chamber, looking over the roofs and walls of a house that was her prison. We shall presently make some notes concerning the melancholy course of her young life.

The mansion-successively the residence of the Hawtreys and Russellsis situated in a little valley, surrounded by irregular eminences, clothed to their summits with beech-trees, interspersed with box, larch, and holly in a

very picturesque manner. The house is said to have been originally built about 1326, re-erected about 1556, and modernised, with great taste, by the late Sir Robert Greenhill Russell, Bart., and still more recently improved by its last possessor, the late Sir Robert Frankland Russell, Bart. It stands on a small but very elegant parterre, ornamented with beds of shrubs and flowers, and enclosed by a light iron fence.

The grounds are full of valuable records-associations with the past: near the south-west angle of the building are the remains of an elm known for centuries as King Stephen's tree; and said to have been one of sufficient magnitude, even in his day, to have supplied the monarch shade and shelter. It is banded with iron, and conjectured to be at least co-eval with the foundation of the house. It is only to be regretted that it could not have been the old Haw-tree of primeval celebrity, from which the family,

who during many years inhabited the mansion, might be conjectured to

have derived their name.

Yes, many happy, thoughtful, and, at least to ourselves, profitable, days, have we spent in that birth-county of liberty -Buckinghamshire; but that

of the autumn when our visit was to the grave of William Penn-was especially delightful, not only because of the places we examined, but because of the companionship of those who accompanied us on our way.

The country was reposing in all the self-satisfied luxury of an abundant harvest. The tangled hedges, rich in their winter store of 'blaes' and berries, were of every variety of tint; the partridge whirred over the stubble; and but few birds chaunted the vespers of summer-time.

The foliage of the trees was hardly changed; and as we drove towards Beaconsfield, we passed some timber that might be called unrivalled. The tomb of EDMUND BURKE, who is buried in the village church, is worthy of a pilgrimage; and to this Shrine-honourable alike to Ireland and to England-a visit hereafter must be made; but the neglected churchyard of Beaconsfield-where the dock and the nettle triumph over the graves, and pigs are permitted to go and come without hindrance-is sadly at war with the reverential feelings which the memory of an eloquent and able statesman -one upon whose words the senate hung, and whose eloquence told as much in the closet as in the crowded hall where his country's laws were made and defended-naturally summoned up. It was well to have looked upon his monument, and entered the pew where he had worshipped in earnestness and truth, and prayed for consolation during his time of trial, Our own memories and musings were, perhaps, a thought too much tinged with pride; because that he was a native of our own island-never more beloved than when most miserable; and the galaxy of glorious names

which have illuminated the whole world by their radiance, will always serve to show what its people might have been, but for the neglect and misconception of one party, and the evil agitation of the other.

In this churchyard is the grave of another great man-that of Edmund Waller; but the name of the poet is far less truly famous than that of the orator and statesman.

Hall Barn, the ancient mansion of the Wallers, was a large quadrangular edifice now destroyed; Gregories, another portion of the estate, was situated close to Beaconsfield Church, and here Burke resided, and his widow, after his death. Waller's tomb is one of the most conspicuous in the churchyard, and is of quaint and peculiar design, as will be seen from our faithful delineation of its aspect; the pyramid which surmounts the

tomb is supported by skulls, to which bats' wings are appended, a ghastly memento of the last end of man.

Edmund Waller, the son of Robert Waller, Esq., of Agmondesham, Bucks, and the descendant of an ancient and honourable family, was born at Coleshill, Herts, on the 3rd of March, 1605. His mother, to whom he was indebted for the early direction of his mind, was the sister of the patriot John Hampden. He was twice married; between the death of the first, and his union with the second wife, the more valuable productions of his muse were given to the world. He had become the suitor of the Lady Dorothea Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he immortalised as Saccharissa, a name 'formed,' as he used to say, pleasantly,' from saccharum, sugar. Yet he describes her as haughty and scornful, and places the passion with which she inspired him in contrast with his love for the more gentle Amoret. Although unsuccessful with both, his fate sat lightly on him.*

As a politician, he was unworthy his mother's blood; fickle and unsteady -shifting like a weathercock-from the Commonwealth to the King, from the King to the Commonwealth, and then to the King again. Meanly securing his own safety, by appearing as a witness against his associates, in a conspiracy to overthrow the Commons when arrayed against the Crown ; and whining out a pitiful moan for pardon at the Bar of the House, in which he had previously held the language and maintained the bearing of a man, he succeeded in purchasing his life at the expense of honour, and was for many years an exile in France. Through his various changes of fortune he was followed by his yielding and convenient muse. The most vigorous of all his poems is a 'Panegyrick to my Lord Protector,' whom he praises in the extreme of poetic extravagance; but the Second Charles ascends the throne, and the zealous royalist is ready with his greeting to the monarch ' upon his happy return. The political poet, however, seems to have been estimated at his full value, and was left with no other recompense than his laurels.

He died in London, in the autumn of 1688, disappointed in his wish to

* Saccharissa and her lover met long after the spring of life had passed; and on her asking him when he would write such fine verses upon her again,' the poet somewhat ungallantly replied, 'O madam, when you are as young again!'

have relinquished life on the spot that gave him birth, to die like the stag where he was roused.' He is described as possessing rare personal advantages, exceedingly eloquent, and as one of the most gallant and witty men of his time; so much so, that, according to Clarendon, his company was acceptable where his spirit was odious.'

Waller obtained a reputation greater than his deserts. He has been absurdly styled the father of English verse-lauded as finding English poetry like the ore in the mine, some sparkling bits here and there, and leaving it refined and polished;' and, as understanding our tongue the best of any man in England. 'Even Dryden says, "The excellence and dignity of rhyme were never fully known till Mr. Waller taught; and one of his biographers, after quoting the panegyrics of some of his contemporaries, adds, with strange simplicity, we must confess there is something more great and noble in Milton.' As a lyrical poet, however, his claims upon our admiration are by no means inconsiderable. 'Waller's smoothness'

was the theme of Pope; but this is his chief merit. To compare him with Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, his predecessors, or with Milton or even Cowley his contemporaries, even in smoothness, that second-rate quality of the poet, is absurd.

His mind was undoubtedly a narrow one. In his conceptions there was nothing grand nor lofty; in all he produced there is not the slightest token that any topic of his muse had ever touched his heart. He was a flatterer -and a servile one. His devotion to women was mere gallantry-a fashion of the age in which he lived. Of tenderness, pathos, or that true love which breathes from the soul as well as the lips, he knew nothing.

How opposite in all things great and good was he to that far greater Poet whose home we visited next!

As the day advanced, we found ourselves in the primitive village of Chalfont, where Milton resided when, terror-stricken, he fled from the great plague of London, sheltering within a ragged vine-covered cottage, not far from that of his friend Elwood the Quaker; this house, at the extremity of the village, is supposed to have been built by some of the Fleetwood family, whose arms are over the door. Elwood's acquaintance with the poet resulted from Jeremy Pennington, son of the Mayor of London who was executed as a regicide in the days of Charles II., and ‘he