t printed sheet or they
themselves must be an unreality. What a mysterious awe, if the shriek
of the railway-train, as it reaches the Warwick station, should ever so
faintly invade their ears! Movement of any kind seems inconsistent with
the stability of such an institution. Nevertheless, I trust that the
ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind
of dream for an American to find his way thither, and behold a piece of
the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart,
and think of its arched door-way as a spell-guarded entrance which will
never be accessible or visible to him any more.

Not far from the market-place of Warwick stands the great church of St.
Mary's: a vast edifice, indeed, and almost worthy to be a cathedral.
People who pretend to skill in such matters say that it is in a poor
style of architecture, though designed (or, at least, extensively
restored) by Sir Christopher Wren; but I thought it very striking, with
its wide, high, and elaborate windows, its tall tower, its immense
length, and (for it was long before I outgrew this Americanism, the
love of an old thing merely for the sake of its age) the tinge of gray
antiquity over the whole. Once, while I stood gazing up at the tower,
the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately
some chimes began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five
minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. It was a very delightful
harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed a not unbecoming
freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church;
although I have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely
the same thing, in its small way.

The great attraction of this edifice is the Beauchamp (or, as the
English, who delight in vulgarizing their fine old Norman names, call
it, the Beechum) Chapel, where the Earls of Warwick and their kindred
have been buried, from four hundred years back till within a recent
period. It is a stately and very elaborate chapel, with a large window
of ancient painted glass, as perfectly preserved as any that I remember
seeing in England, and remarkably vivid in its colors. Here are several
monuments with marble figures recumbent upon them, representing the
Earls in their knightly armor, and their dames in the ruffs and
court-finery of their day, looking hardly stiffer in stone than they
must needs have been in their starched linen and em