itself surrenders up its youth a victim to both.

But forgetting these things, in which Winchester college is unfortunately not singular, it is a delightful place. Seen from a little below the falls of the mill, it is all that I had hoped it might be. Its seclusion, and the quiet of its immediate neighbourhood-its own venerable buildings, the still more venerable ruins of Wolvesey adjoining-the clear stream in front-the city houses, backed by the Cathedral on one side and on the other, the open fields, stretching out to, and bounded, in the distance, by the towers of St. Cross, half hidden in noble trees, are all that imagination ever pictured a college when dreaming of collegiate ages, and what it could not have continued, but that the town has gradually decreased from its original splendour, and instead of extending beyond and eventually enclosing this fine building, has progressively shrunk from it. The approach, also, from the High-street, at least as I came to it, is just what it should be-first, through an avenue of elms, to the Cathedral itself--then the Prebendal houses-then the close, with some most majestic trees scattered about, that seem of little less antiquity than the buildings themselves-then the old Priory gateway, and immediately after, Kingsgate, with its druidical remains, which leads directly to the College. You now enter through a noble gateway into an outer court; and it is much to be regretted that its uniformity is destroyed by a modern building occupying one side of the square, and destroying the unity of design and appearance, which, but for this and the school-room, would be perfect throughout the whole range. Thence we pass into the inner-court under an arch and tower, ornamented with three canopied niches, containing statues of the Virgin, the angel Gabriel, and of Wykeham himself, in an attitude of adoration: and it is pleasant to observe, that the statues, the loss of which is so much to be regretted in all Gothic buildings, have here, even in the outer gateway, escaped the iconoclastic rage of the puritans. This inner-court is all that can be desired, and the hall, the chapel, the dormitories, and