the larger part of their earnings. They live hard and lie hard, and do not throw away their money in gin-shops or in beerhouses.

The pastime of another day is a drive with a friendly and educated farmer over his widely-scattered farm. Before starting, the steam thrashing-machine is inspected, and I am taken into the barn to be weighed. A laughable process, to sit perched up on the little flat table of the weighing-machine, your feet dangling down anywhere, and to feel the great iron weights, one after another, thump on behind you, giving you a slight rise in the world, and after all careful adjustments to learn, on authority, that you weigh so many stone, less one pound! But the roomy sociable is ready, with the old bay horse that knows how to trot, and knows as well how to stand for any length of time, by roadside, at a gate, in the middle of a field, or anywhere else that you like to leave him. In a large field, where the crop is being carried, the head man is asked how many loads there will be. He has no difficulty in answering the question. His decision is almost as rapid as an intuition, and he is probably unconscious of the curious complex process of the mind by which he arrives at it. Practice makes perfect. But the man who is perfect in one field does not understand and is astonished at a like perfection displayed in another field. The farmer in his hayfield would wonder at the printer in his office, how he tells so rapidly what number of sheets a certain batch of manuscript will make.

We drive across pasture fields, through golden cornfields it is years since I saw such a sight-along soft, black farm roads without a stone (there are large tracts of land here without stones, and my friend offers to eat all I can find on some five hundred acres of his farm); beside ditches crowded with lovely flowers of all bright hues, making me wish myself a botanist, and enticing us frequently to alight and pluck them; and past a small patch of flax, which with its exquisite flower looks like a bed of harebells. We stop to observe a party of girls who are at work about a little mound of potatoes, industriously and nimbly plucking off the fresh growths and preparing them for the pigs. The colony of pigs we visit next, in the midst of which is a steam boiler for cooking their peas and potatoes on a large scale. The old farm servant who has charge of the colony is very deaf. But what a brawny arm he has, and what a keen eye, and what weighty communications he has to make. He talks fast and looks thoroughly in earnest. In his lowly calling he has all the supporting vanity of a prime minister, or of Tennyson's 'Northern

'Northern Farmer.' His swift, odd speech is unintelligible to me; but I see that he has a sense of duty and a good will to do it, and deserves to be trusted. He lives in a narrow circle and scarcely glances beyond it. What to him are American wars, French occupations of Rome, Russian desolation of Poland? What does he know of Colenso, of Rénan, or of Darwin? Did he ever hear of Tennyson, or even of Shakespeare? All these names and the worlds they symbolise lie outside the walls that bound his life, and he is a stranger alike to the charm and the trouble of them. He sees to his master's pigs, and if they fatten he is happy. I dream for the moment that I am in the forest of Arden, and hear Corin talking. It is the echo of his confession to Touchstone:-'Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.' While among the pigs, my friend tells me that experiments have been lately made of fattening them on bacon (a novel form of cannibalism!) and that not only is the bacon entirely assimilated, but that it facilitates the assimilation of other food.

All the lands we pass over are extremely dry, cracked, and gaping for thirstiness. In the ditch sides we see how deep the cracks run down, and how the surface soil trickles off through them. Patches and thin seams of shelly matter a foot or two below the surface give a white colour to the soil. These shells appear to have been deposited in the low lands as the waters withdrew from the higher. They are most thickly bedded in the deepest depressions, and considerably lessen the fertility of the soil. The district is near what are called the 'skirt-lands,' bordering on Huntingdonshire. The bog-oak is usually found lying in one direction, indicating the course of the waters retiring towards the sea. There is hardly an oak to be seen in the district now; one field near the town is distinguished as 'Oaktree Close,' because an old oak still survives in it.

The

Another day of my week out is devoted to a visit to Ely Cathedral. At 9 a.m., on a lovely morning, first of August, the little pony-gig is at the door. M. accompanies me. road lies through the pretty village of Mepal, on the Old and New Bedford rivers; up Sutton Hill, from which there is a fine view across a spacious valley to the rising grounds of Haddersham (a landscape which is said to be a singularly close representation of the field of Waterloo), through the village of Witchford, site of the ancient ford where the terrible witch, brought from Normandy to counteract the incantations of

Girolamo

Girolamo of Salerno in the camp of the Saxons, is related to have crossed over into the plain; and presently we are in the lifeless little cathedral town of Ely. After putting up' at the 'Lamb' we hasten to the cathedral, hoping to be in time for the music of the morning service. It is eleven o'clock as we enter under the western tower and catch the first glimpse of the glorious perspective. The service is just over, for we see the procession of white-gowned choristers passing from the choir and vanishing in the south transept. But in the presence of all that magical beauty for the eye we take the loss of the music with great composure. Guide-book in hand, we pace slowly through the choir, noticing the stalls designed by Alan de Walsingham, the rich canopies, and the lovely little groups of sculpture newly executed and placed in the upper panels. Suddenly, a voice behind us, unpleasantly voluble, gives us some information about them, and the speaker passes on. Presently we stand in front of the new reredos, or altar-screen, a miracle of elaborate beauty, worth a pilgrimage to see. Executed in white stone, partly in alabaster, enriched with colour and gilding; the compartments separated by slender columns with glittering spiral belts and foliated capitals; figures of angels upon the capitals; below, a series of panels with sculptures in alto-relievo, of subjects from the life of our Lord; gables and finials surmounting each compartment, within each gable a head in bas-relief; canopies enriched with Mosaic, crocketed angles, roses, and grotesque figures; and on the pinnacle over the central canopy a figure of our Lord. But in the presence of such beauty words fail. We feel the magical impression of it and linger before it, and hope, how vainly, to be able to recall at will its features and details. But in memory it becomes vague, and vanishes like a human face that over-much fascinates us. The harmony of colour is perfect; at a little distance the effect is nearly that of a delicate blush spread over the whole work. Just so the rich coloured glass of the southern aisle does not throw a distinct image of itself on the opposite columns, arches, and floor, but tints them with a uniform, soft rose-pink, the beautiful precipitate of their mixture of colours. Through the openings of the screen comes the glow of the great eastern window.

The reredos is monumental. It was erected by John Dunn Gardiner, Esq., formerly of Chatteris, to the memory of his first wife. The work '-I quote from the 'Handbook to the Cathedral' took five years to execute, and cost upwards of £3,000. Some of the more important of the sculptures, Mosaics, and other decorations were suggested by the donor, and the whole was designed by G. G. Scott, Esq.'

A

A small party of visitors are looking at the screen, and a man in black, with a leather bag suspended by a strap across the right shoulder, is volubly discoursing to them. That voice we had already heard in the choir. We retire from the group, and look at the ancient tombs in the aisles. That voice again! It breaks in upon our reluctant sense everywhere. Sitting at the corner of the north transept, standing in Bishop Alcock's Chapel, again in Bishop West's, everywhere it follows and croaks. It calls us to see the Lady Chapel, and we go, glad of the sight though not of the guide; it invites us to the Prior's entrance, and we go. And then it says, significantly, 'I must be going now.' Why was I not wise before it was too late? Why did I not that instant bow with infinite politeness, and responsive, significant smile, and say, 'I wish you good morning?' Pitiful dulness, to understand the unspoken appeal, and to hand the man a coin! And thus the poetic enthusiasm and devout feeling inspired by the glories of art in this house of God must be dashed with such prose and profanity as this. It would be less offensive to have a fixed charge on entering: better to have it understood that vergers are ready to guide those who ask them, and have no claim on others: best of all to have the glorious church open and free to all, and have done with pay. We still linger in the nave, gazing unsated down the long and lofty vista closed by the western doorway and painted window; linger in the aisles of the nave, beautiful with their slightly curving line of arches and bands of lovely colour across the pavement, and up the columns; linger in the Galilee or Portico, and under the western tower, within the four original arches of which four others in a different style appear, added for the sake of strength; turn again and again before we quit the enchanted ground; but, at last, the last look is taken, and-adieu!

After cold lunch at the 'Lamb,' prefaced by a speech of the waiter in disparagement of the town, with scornful comparison of it with a village where he previously lived, a speech amusing enough to my companion, who kindly charged herself with the part of listener, we stroll to the Porter's Lodge, obtain there a key, and thence to Cherry Hill,' a small circular artificial mound, enclosed, grassy and planted with trees, a pathway running spirally to the top, and crowned with a canopied circular seat in tea-garden fashion.

One more visit to the reredos, one long, last gaze at the whole vision of beauty, and, with 'sweet sorrow,' away.

It is four o'clock when we set out for home. We spend an hour or two at a farmhouse on the way, and then in the still

summer

summer evening, amidst the calmness of the slowly deepening twilight, we drive leisurely home. The day is closed with

music.

Soon my week-which counted nine days-comes to an end, and I must be at work again. Farewell to the golden corn, to the green lanes, to the dear, familiar burial-place, with its bright flowers and softly whispering limes, to the little garden, to the study where I did not work, and to the longloved friends whose genial kindness has made these hours golden for me! My old friend with a passionate earnestness blesses me as I pass the threshold; M. and E. accompany me to the station. There is a short, uneasy waiting, a hurried 'Good-bye,' with shaking of hands repeated through the carriage window, and at last the inexorable whistle of the engine, and 'My Week Out' is over.

THE

ART. V.-LOUIS BLANC ON ENGLAND.

'HE lapse of the Provisional Government of France, of which M. Louis Blanc was a member, and the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon, have consigned to exile in England for a long time past the illustrious advocate of the ateliers nationaux. He has not lived amongst us all these years without using his eyes and taking notes. He has supplied his countrymen, through the periodical press, with a long series of letters, containing his opinions on men and things in England; and these, re-published and translated, are now accessible to every English reader.*

Instead of filling his press correspondence with the various gossip of the hour, M. Blanc takes hold of the one topic most prominent at the date of writing; with a few happy strokes he defines its features; he illustrates it, often with piquant wit, sometimes with humour; he produces, in fine, an essay, succinct, clear, and to the point, always delightful in style, and frequently coincident in its gist with the verdicts of sound judgment. His criticisms on England, unlike those of almost all other Frenchmen, are actually founded on the facts of the case, or thereabouts. He takes great pains to learn what these are, and to comprehend their bearings. He knows how to give praise handsomely where he deems it deserved. He also

*Letters on England. By Louis Blanc. Translated from the French by James Hutton, and Revised by the Author. In two volumes. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston. 1866.

knows