slave, and forced to leave the land of her nativity and seek an asylum in a foreign country.

The morning after our arrival I took a stroll by a circuitous pathway to the top of Loughrigg Fell. At the foot of the mount I met a peasant, who very kindly offered to lend me his donkey, upon which to ascend the mountain. Never having been upon the back of one of these long-eared animals, I felt some hesitation about trusting myself upon so diminutive looking a creature. But, being assured that if I would only resign myself to his care, and let him have his own way, I would be perfectly safe, I mounted, and off we set. We had, however, scarcely gone fifty rods, when, in passing over a narrow part of the path and overlooking a deep chasm, one of the hind feet of the donkey slipped, and with an involuntary shudder I shut my eyes to meet my expected doom; but, fortunately, the little fellow gained his foothold, and in all probability saved us both from a premature death. After we had passed over this dangerous place I dismounted; and, as soon as my feet had once more gained terra firma, I resolved that I would never again yield my own judgment to that of any one, not even to a donkey.

It seems as if nature had amused herself in throwing these mountains together. From the top of Loughrigg Fell the eye loses its power in gazing upon the objects below. On our left lay Rydal Mount, the beautiful seat of the late poet Wordsworth; while to the right, and away in the dim distance, almost hidden by the native

trees, was the cottage where once resided Mrs. Hemans. And below us lay Windermere, looking more like a river than a lake, and which, if placed by the side of our own Ontario, Erie or Huron, would be lost in the fog. But here it looks beautiful in the extreme, surrounded as it is by a range of mountains that have no parallel in the United States for beauty. Amid a sun of uncommon splendor, dazzling the eye with the reflection upon the water below, we descended into the valley, and I was soon again seated by the fireside of our hospitable hostess. In the afternoon of the same day we took a drive to the "Dove's Nest," the home of the late Mrs. Hemans.

We did not see the inside of the house, on account of its being occupied by a very eccentric man, who will not permit a woman to enter the house; and it is said that he has been known to run when a female had unconsciously intruded herself upon his premises. As our company was in part composed of ladies, we had to share their fate, and therefore were prevented from seeing the interior of the "Dove's Nest." The exhibitor of such a man would be almost sure of a prize at the Great Exhibition.

At the head of Grassmere Lake, and surrounded by a few cottages, stands an old, gray, antique-looking parish church, venerable with the lapse of centuries, and the walls partly covered with ivy, and in the rear of which is the parish burial-ground. After leaving the "Dove's Nest," and having a pleasant ride over the hills and between the mountains, and just as the sun was disappear

ing behind them, we arrived at the gate of Grassmere Church; and, alighting and following Miss M., we soon found ourselves standing over a grave, marked by a single stone, and that, too, very plain, with a name deeply cut. This announced to us that we were standing over the grave of William Wordsworth. He chose his own grave, and often visited the spot before his death. He lies in the most sequestered spot in the whole grounds; and the simplicity and beauty of the place were enough to make one in love with it, to be laid so far from the bustle of the world, and in so sweet a place. The more one becomes acquainted with the literature of the Old World, the more he must love her poets. Among the teachers of men, none are more worthy of study than the poets; and, as teachers, they should receive far more credit than is yielded to them. No one can look back upon the lives of Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, Goethe, Cowper, and many others that we might name, without being reminded of the sacrifices which they made for mankind, and which were not appreciated until long after their deaths. We need look no further than our own country to find men and women wielding the pen practically and powerfully for the right. It is acknowledged on all hands, in this country, that England has the greatest dead poets, and America the greatest living ones. Christian have alike a hidden life. element of each. Poetry has in it which good men find in their Bible, rather than such convenience as bad men often profess to draw from it.

The poet and the true Worship is the vital that kind of utility

It ennobles the sentiments, enlarges the affections, kindles the imagination, and gives to us the enjoyment of a life in the past, and in the future, as well as in the present. Under its light and warmth, we wake from our torpidity and coldness, to a sense of our capabilities. This impulse once given, a great object is gained. Schiller has truly said, "Poetry can be to a man what love is to a hero. It can neither counsel him, nor smite him, nor perform any labor for him; but it can bring him up to be a hero, can summon him to deeds, and arm him with strength for all he ought to be." I have often read with pleasure the sweet poetry of our own Whitfield, of Buffalo, which has appeared from time to time in the columns of the newspapers. I have always felt ashamed of the fact that he should be compelled to wield the razor instead of the pen for a living. Meaner poets than James M. Whitfield are now living by their compositions; and were he a white man he would occupy a different position.

Near the grave of Wordsworth is that of Hartley Coleridge. This name must be lifted up as a beacon, with all its pleasant and interesting associations; it must be added to the list in which some names of brighter fame are written-Burns, Byron, Campbell, and others their compeers. They had all the rich endowment of genius, and might, in achieving fame for themselves, have gained glory for God, and great good for man. But they looked "upon the wine when it was red,” and gave life and fame, and their precious gifts, and God's blessing, for its false and ruinous joys. We would not

drag forth their names that we may gloat over their infirmities. We pity them for their sad fall. We acknowledge the strength of their temptations, and, walking backwards, would throw a mantle over their frailties. But these men are needed, also, as warnings. The moral world must have its light-houses. Thousands of young men are running down upon the same rocks on which they were cast away. If the light of their genius has made them conspicuous, let us then use their conspicuity, and throw a ray from them, as from a beacon, far out upon the dim and perilous sea.

Hartley Coleridge was the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and metaphysician. He had some of his father's gifts, particularly his captivating conversational power, and his propensity for novel and profound speculation. He had also his father's infirmity of purpose. In the case of the son, the reason, as the world is now informed in a biography written by his brother, was that he early became the slave of intemperate habits, from which no aspirations of his own heart, no struggles with the enslaving appetite, and no efforts of sympathizing and sorrowful friends, could ever deliver him. gained a fellowship in Oriel College, Oxford, and forfeited it in consequence of these habits. He then cast himself, as a literary adventurer, into the wild vortex of London life; failed sadly in all his projects; drank deep of the treacherous wine-cup, often to his own shame and the chagrin of his friends, from whom he would sometimes hide himself in places where restraint was unknown

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