n. The
poetic mind is not always the progressive one; it has, like moss and
ivy, a need for something old to cling to and germinate upon. The
artistic temperament, too, is soft and sensitive; so there are all these
reasons for thinking that perhaps he would have been for keeping out of
the way of the heat and dust of modern progress. It does not follow
because a man has penetration to see an evil, he has energy to reform
it.

Erasmus saw all that Luther saw just as clearly, but he said that he had
rather never have truth at all, than contend for it with the world in
such a tumult. However, on the other hand, England did, in Milton, have
one poet who girt himself up to the roughest and stormiest work of
reformation; so it is not quite certain, after all, that Shakspeare
might not have been a reformer in our times. One thing is quite certain,
that he would have said very shrewd things about all the matters that
move the world now, as he certainly did about all matters that he was
cognizant of in his own day.

It was a little before noon when we drove into Stratford, by which time,
with our usual fatality in visiting poetic shrines, the day had melted
off into a kind of drizzling mist, strongly suggestive of a downright
rain. It is a common trick these English days have; the weather here
seems to be possessed of a water spirit. This constant drizzle is good
for ivies, and hawthorns, and ladies' complexions, as whoever travels
here will observe, but it certainly is very bad for tourists.

This Stratford is a small town, of between three and four thousand
inhabitants, and has in it a good many quaint old houses, and is
characterized (so I thought) by an air of respectable, stand-still, and
meditative repose, which, I am afraid, will entirely give way before the
railroad demon, for I understand that it is soon to be connected by the
Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton line with all parts of the kingdom.
Just think of that black little screeching imp rushing through these
fields which have inspired so many fancies; how every thing poetical
will fly before it! Think of such sweet snatches as these set to the
tune of a railroad whistle:--

"Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins to rise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies.

And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes,
With everything that pretty bid
My lady sweet to rise."

And a