Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

findest in her consistent with humanity, with virtue, with patriotism, and with piety.

While the surrounding buildings are lost in the fog, the towers of Westminster Abbey are seen distinctly in the distance, yonder. They appear to be in the clouds. How often have I lingered among the goodly monuments of that costly fabric, Westminster Abbey; where poets, painters, and musicians, divines, statesmen, kings, and heroes lie entombed !

The sceptered hand, the anointed head,
There moulder with the silent dead,
For worldly pomp, and kingly power,
Are but the pageants of an hour.

Where breasts with proud ambition swell,
Oh, what a tale is this to tell!

If kings the shroud of death must wear,
Can I do better than prepare?

My companion has just pointed out the imposing appearance of the ships below London Bridge. Lying as they do, along each side of the river, they resemble two hostile fleets in order of battle, just ready to pour their devastating thunder into each other's bosoms.

Lambeth Palace is not visible. Somerset House looks proudly down upon the flowing river; and farther to the north-west, the bulky Colosseum spreads out its heavy, huge, and dome-crowned walls.

Turning from Westminster Abbey, where heroes slumber, and where crowned heads and mitred brows repose, I have been looking for Bunhill

54 LONDON, FROM THE CUPOLA OF ST. PAUL'S.

fields, where the remains of John Bunyan and Dr. Watts are mouldering; and for the neighbouring cemetery, where the dust of John Wesley lies; but I cannot make out either one or the other.

After lingering long in gazing on the goodly spectacle around us, my companion and I must descend to the common level of humanity. We must go down, high as we are, even to the churchyard below, haply to glean there a salutary reflection for the thought of death is often a salutary medicine to the mind. We cannot be too deeply impressed with the solemn truth, that "in the midst of life we are in death.'

If thou art trampling on thy fellow man,
And impiously despising Him on high,

I fain would warn thee that the fearful ban

Hangs o'er thy short-lived being, "Thou shalt die;
And oh though learn'd in sorrow's deepest gloom,
No withering words pronounced by mortal breath
Can shadow forth the irrevocable doom

Of that tremendous curse-"eternal death!"

If thou, repentant, humbly seekest peace,

Through thy Redeemer, God that peace will give;

I bid thee in thy confidence increase,

And tell thee, that in glory thou shalt live;
And flaming seraph's or archangel's tongue,
With heavenly minstrelsy and rapture rife,
Would fail to make thee comprehend in song
The boundless blessing of eternal life.

THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

NOT more necessary is it for the health of the body that the heart should have room to beat, and the lungs to play, than it is for the welfare of a crowded city that places of out-door exercise and rational amusement should be provided. In this point of view, the Parks and the Zoological Gardens claim our regard.

As the number of persons visiting the latter is great, so no expense is spared in providing for their entertainment. The grounds are spacious, the shrubs and flowers attractive, and the walks kept in good order; while the birds and beasts of all parts of the world are put in requisition, to render the entertainment complete.

The varied tastes, as well as dispositions of the visitors, are plainly developed. One gazes on the plumage of the feathered race with eager delight; another enthusiastically surveys the quadrupeds, both tame and savage; while hundreds, with no strong predilection for either, roam among the pleasant parterres of the place, occupied in observing the company.

Perhaps, after all, the principal gratification we

feel in such places is not so much derived from the things we see, as from the associations they call forth. There is a holiday feeling visible in the visitors, that excites something of a similar kind in our own hearts. The wonderment of the children at all around them; their awful fear at the sight of the beasts; their unfeigned delight in gazing on the birds; and their unrepressed raptures at the tricks of the monkey tribe; take us back again to the days of our childhood.

We cannot look at the lion without thinking of Africa, and desert sands, and crocodiles, and snakes, and monsters. We cannot gaze on the polar bear without placing him on an iceberg. In the instant we are with Parry and Ross, near the northern pole, laughing at the antics of the Esquimaux, in the twilight of the regions they inhabit.

Perhaps I carry this feeling further than many of my neighbours; for with me the very shrubs and flowers are rife with the power of association, and conjure up scenes that are pleasant to me. Though half an hour ago I entered the lodge gate, not yet have I reached the bears. A thistle growing on the right, a few yards from the lodge, at once took me back to a common, where a shaggy donkey was browsing; while a party of gipsies, in the tent they had pitched, were cooking their mid-day meal in the iron pot suspended from three crooked sticks.

Then, again, a prickly holly-bush on the left called me away to another scene. It was that of the summit of a knolly field. The morning was frosty, the snow crackled under the foot, and the holly-bushes near were covered with their heartcheering red berries. It was the sabbath morn, and Giles Ashford was striding along the scarcely beaten path, in his well-brushed blue coat and big buttons; while his wife Margery stayed behind to knock out the snow from her patten against the stile.

It is pleasant thus to link together, by association, the country and the city. As I stand here, musing, decent domestics, and cleanly attired persons, evidently of the poorer class, pass by to share, with the carriage company, the gratification of the gardens. I love to see this: gentle and simple walking, side by side, in quest of rational amusement. Why cannot the whole creation be linked and bound together in the bonds of brotherhood!

Well, here are the bears, brown and black ; and there stands a gentlemanly figure scarcely looking at them. He has seen them before, over and over again; he has lost the enjoyment of novelty. Poor man! he is grown too wise to be happy. But here are beings of a different kind : half-a-dozen rosy, laughing children, and their mammas. Happy boys! How they come, eagerly pressing before the rest; and these smiling girls

« ПредишнаНапред »