show the lions to strangers. There were always two staple commodities of this nature-the Round Tower and the State Apartments of the castle, which were not affected by any of the changes of the times. The Round Tower has an historical interest of a certain kind about it, from having been the prison of the captive Kings of France and Scotland in the reign of Edward III. As we grow older this sort of charm becomes very worthless;-for, after all, there is just as much philosophical interest in the wars of the Fantees and the Ashantees, as in those of the French and the English for the disputed possession to a crown, the owner or pretender to which never dreamt that the possession or the winning imposed the least obligation to provide for the good of the people from whom they claimed allegiance. However, I used to feel this sort of interest in the place; and when they showed me the armour of John of France and David of Scotland (as genuine, I dare say, as any of those which Dr. Meyrick has consigned to plebeian shoulders, and much later eras), I felt very proud of my country for having so gloriously carried fire and sword to the dwellings of peaceful and inoffensive lieges. The Round Tower was a miserably furnished, dreary sort of place, and only repaid a visit by the splendid view from its top. But it once had a charm which, like many other charms of our boyhood, has perished for ever. There was a young lady, a dweller within the proud Keep,' to whom was intrusted the daily task of expounding to inquiring visitants the few wonders of the place. Amongst the choicest of them was some dingy tapestry, which for aught I know still adorns the walls, on which were delineated various passages of the piteous story of Hero and Leander. The fair guide thus discoursed thereon, with the volubility of an Abbé Barthélemy, though with a somewhat different measure of knowledge:- Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole lamentable history of Hero and Leander. Hero was a nun. She lived in that old ancient nunnery There you see the lady abbess chiding Hero for her love for Leander. And now, ladies and

which you see.

gentlemen, look at Leander swimming across St. George's Channel, while Hero, from the nunnery window, holds out a large flambeau. There you see the affectionate meeting of the two lovers—and then the cruel parting. Ladies and gentlemen, Leander perished as he was swimming back. His body was picked up by Captain Vanslom, of his Majesty's ship Britannia, and carried into Gibraltar, where it was decently buried. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the true history of Hero and Leander, which you see on that tapestry.'-Alas! for the march of intellect; such guides are every day getting more and more scarce; we shall have nothing for our pains in the propagation of knowledge, but to yawn over sober sense for the rest of

our lives.

and

The pictures in the State Rooms at Windsor were always worth seeing; but the number exhibited had diminished from year to year. I remember the Cartoons there; and also remember that I did not know what to make of them. The large men in the little boat, in the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, were somewhat startling; but then again, the Paul preaching at Athens, and the Ananias, filled me full of awe and wonder. I have a remembrance of a Murille (a Boy and Puppies), which used to hang at the end of Queen Elizabeth's Gallery; and I was amazingly taken with those two ancient pictures, the Battle of Spurs (1 think) and the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which afterwards went to the Society of Antiquaries, and are now gone to Hampton Court. I never could thoroughly adImire King Charles's Beauties.-I dare say they were ex cellent likenesses; for amongst them all, from Lady Denham to the Duchess of Cleveland, there was a bold meretricious air-anything but the retiring loveliness which always finds a place in the dreams of youth. The Misers is a favourite picture with everybody, for its truth of delineation and force of character: and yet there is no great skill of the artist in this celebrated work of the It certainly looks very like what it is represented to be-the work of a self-taught

Blacksmith of Antwerp.

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genius, labouring with irrepressible enthusiasm for a great object. I wonder if he painted as well after he married the maiden, whose hand he is said to have won by this proof of his dedication to love as well as to art.

St. George's Hall, about which so much has been talked, was sadly out of character with its chivalrous associations. Verrio, with the wretched taste of his age, had painted a Roman triumph on the walls, in which the principal personages were Edward the Black Prince and his royal prisoner of France; and with the same spirit of absurdity, and with a more hateful spirit of gross flattery, he had scrawled the ceilings of the whole palace with gods and goddesses, welcoming Charles II. to their banquets. In one respect he was right; for this most mean and heartless profligate was a fit companion for the scoundrels of the Mythology-for the tyrant and the sensualist, the betrayer and the pander, whether called by the names of Jupiter or Bacchus, of Mercury or Mars. And yet this Verrio (insolent puppy!) had written up in this banqueting-room, set apart for high and solemn festivals

'Antonius Verrio, Neapolitanus,

Non ignobili stirpe natus,

Molem hanc Felicissima Manu decoravit.'*

The double conceit of the Italian,-his pride of birth, and his pride of skill in his art-was altogether too ludicrous.

Next to St. George's Hall there was a Guard Chamber, with matchlocks and bandoleers, and such-like curiosities, and a rapid sketch of the Battle of Nordlingen, painted for a triumphal arch by Rubens, worth all the works of Verrio, plastered as they are with real ultramarine. They say it was painted in four-and-twenty hours. Certainly genius can do great things. The last time I saw this Guard Chamber was on a solemn occasion; but I shall never forget the scene which it presented. In costume, in arrange* Antonio Verrio, a Neapolitan, born of a not ignoble race, adorned this building with a most happy hand.'

ment, in every particular, it carried the imagination back three centuries. That occasion was when George III. closed his long years of suffering, and lay in state previous to interment. This chamber was tenanted by the yeomen of the guard. The room was darkened—there was no light but that of the flickering wood fire which burnt on an ancient hearth, with dogs, as they are called, on each side of the room; on the ground lay the beds on which the yeomen had slept during the night: they stood in their ancient dresses of state, with broad scarves of crape across their breasts, and crape on their halberds; and as the red light of the burning brands gleamed on their rough faces, and glanced ever and anon amongst the lances, and coats of mail, and tattered banners that hung around the room, all the reality connected with their presence in that place vanished from my view, and I felt as if about to be ushered into the stern presence of the last Harry-and my was uneasy. In a few moments I was in the chamber of death, and all the rest was black velvet and wax lights.

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CRABBE'S MODERN ANTIQUES.

Ir is seventy years ago since George Crabbe published his poem of The Village.' His age was twenty-nine. He was then in orders, and was domestic chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. But what a life the young man had passed through, before he had attained that social position!Born in what was then a wretched fishing hamlet, Aldborough-roughly brought up-imperfectly educatedapprenticed to a surgeon, without means to complete his professional studies-lingering hopelessly about his native place, he at last resolved to cast himself upon the wide ocean of London, and tempt the fearful dangers that belonged to the career of a literary adventurer. Here he struggled and starved for a year. During the first three months of his London life he sent manuscript poems to the booksellers, Dodsley and Becket, which they civilly declined. He addressed verses to Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who informed him that his avocations did not leave him leisure to read verses. He sold his clothes and his books, and pawned his watch and his surgical instruments. His one coat was torn, and he mended it himself. He was reduced at last to eightpence, but the brave man never despaired. He had a strong sense of religion, and he was deeply attached to one who became his wife after thirteen years of untiring constancy. His faith and his love held. him up, and kept him out of degradation. At last he wrote a letter to Edmund Burke. It contained this passage: 'In April last I came to London, with three pounds, and flattered myself this would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion.' Burke saved Crabbe from the fate of many a one who perished in those