History is notoriously dull, except to those who have a taste for it, but yet there are scenes in history which may stand out as brightly as any pictures. Of such is the signing of Magna Charta, the greatest act recorded in the whole of our English annals. Well might it be thought that London, by means of the Tower or Westminster, would have claimed to be the theatre of so epoch-making a scene; not at all; as the youngest child knows, it was no building which witnessed the deed, but a Thames-side meadow, which may be seen to-day all unchanged, and happily as yet unbuilt on. The island, which goes by the name of Magna Charta Island, is now generally supposed to have usurped a claim properly belonging to the meadow by Thames side, and we confess to a certain pleasure that this discovery has been made; for the island is altogether too trim, too neat, and the house thereon too modern, to assort with thoughts of a mighty past. No, we who love the river believe rather, and in our belief we are backed by the latest research, that the flat land, encircled by the heights of Cooper's Hill, as by the rising tiers of seats, was the amphitheatre whereon the great scene was enacted. We can imagine it crowded by mailed men who trampled under foot the mushy grass, mushy even in the season of summer, an English June. The exact date, never to be forgotten, is June 15, 1215. The flowers grow well about here, the spotted knotweed, the common forget-me-not, the pink willow-herb, the yellow iris, and purple loosestrife may all be found in season, and the meadowsweet and dog-rose scent the summer air.