cares, and seeking solace in the gentleness and quiet of nature; nor was the monotony of a hot dusty road likely to minister that peace of which I was now in quest, and in reference to which I was asking myself, in the words of good old Herbert,"Sweet peace, where dost thou dwell I humbly

crave

Let me once know?"

I toiled up the steep picturesque road leading to Charlton, charmed with the beauty and seclusion of the grassy dingles to my right, beside a long sunny wall, foliage which trembled over it, and almost occasionally shadowed by the rich shut out from view the neat church tower terminating the landscape. On reaching its summit I lay down on the grass beneath the shelter of a friendly hedge,

preferring, with Shakspeare, the silent shades of a hawthorn, to the bewildering splendors of the richest canopy-and made the accompanying sketch of Charlton Church.*

From which the above engraving is taken.

I passed an hour in its cemetery, conning over the epitaphs with which it abounds, and listening to the little folks whose "young ideas" were just learning to shoot with Dilworth for a primer, and Priscian for a butt, in the adjoining school-room," erected at the charge of Sir William Langhorne, Bart., in 1713." And trulythey murdered most valiantly the king's English, impetuously and obstinately asserting their reversionary interest in every 'on' no ''saw was 'but '-and' tub' which they stumbled on, to the manifest discomfiture of their worthy pedagogue, who, in despair of rearing the "tender thought," paid considerable attention to raising the cane.

I noticed particularly a handsome tomb to the memory of a certain gentleman of the place," who by industry acquired, by economy improved, and with equity dispensed, a considerable fortune amongst his surviving friends." But the circumstance most worthy of note is, that the name of this individual should have proved so prophetic of his future history, for I found it to be "John Turnpenny, esq.," and that he died the 9th Dec. 1756, aged 57.

Before quitting the spot, I copied the following lines, which are prettily modulated, though the idea expressed in them is by no means original,

Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew, She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven.""She did but take a transient glimpse of life, Found it replete with dangers and alarms, Then shrunk dismayed before the scene of strife,

And fled for refuge to her Saviour's arms

The princely house built by Sir Adam Newton, opposite the church, claimed a brief attention on account of its marble

chimney piece, so exquisitely polished that my Lord Doune saw reflected in it a robbery committed on Blackheath, or as some say Shooter's-hill, and so opportunely were the servants sent out that the thief was apprehended.

I returned along the road and crossed Blackheath, towards Lee, where I saw nothing worthy of record excepting an old seat of the Boones, and their family vault in the church yard, with a ponde rous door covered with rust and mildew, and half hidden by the huge fern-leaves fringing its " devouring mouth, straggling in wild profusion over steps leading to it.

and

the crazy

D. A.

September 27.

27th September, 1788, died, aged seventy-four, Sir Robert Taylor, knight, architect to the Bank of England, and other public offices. His father was the great stone-mason of his time, and got a vast deal of money; but could not keep what he got. When life was less gaudy than it is now, and the elegant indulgences of it were rare, old Taylor, the mason, revelled at a village in Essex, and kept a coach. Excepting some common schooling, a fee when he went pupil to Sir Henry Cheere, and just money enough to travel on a plan of frugal study to Rome, Robert Taylor get nothing from his father. Before his purpose at Rome was completed, his father died; and the son hurried homewards during a war on the continent. Assuming the ap parel of a friar he joined a Franciscan, and so passed unmolested through the enemy's camp.

When he came to En

land, he found that to live he must work, and that his work must be good. He therefore, worked in good earnest, advanced himself in art by application, and what could be done he never ceased to do. His best work, as a sculptor, is Guest's monument in Westminster Abbey. After executing Britannia at the Bank, and the bas-relief in the MansionHouse pediment, he relinquished statuary, unless incidentally in house-ornament, and confined his pursuits to architecture. Here he was strong; for he was sure in his principles, and correct in applying them. His plans were free from faults. In reference to beauty, perhaps, his Richmond villa for Sir Charles Asgill is the best. His additions to the Bank constitute his finest public work. Lord Grimston's, at Gorhambury, was his last private work. Old London-bridge he altered in 1756 and 1758, as it stands at present, in conjunction with Mr. Dance. He had a seat at the Board of Works, was surveyor to the Admiralty, Greenwich hospital, and the Foundling hospital, with numerous surveyorships and agencies of the first property in the kingdom. As the architect of his own fortune, there is no instance in art like it. Kent died worth £10,000, and Gibbs about £25,000. Sir Christopher Wren built the first palace, the first hospital, the first cathedral, fiftyfive churches, the Monument, and seven other public edifices, and died worth only £50,000. Sir Robert Taylor realized

£180,000; and yet he said "when he began life he was not worth eighteen pence !" This astonishing accumulation was the growth of his last forty years. He never slept after four in the morning. When he had a journey to make, he did it in the night, and never slept on the road but in a carriage. When other people were at diversions, he was in bed, and while they were in bed his day was far advanced in useful avocations. His diet was little animal food, and no wine. Thus, in temperance, if not in imagination, he may be compared with Sir C. Wren. In them was another resemblance; they were both very devout: whatever might be the distractions of the day, they found opportunity, like the great Boerhaave, to consecrate, both in the morning and in the evening, a stated portion of their time to religious duties. In the moral wisdom of life they were equally to be envied. Sir Robert Taylor knew the value of money, but it did not outweigh claims upon his justice. When he stepped forward in any public trust, in the magistracy, or in the little policies of his district, his intelligence and free spirit carried all before him. His honor, integrity, and the experienced purity of his intentions, were often relied upon for the fulfilment of purposes he had not declared, and the reliance was never disappointed. His conduct as sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1783 was exemplary, and he was then knighted. His time, property, experience of life, assiduous effort, and remote influence, all were at the service of his friends. He was all inventive wish and strenuous co-operation. In the last hour of life his friends were in his thoughts. He gave directions in their behalf, and suspended the consolations of religion till he had finished letters in favor of Mr. Cockerell and Mr. Craig, who had been his pupils, to get them new patronage, and to secure to them better than they had. In half an hour afterwards he died.*

September 28.

MILTON'S BLINDNESS.

[For the Year-Book.]

28 September, 1654. Under this date there is a letter from Milton, then residing at Westminster, containing some account of the beginning and progress of his blindness. A copy is subjoined. It is addressed to Leonard Philaras, an Athenian, and forms part of a small collection of Milton's "Familiar Letters," published by Brabazon Aylmer in 1674. H. B. ANDREWS.

Milton's Letter.

"As I have been from a boy a great admirer of every thing that bore the Grecian name, and more particularly of your own Athens, so likewise have I been ever fully persuaded that that city would some

time or other make me an excellent com

pensation for the attachment which I have always expressed towards it. This persuasion of mine the ancient genius of your illustrious country has kindly accomplished in giving me an Athenian friend, so strongly endeared to me; who at a time when I was known to him only by my writings, and at an immense distance from him, sent me the most obliging letters, and afterwards coming unexpectedly to London, and visiting me, when I was deprived of my sight, even in that distressing situation, which could add nothing to my respect, and which might be slighted by many, still treated me with the same affection.

"Since, therefore, you have recommended me not to relinquish all hopes of recovering my sight, as you have a most intimate friend in Mr. Thevenot, a physician of Paris, who is celebrated for his successful treatment of disorders in the eye, and whom you offer to consult on my case, if you can hear from me the cause and symptoms of my blindness, which it will be necessary for him to know, I shall certainly comply with your wishes, that I may not appear to reject assistance from any quarter which perhaps may be providently sent for my relief.

"It is now I believe ten years, more or less, since I found my sight growing weak and dim; at the same time I experienced a melancholy affection attended with disordered bowels and flatulency. If I began to read at all in the morning, as I was accustomed to do, my eye balls

instantly pained me, and shrunk from their office, but recovered after a moderate exercise of the body. Whenever I looked at a candle, it appeared surrounded with a kind of rainbow. Not a long time afterwards a darkness, which began in the left part of my eye (for that eye was dim some years before the other) concealed every object situated on that side. Whatever likewise was in front of me, if I appeared to shut my right eye, appeared less. My other eye has gradually failed me for the last three years; and, a few months before it became quite dark, every thing which I looked at stedfastly seemed to swim before me, sometimes to the right hand and sometimes to the left; continued mists appeared settled on the whole part of my forehead and temples, which usually press and weigh down my eyes, particularly after dinner, until the evening, with a kind of sleeping heaviness, so that I often think of the fate of Phineas in Apollonius :—

In purple mist profound

His eyes involv'd, seem on its centre deep To see old earth turn round, while mute he lay

In helpless drowsiness.

But I should not omit to mention, that while I had yet some sight remaining, as soon as I lay down in bed, and reclined on either side with my eyes shut, there used to shine forth an abundance of light; and afterwards, as the light was daily on the decrease, colors of a darkish cast rushed before me with a certain inward and violent crush. Now, however, the light is extinguished, and nothing presents itself but pure darkness, or diversified as it were, interwoven with a cineritious or ash color. But the darkness

which continually clouds my sight approaches, as well by night as by day, rather to a white than to a black hue; and on turring my eye it admits a small portion of light, as if through a little crevice. Although this may afford some hopes to the physician, yet I resign and compose myself as in a case that defies a remedy. I likewise often reflect on this, that since to every man are allotted many days of darkness (as we are told by the wise man) mine as yet through the favor of heaven, which has given me leisure and resources, with the calls and conversations of my friends, have been much more easy than those fatal days. But if, as it is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro

ceedeth out of the mouth of God," what reason is there why a man should not rest satisfied, that it is not with sight alore, but with the guidance and providence of God, that his eyes can avail him. Surely while he regards, while he considers me, as he certainly does, and leads me, as it were, by the hand as a guide through the whole of my life, I cannot but willingly resign my sight to him, who has so ordained it. I bid you adieu, my dear Philaras, with as constant and fixed affection as if I had the sight of Lynceas."

AUTUMN, and particularly the Evening of Autumn, has been a chosen season for study and reflection with some of the most exalted spirits of which our country can boast. Milton we know to have been so partial to this period of the year, and so impressed with a conviction of its friendliness to poetic inspiration, as to leave it on record that he felt the promptings of his genius most effectual and satisfactory to himself about the Autumnal Equinor.

To Thomson, who partook of much of the sublimity, and possessed an ample share of the pensive enthusiasm of Milton, we are indebted for an express tribute to Autumn, as the season best suited to philosophic thought and poetic composition. He is describing the retired and contemplative man, who watches with discriminating admiration the phenomena of the revolving year, and who from ail he sees and feels derives a source of the purest and most permament enjoyment. He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,

Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale

Into his freshened soul; her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
In summer he, beneath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,'
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse, of
these

Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung:
Or what she dictates writes: and, oft an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throcs, and through the tepid
gleams

Deep-musing, then he best exerts his song.

There is in the grey and sober tinting of an Evening in Autumn, in the manycolored hues of the trembling foliage, in

the fitful sighing of the breeze, in the mournful call of the partridge, in the soft low piping of the red-breast, and, above all, in the sweetly-plaintive warbling of the thrush, the blackbird, and the woodlark, a union of sight and sound which can scarcely fail to touch the breast with a corresponding sense of peusive pleasure. More especially is this felt to be the case, if, while we are contemplating such a scene, the setting-sun, hitherto shrouded in the gathering gloom, should gleam a farewell lustre on the fields; it is then, perhaps, that our emotions harmonize most completely with external nature; it is then that, in the touching language of a contemporary poet, and in the same exquisite spirit of tender enthusiasm, we inust wish to take our leave of the departing luminary :

Farewell, farewell! to others give
The light thou tak'st from me :
Farewell, farewell! bid others live
To joy, or misery.

Say, breathes there one who at this hour
Beholds thy glories shine,

And owns thy strangely-thrilling power,
With feelings such as mine?

For I have view'd thee as a friend,
And lov'd, at morn or eve,

Thy golden progress to attend,
Thy first, last look receive.

Thou witness of my lonely dreams,
Inspirer of my shell,

Like Memnon's, answering to thy beams,
Not yet not yet farewell!

How soft, how tender a repose

O'er Nature sheds its balm,

Like sorrow, mellowing at the close,
To resignation calm!

While man's last murmur, hush'd to rest,
Steals gradual from the ear,

As the world's tumult from a breast
Where heav'n alone is dear.

O'er all my soul seems gently shed
A kindred soften'd light;

I think of hopes that long have fled,
And scarcely mourn their flight.
Once more farewell! Another day,
To all, or dark or glad,
Fleets with thy vanish'd orb away,
And am I pleas'd or sad?

I know not. All my soul to speak,
Vain words their aid deny ;
But, oh, the smile is on my cheek,
The tear is in mine eye!

It is this tender melancholy, an emotion originating from some of the finest feel

Mr. Chauncy Hare Townshend.

ings which do honor to the human heart, that has rendered the evening of the day and year so peculiarly a favorite with the lovers of nature and of nature's God. It is then we cease to commune with the world of man; we turn disgusted from its cares, its follies, and its crimes, to seek in solitude and contemplation, in the fields, and woods, and by the fall of waters, that peace and consolation, that wisdom, and that hope, without which our being here would be as the mockery of an idle dream, and our waking from it but one scene of inextinguishable regret. It is, in fact, through the vicissisitude and decay of all around us, through the solemn and the dying aspect of this monitory season, that the voice of our Creator speaks in tones that cannot be misunderstood. They admonish us, that we too are hastening to a temporary dissolution; that the spring and summer of our days have past, or are fleeting fast away; that the hour is come, or shall approach, when the blanched head, the enfeebled eye, and tottering step shall assimilate our state to that of the faded and the fallen leaf; when the pride and vigor of this earthly frame shall wither and be extinct, and the heart that throbbed with joy or grief, with anger or with love, shall cease to beat for ever!-These are reflections which give birth to the noblest emotions that can animate the breast of man. We are dying mid a dying world, an idea which can scarcely be entertained without extinguishing in our minds every harsh and hurtful passion-without our feeling, indeed, for all that live around us, that holy sympathy, that kindling charity, from which the strifes and bickerings, the envy and the hatred, of a selfish world, must sink appalled away. They are reflections too, which, while they incline us to humility and philanthropy, to that kindness and commiseration which a mutual and a general fate have awakened in our bosoms, lead us, at the same time, and by the most delightful of channels, a love for all that lives, to put our trust in Him with whom "there is no variableness nor shadow of turning."