ciple of separation, but only of unity; and it must have more than purity, it must have faith, hope, and charity. Puritanism makes a good beginning, -the only good beginning; yet it must rise to a higher, and larger, and diviner idea of truth, before it shall become the Church or the State universal.

But to look at this lonely and decayed manorhouse, standing in the midst of these flat and desolate marshes, and at this most obscure village of the land, this Nazareth of England, slumbering in rustic ignorance and stupid apathy, and to think of what has come out of this place, of what vast influences and activities have issued from this quiet and almost listless scene, one has strange feelings. The storied "Alba Longa," from which Rome sprang, is an interesting spot, but the newly discovered spiritual birthplace of America may excite deeper emotions.

CHAPTER XV.

LINCOLN TO ELY.

I HAVE said that Lincolnshire was Dutch in its scenery; the resemblance is greatly heightened by the numberless windmills, some of them old, ragged, and picturesque. Broad canals shimmering in the red light of sunset, straight as a bee-line, and stretching as far as the eye could reach, cut through this flat, fat, fenny soil, which has been nearly all reclaimed and brought to a high state of kitchen-garden cultivation, though at vast cost. When will the "Pontine Marshes " be as thoroughly drained, and fit for something else than the habitation of wild hogs and buffaloes? This whole Fen district is computed to comprehend the immense tract of four hundred thousand acres.

Lincoln rises abruptly from the plain. Its summit is crowned by the Cathedral, which presides over a vast extent of flat country; and so commanding is its position and its height, that it can be seen, it is said, from Buxton hills in Derbyshire.

It is a tough walk in warm weather up "Steephill Street," but the Cathedral amply repays the effort. It is certainly in grandeur next to York

Minster, of all the English Cathedrals, and as a whole impressed me more. There is more of rugged strength and majesty in its front, while the east end is incomparable for its elegance and flowing grace. Its central tower rises to the height of two hundred and sixty-eight feet. In ascending the tower, I arrived at the bell-room just as great "Tom of Lincoln was striking. The still air was in an instant racked with a mighty uproar, and the solid tower trembled under every humming +hunder-stroke. The view from the summit is one of the most unique in England; the ancient city clustering on the slopes of the hill, and then a level plain not strewn very thickly with towns and villages, but rather like a grassy Hungarian steppe stretching far and wide to the hills on one side and the sea on the other. The Cathedral is built in the form of a double cross; its best parts belong to the most elaborate and mature period of the "Early English or "Pointed" style. Within and without it is rich in carving of the boldest character. One can see in under the leaves. The "Presbytery or "Lady Chapel" is full of this exquisite carved work, and is sometimes called the "Angel Choir," from the figures of thirty angels in the spandrels of the triforium arches, carved as if they were flying on high, and playing upon every kind of temple instrument, such as the harp, trumpet, cittern, cymbal. The two great marigold windows in the principal transept, each twenty-two feet in diameter, and filled with deep-colored painted glass,

give a rich tone to this central portion of the building, supported upon its four heavy piers or clustered pillars. The fault of the edifice is the common fault of the lowness of the nave, which gives too weak and steep a pitch to the roof. But it is absurd to criticize these Gothic structures; like mountains they have no rules, and take such forms as they please; they delight in the strangest contrasts and most violent irregularities; their unity is not in their uniformity of structure, but in their heaven-ascending aim, to which all tends. The "Chapter House" of the Cathedral is an entirely distinct appendage upon the northern side, in the form of a decagon, and is flanked by bold flying buttresses, as if tied to the ground by them like a wide-spreading tent. Its interior, supported by a single-reeded pillar of Purbeck marble, is not unlike a great military tent.

I was shut up by accident for half an hour in this "Chapter House," so that I had more time to study it. It abounds in those grotesque carvings that are so suggestive but mysterious. The small queer faces on the capitals of pillars and terminations of mouldings, look down upon you as if they were alive sometimes it is the face of a monk and sometimes of a nun, and the monk does not always look pious but roguish; now it is a beautiful countenance with wonderful serenity and purity of expression, then it is a face in torment with the mouth horribly stretched, and the parched tongue lolling out; here is a winged angel, and there a

squat demon; animal heads, beaks, snouts, claws, images of the sensual passions and bestialities of the mind, mix with the symbols of purer and higher things.

In going from Lincoln to Nottingham, thirty-five miles, we passed Newark, in whose castle King John died, worn out by his vices and military misfortunes.

The scenery of the Trent valley was very pretty and peaceful, with the stacks of grain standing in the fields, and the cattle feeding in great numbers on the smooth meadows, or cooling themselves in the stream.

I asked a farmer who sat by me, without meaning any disrespect," What little stream is that?" "Wha, that's the Trent!" he answered with a stiff expression, as much as to say, "Your question, sir, is an insult to one of the most respectable rivers in the kingdom."

The eastern side of England, which is not as a general thing much visited by American travelers, is hardly less rich and beautiful than the western side, and is equally strewn with historical monuments. The climate, however, is said to be somewhat less genial. It is nearer the coasts of Holland, and was once more open to the spiritual winds and influences of the great German Reformation; and this last idea increases upon us as we approach Cambridge.

At Nottingham we are within fifteen miles of Derby, where I was a few weeks since. This is