COWLEY.

CHERTSEY can shew to the antiquary some time-worn fragments of an ancient Abbey, and can tell many a legend of the old times, when nitred abbots rode in her streets. The tourist finds, in the immediate neighbourhood, those diversified prospects which the wooded hills, the winding Thames, and the pleasant meads and parks of Surrey combine to form.

But we did not visit Chertsey to collect mouldering relics of bygone times, to illustrate Saxon and Norman charters, or even to admire the quiet beauties of the scenery. The object of our journey was to see the house where COWLEY passed the last years of his life, and to stand for a few minutes within the room where this once famous poet died.

The South-Western Railway brought us, in a quarter of an hour, from Windsor to Staines. Thence, passing along the banks of the Thames to Laleham, we crossed the river by the ferry, and proceeded to Chertsey through the Abbey meads. We paused for a moment at the Abbey river, to note the few scattered fragments of this once noble monastic pile. The quiet flow of the water harmonized with the stillness which rested over