We turn, then, from Stratford-upon-Avon, feeling, as we have said, more deeply than ever the mystery that overhangs the career of the man, admiring, if possible, more heartily than ever the genius of the poet, and acknowledging, not without mournfulness, how much greater Shakspere might have been. For there was an inspiration within his reach that would have made him chief among the witnesses of God to men; and his magnificent endowments would then have been the richest offering ever placed by human hand upon that Altar which "sanctifieth both the giver and the gift." THE COUNTRY OF BUNYAN AND COWPER. [Illustration: 0096] [Illustration: 0097] |SOME of the most characteristic excursions through the gently undulating rural scenery which distinguishes so large a portion of the south midland district of England may be made along the towing-paths of the canals. The notion may appear unromantic; the pathway is artificial, yet it has now become rusticated and fringed with various verdure; some of the associations of the canal are anything but attractive--but upon the whole the charm is great. A wide, level path, driven straight across smiling valleys and by the side of hills, here and there skirting a fair park, and occasionally bringing some broad open landscape into sudden view, with the gleam and coolness of still waters ever at the traveller's side, affords him a succession of pictures which perhaps the "strong climber of the mountain's side" may disdain, but which to many will be all the more delightful, because they can be enjoyed with no more fatigue than that of a leisurely, health-giving stroll. It was by such a walk as this through some of the pleasantest parts of Hertfordshire that we first made our way to Berkhampstead--the birthplace of William Cowper, turning from the canal bank to the embowered fragments of the castle, and through the quiet little town to the "public way,"--the pretty rural bye-road where the "gardener Robin" drew his little master to school: "Delighted with the bauble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped," while the fond mother watched her darling from the "nursery window," the memory of which one pathetic poem has made immortal.