How dim and silent now are all those narrow and dingy little streets and lanes around Paul's churchyard and the Temple, where Johnson and Goldsmith loved to ramble! More than once have I wandered there, in the late hours of the night, meeting scarce a human creature, but conscious of a royal company indeed, of the wits and poets and players of a far-off time. Darkness now, on busy Smithfield, where once the frequent, cruel flames of bigotry shed forth a glare that sickened the light of day. Murky and grim enough to-night is that grand processional walk in St. Bartholomew's church, where the great gray pillars and splendid Norman arches of the twelfth century are mouldering in neglect and decay. Sweet to fancy and dear in recollection, the old church comes back to me now, with the sound of children's voices and the wail of the organ strangely breaking on its pensive rest. Stillness and peace over arid Bunhill Fields---the last haven of many a Puritan worthy, and hallowed to many a pilgrim as the resting-place of Bunyan and of Watts. In many a park and gloomy square the watcher now would hear only a rustling of leaves or the fretful twitter of half-awakened birds. Around Primrose Hill and out toward Hampstead many a night-walk have I taken, that seemed like rambling in a desert--so dark and still are the walled houses, so perfect is the solitude. In Drury Lane, even at this late hour, there would be some movement; but cold and dense as ever the shadows are resting on that little graveyard behind it, where Lady Dedlock went to die. To walk in Bow Street now,--might it not be to meet the shades of Waller and Wycherley and Betterton, who lived and died there; to have a greeting from the silver-tongued Barry; or to see, in draggled lace and ruffles, the stalwart figure and flushed and roystering countenance of Henry Fielding? Very quiet now are those grim stone chambers in the terrible Tower of London, where so many tears have fallen and so many noble hearts been split with sorrow. Does Brackenbury still kneel in the cold, lonely, vacant chapel of St. John; or the sad ghost of Monmouth hover in the chancel of St. Peter's? How sweet tonight would be the rustle of the ivy on the dark walls of Hadley church, where late I breathed the rose-scented air and heard the warbling thrush, and blessed, with a grateful heart, the loving kindness that makes such beauty in the world! Out there on the hillside of Highgate, populous with death, the starlight gleams on many a ponderous tomb and the white marble of many a sculptured statue, where dear and famous names will lure the traveller's footsteps for years to come. There Lyndhurst rests, in honour and peace, and there is hushed the tuneful voice of Dempster--never to be heard any more, either when snows are flying or "when green leaves come again." Not many days have passed since I stood there, by the humble gravestone of poor Charles Harcourt, that fine