|And now, Eugenio, ere we cross the ferry, and mingle with the 'roaring boyes and swashbucklers' of St. Bartholomew, let us halt at the _Tabard_, and snatch a brief association with Chaucer and his Pilgrims. The localities that were once hallowed by the presence of genius we ardently seek after, and fondly trace through all their obscurities, and regard them with as true a devotion as does the pilgrim the sacred shrine to which, after his patiently-endured perils by sea and land, he offers his adoration. The humblest roof gathers glory from the bright spirit that once irradiated it; the simplest relic becomes a precious gem, when connected with the gifted and the good. We haunt as holy ground the spot where the muse inspired our favourite bard; we treasure up his hand-writing in our cabinets; we study his works as emanations from the poet; we cherish his associations as reminiscences of the man. Never can I forget your high-toned enthusiasm when you stood in the solemn chancel of Stratford-upon-Avon, pale, breathless, and fixed like marble, before the mausoleum of Shakspeare!” “An honest and blithesome spirit was the Father of English Poetry! happy in hope, healthful in morals, lofty in imagination, and racy in humour,--a bright earnest of that transcendent genius who, in an after age, shed his mighty lustre over the literature of Europe. The _Tabard!_--how the heart leaps at the sound! What would _Uncle Timothy_ say if he were here?” “All that you have said, and much more, could he say it as well.” And instantly we felt the cordial pressure of a hand stretched out to us from the next box, where sat solus the middle-aged gentleman. “To have passed the Tabard, * would have been treason to those beautiful associations that make memory of the value that it is! * “Befelle that in that seson, on a day, In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury, with devoute corage, At night was eome into that hostellerie Wei nine-and-twenty in a compagnie, Of sondry folk, by a venture yfalle, In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambres and the stables weren wide, And wel we wreren csed atte beste.”