examples; but they may serve to dispel the fears of those who imagine that it is impossible to live without implicitly complying with the directions of the physicians in regard to diet-directions which they themselves take good care not to follow. This extreme solicitude is as ridiculous as the curiosity of the inquisitive man in Athenæus, who would not touch a dish till he was informed how long it had borne the name by which it was called.

POPE'S ROOM AT STANTON HARCOURT.

He who would contemplate Antiquity arrayed in the rich glories of her happiest days, may visit her at Warwick Castle. There she sits, in cold but queen-like state-" dead indeed, but not dethroned:" like the Venus de' Medici, one perfect statue saved from the wreck of all around. He who would see her in her lowliest estate-her limbs broken in pieces, and her torn raiment scattered in the dust-may explore the sad and touching solitudes of Stanton Harcourt. There she lies-her neglected remains strewed about in inexpressive fragments, speaking, like the Athenian marbles, of that alone which is not.

In a remote and obscure corner of Oxfordshire, several miles distant from any public road, stand the relics of what were once the proud towers and lordly halls of the Harcourts. Visiting these relics the other day, attracted thither by the room where Pope used to write and study, I found those halls, that once echoed to the armed heels of chivalry, or whispered back the light footsteps of queens, now utterly passed away, and the spot where they stood, overgrown with base weeds; and those towers, once firm as the ground on which they rested, shaking in the wind, and their crumbling battlements sinking under the pressure of the arm which I leant on them, while gazing on the scene of desolation below.

In the midst of the little village of Stanton Harcourt, rise, at irregular intervals, six lofty elms-seemingly of a preternatural tallness, from all the lower branches being stripped off to the top, and nothing left but the stem and the head. There they stand, bending despondingly over the walls where they used to wave proudly, and seeming to wait and watch for the fulfilment of the motto which has for ages graced those' banners that have now for ever ceased to float on the neighbouring towers: "Le bon temps viendra." Alas! it was during "Le bon temps" that this motto was adopted, and it is full time to change it. The escutcheon on which it is emblazoned is thrown aside, topsyturvy, in a corner of the old gateway, and the banners on which it can no longer be read, hang in tattered fragments from the walls and ceiling of the tomb where the ladies who worked them, and the warriors who fought under them, lie buried. Let it henceforth be, “Le bon temps ne viendra plus."

I remember, some four or five years ago, when there had been a great fuss made about the merits of Mr. Booth the actor, I crowded into the pit of Drury Lane, at the risk of my life, to see him make his first appearance in lago. Kean played Othello. The performance began, continued, and was on the point of ending with Iago's final exit, when suddenly I recollected that I had not noticed Mr. Booth

once during the evening. I had, in fact, been totally unconscious of his presence. Kean had, purposely, extinguished him. I seemed to observe, too, that nearly the whole house were affected in the same manner they all came to see Booth, and they went away unconscious of any thing but Othello.-I should think that nearly the same thing must happen to all who visit Stanton Harcourt for the purpose of seeing Pope's room and I believe no one ever visits it now for any thing else. The spirit of antiquity extinguishes the spirit of modern life, of which Pope was the most perfect representative we have ever had. At least it was so with me. Being in the immediate neighbourhood, it required no very violent stretch of enthusiasm in favour of Pope, to carry me to the spot which he loved, and studied in; but it was only when I was on the point of going away, that I remembered for what purpose I had come.

Nevertheless, I have thought more highly of Pope since I visited this spot. At the time he made a little obscure room in it his chosen habitation, the whole had been for many years deserted by its owner, and was only left standing as a monument of the olden time. But perhaps it may be received as only another proof of the artificial nature of Pope's talents for poetry, that he was obliged to betake himself to the uninterrupted silence and solitude of a spot like this, before he could sufficiently abstract his mind to fit it for the task-for a task it evidently was to him-of translating the father of ancient poetry. We can easily conceive him turning an ode of Horace, as he rode carelessly along through Windsor Park with Mr. Lintot; or inditing a satire as he lay in bed of a morning, while on a visit to some of his courtly friends. But to enable him to converse with, and interpret old Homerthe last poet that ever lived with whom he would spontaneously feel any natural sympathy-he must well know that it required a more than usual degree of abstraction: and he had the good sense to seek that abstraction where it was most likely to be found.

The room which Pope inhabited during two summers is a very small one, about twelve feet square, in a tower which seems to have occupied one corner of the great court. The tower is square; but the room is of an octagon form, with four windows looking in as many opposite directions. The various views from these windows must have been very fine and impressive at that time; and they are very interesting even now. Two of them must have included the various departments of the mansion, then only in a state of incipient decay; the other two windows looked over the fine country adjacent, and the noble grounds and gardens forming part of the domain. The room stands immediately over a little private chapel, of nearly the same size; and it is gained by means of a staircase so narrow as scarcely to admit of one person ascending it, without touching the walls on either side. The same staircase leads to the top of the tower, from whence the view is still more extensive and fine. The whole is of stone, and surmounted by a battlement.

In a description (intended to be a ludicrous one, but which is very dull, and, at the same time, unintelligible,) which Pope gives of this place, in a letter to the Duke of Buckingham, he speaks of there being no less than twenty-six apartments on the ground-floor. Of these, there remains not one that can be recognised, except the kitchen; and

the persons (dependents of the present Harcourt family) who live on the spot, do not pretend to know the site of any of them, unless it be the Queen's Chamber-so called from Elizabeth of Bohemia having used it when on a visit here—and the great hall. These are now kitchengardens belonging to a substantial farmer, who rents the lands, &c. adjacent. The sole remaining tower is as I have described it; and the kitchen, which is the only part of the fabric bearing any resemblance to its original state, may be not inaptly described by what Pope said of it more than a hundred years ago The kitchen is built in form of a rotunda, being one vast vault to the top of the house; where one aperture serves to let out the smoke, and let in the light. By the blackness of the walls, the circular fires, vast cauldrons, yawning mouths of ovens and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polypheme, or the temple of Moloch." He adds, "the horror of the place has made such an impression on the country people, that they believe the witches keep their sabbath here, &c." It was not so when I visited the spot; the country people" (domestics of the above-mentioned farmer) were very industriously leaning over their washing-tubs, and seemed only to wonder what could have brought a stranger out of his way, to visit what was to them so altogether familiar a scene. They had been accustomed to it in its present capacity for years, and did not seem to know that it could ever have been appropriated to any other use.

But to me the most interesting portion of this spot, not excepting Pope's room, is the chapel forming part of the little church adjoining, and which is still used as the parish church of the village. Here, surrounded on all sides by desolation and decay, stands the burial-place of the Harcourts;-gorgeous with painted and gilded sculpture, and fresh as if of yesterday. "Who builds strongest, the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?"-Here, from the midst of carved pillars, painted wreaths, and gilded cherubs, look forth the rude effigies of "Sir Philip Harcourt, and Anne, his wife,"-the last inhabitants of the adjoining halls. Here, in marble repose, lies the whole-length figure of Sir Robert Harcourt, armed cap-d-pie, and bearing a helmet perforated to represent the passage of a musquet bullet. This identifies the occupier of the tomb with the wearer of a real helmet, which, together with a tattered banner, coronet, &c., hangs from the walls of the chapel, and through which there is a similar perforation. Finally, here, among other monuments of a like character with the foregoing, is the mural one bearing Pope's epitaph on the son of his friend Lord Chancellor Harcourt; which may claim the distinction of being the worst he ever wrote. As it has the sole merit of being short, I insert it here, to show how very badly Pope could write, upon an occasion when he was called upon to make something out of nothing.

"To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art, draw near,

If ever friend, if ever son was dear.
Here lies the youth who never friend denied,
Or gave his father grief, but when he died.
How vain is reason! eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh! let thy once loved friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own."

Quitting this gayest portion of the scene about us (and it must have been so even when the whole was in its glory) we find ourselves in a little sequestered spot-half garden, half church-yard-containing the grave of two rustic lovers, who were struck dead by lightning in each other's arms, at the time Pope and Gay were on a visit to Lord Harcourt, at his neighbouring seat of Cockthorpe. This interesting circumstance is very prettily related in a letter of Gay's :-" John Hewet was a well-set man of about five and twenty; Sarah Drew might be rather called comely than beautiful, and was about the same age. They had passed through the various labours of the year together, with the greatest satisfaction; if she milked, it was his morning and evening care to bring the cows to her hand; it was but last fair that he brought her a present of green silk for her straw hat, and the posy on her silver ring was of his choosing. Their love was the talk of the whole neighbourhood; for scandal never affirmed that they had any other views than the lawful possession of each other in marriage. It was that very morning that he had obtained the consent of her parents, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps in the intervals of their work they were now talking of the wedding clothes, and John was suiting several sorts of poppies and field flowers to her complexion, to choose her a knot for the wedding-day. While they were thus busied (it was the last day of July, between two and three in the afternoon) the clouds grew black, and such a storm of lightning and thunder ensued, that all the labourers made the best of their way to what shelter the trees and hedges afforded. Sarah was frighted, and fell down in a swoon on a heap of barley. John, who never separated from her, sat down by her side, having raked together two or three heaps, the better to secure her from the storm. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack, as if heaven had split asunder. Every one was now solicitous for the safety of his neighbour, and called to one another throughout the field. No answer being made to those who called to our lovers, they stepped to the place where they lay; they perceived the barley all in a smoke, and then spied the faithful pair: John with one arm about Sarah's neck, and the other held over her, as to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and stiffened in this tender posture. Sarah's left eyebrow was singed, and there appeared a black spot on her breast; her lover was all over black; but not the least signs of life in either. Attended by their melancholy companions, they were conveyed to the town, and the next day were interred in Stanton-Harcourt church-yard.”

This is better than twenty "Celadon and Amelias," and the event it describes deserves a better commemoration than it has met with in Pope's epitaph, engraved on a tablet in the church-wall opposite the grave of the lovers. It is, in this case, the grave, and not the epitaph, which consecrates the spot; and those who do not look upon it with the same reverent tenderness that they would feel on visiting the grave of a beloved poet, are worshipping the name instead of the thing: for the one contains but the ashes of the expounder of poetry, while the other contains the ashes of poetry itself.

As I was about to take leave of this interesting spot-interesting on so many accounts-the chivalrous associations with which I had entered upon the examination of it had been nearly dissipated, or dis

placed by the purely pastoral ones excited in me by the recollection of the above "oure true story;" but the former were brought back in their full force by the sight of a tame hawk, which stood in the pathway as I was going out, holding under his foot a sparrow which he had just caught. In a moment came streaming through the old arched gateway, where I was standing, a gay train of dames and cavaliers, such as we see them in Wouvermans' pictures, with hooded hawks and leashed hounds, returning from their inspiring sport, to again join in the princely hospitalities which for ages graced the halls and bowers of Stanton Harcourt.

Unknown to him alike life's joys, or fears,

Its gracious smiles, its yet more gracious tears.

Ir must seem to foreigners extraordinary that there should be no English term to express a condition of the mind to which, if we may credit the testimony of all Europe, Englishmen are peculiarly subject: that while the more serious part of the community are so frequently following the example of

Jean Rosbif écuyer

Qui pendit soi-mème pour se désennuyer,

and while our listless men of fashion daily commit the sin of suicide in detail, by the waste of an existence they cannot enjoy, we should be obliged to apply to our neighbours for the loan of the word ennui.

Upon this point there are two remarks to be made: first, that England being a commercial nation, and a nation much given to politics and stock-jobbing, it is very probable we are not nationally so bad as we are represented; and next, that our ennuyés par excellence, the dandies, have done their endeavours to remedy the evil, by establishing, legitimizing, and making negotiable the homespun, but fashionable "bore." It is indeed greatly to be lamented that no writer of eminence should have authorized this word, and by giving it the stamp of his name, emancipated the country from such a subjection to ("I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word") its "natural enemies." Let me therefore suggest to any purist, who may tremble to put into print for the first time, a neologism which passes current in every mouth, that though the word may not appear textually in any writer of authority, yet it is often to be found substantially in whole pages of the very best of them.

It is the more necessary that we should be able to "speak our minds in plain English" on this subject, because the thing itself is daily gaining ground in the country; and nothwithstanding every effort of the taxgatherer to remove from amongst us the proximate cause of the disease, as the doctors call it, yet the number of people who are "bored” to death, and of the "bores" who annoy them, and of the "d-d bores" they have to encounter in the business of life, is hourly increasing.

Pascal has described the complaint to admiration. "Celui est (says he) une peine insupportable que de vivre avec soi, et de penser à soi: ainsi tout son soin est de s'oublier soi-même, et de laisser couler ce