instinct with the spirit of a happy revival, and giving promise of better things to come. The collections are also rich in specimens of Flemish and Italian art; and warmed me with a desire hardly felt before in England, to be off on a contemplated tour of the Continent. On my way to Winchester, I was led to stop for an hour at Basing-stoke, by an idle curiosity to behold a place in which some of my forefathers once resided. It gave me an opportunity of visiting the tomb of the elder Warton, close by the altar of the parish Church. From Winchester I went by post, in the twilight, over downs, and through dingles and dales, to Hursley, where I entered the Church, and found Mr. Keble and his curate celebrating Evening Prayers. I had brought with me, from Hampton Court, a feeling of overpowering depression, and having seen the admired poet in circumstances so fitting to his character as a Christian priest, I was about to turn away, and drive back to Winchester, when another impulse suddenly prevailed, and I ventured to present myself. I had a preconception of his piety and unworldliness, that affected me with awe, and embarrassed me, in approaching him; nor did anything in his cordiality divest him of something that restrained me in his presence. Nothing could be more simple and unaffected than his manner; and yet, in a word, it was as if George Herbert had risen from his grave, and were talking with me, in a familiar way. He would not hear of my departure, but instantly made me his guest; and thenceforth I was in a dream, from the time that I first saw him till I bade him farewell. Nothing could be more kind than his hospitality; nothing more delightful than the vision on which I opened my eyes, in the morning, and looked out on his Church, and the little hamlet contiguous. Hursley is a true poet’s home. It is as secluded as can well be imagined. England might ring with alarms, and Hursley would not hear it: and it seems all the more lonely, when one learns that Richard Cromwell retired hither, from a throne, and after waxing old in a quiet contentment, died here in peace, and now sleeps beneath the tower of the Church, just under the vicar’s windows, with all the cousinry of the Cromwells around him. A wise fool was Richard! But to think of a Cromwell lying still, in such a Church as Mr. Keble has made this of Hursley! It has been lately rebuilt, from the foundation, all but the tower, and its symbolism and decoration are very rich, though far from being overdone. The taste that has enshrined itself in “the Christian Year,” has here taken shape in stones. One of the windows, the gift of friends, is an epitome of that delightful work, and displays the chief festivals, beginning with the Circumcision. In the minute adornment of the corbels, my attention was called to a beautiful idea, which runs through the whole series, and which is said to furnish the hint for interpreting the ornaments of older churches.