by so delightful a country, that were there no other cause of attraction, it would be difficult to point out a spot where the lovers of a rural excursion, and a social party, could spend a day more to their heart's desire. Who then would not the more love to visit this spot for the recollections that cling to it? Are days of old familiar to thy mind, O reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born. SOUTHEY. Yes, in these scenes you seem to make human acquaintance, even though ages and death and decay are between you, with spirits that were before unto you merely after the fashion of Ariel,-coming, indeed, at your call, from the fairy-land of books, and singing to you unearthly melodies, but having no local habitation. Here you have before you the traces and evidences of their humanity. Here you see Sir Philip Sidney, as the boy and the man; you walk under his oak; you tread with Ben Jonson beneath the mighty chestnuts still crowning the hills of the park; you pace under the stupendous beeches of Saccharissa's Walk, now battered with time and tempests; you see Algernon Sidney, not merely as the stern patriot, planning the overthrow of monarchy, but as the delicate child of a stately line daintily fed in his separate chamber; you recognise the Fair Pembroke as a daughter of this house; and every where tokens of the visits and favour of Edward VI., of Elizabeth, and James, bring us back in spirit to those remarkable reigns. Numbers of portraits of those who figured most eminently on the political stage then, complete the impression; and we cannot bid adieu to the venerable pile of Penshurst without feeling that it has not merely afforded us a deep satisfaction, but has stimulated us to a closer acquaintance with some of the proudest characters and most eventful times of English history. THERE are few things more interesting than a visit to an old battle-field. The very circumstance impresses indelibly on your mind the history connected with it. It awakes a more lively interest about the deeds done there, than the mere meeting with them in a book can. It kindles a curiosity about all the persons and the events that once passed over it; and when you have inquired, the living knowledge which you have gained of the place and its localities, fixes the facts for ever in your memories. Besides that, old traditions linger about the field and its vicinity, which in the excitement of the main transaction never found their way into the record. There are passages and glimpses of personages, that the historian did not learn, or did not deign to place on his page, which have nevertheless a vivid effect on the heart and the imagination of him who wanders and muses there in after time. You see, even long ages afterwards, evidences of the wrath and ravages of the moment of contention, and touching traces of those human sufferings, which, though they make the mass of instant misery and the most fruitful subject of subsequent reflection, are lost in the glare of worldly glory, and the din of drums and trumpets. You see where the fierce agency of fire and artillery have left marks of their rage-where they have shivered rocks and shattered towers, laid waste dwellings and blown up the massy fortresses of the feudal ages. Nature, with all her healing and restoring care, does not totally erase or conceal these. There are grey crumbling walls, weed-grown heaps, grassy mounds shrouding vast ruins; and even at times, of the slaughtered hosts, still The graves are green; they may be seen. Of the battle-fields in this country, I know none which have more interested my imagination than those of Flodden and Culloden. Both were peculiarly disastrous to Scotland: in one the king was slain with nearly all his nobility, in the other the regal hopes of his unfortunate descendants were |