, in Rubens, Shakspeare, and Mozart, has a quality to
me inexpressibly admirable and lovable. We may say, it is true, that
there is no moral excellence in it; but none the less do we admire it.
God has made us so that we cannot help loving it; our souls go forth to
it with an infinite longing, nor can that longing be condemned. That
mystic quality that exists in these souls is a glimpse and intimation of
what exists in Him in full perfection. If we remember this we shall not
lose ourselves in admiration of worldly genius, but be led by it to a
better understanding of what He is, of whom all the glories of poetry
and art are but symbols and shadows.

LETTER XI.

DEAR H.:--

From Stratford we drove to Warwick, (or "Warrick," as they call it
here.) This town stands on a rocky hill on the banks of the Avon, and is
quite a considerable place, for it returns two members to Parliament,
and has upwards of ten thousand inhabitants; and also has some famous
manufactories of wool combing and spinning. But what we came to see was
the castle. We drove up to the Warwick Arms, which is the principal
hotel in the place; and, finding that we were within the hours appointed
for exhibition, we went immediately.

With my head in a kind of historical mist, full of images of York and
Lancaster, and Red and White Roses, and Warwick the king maker, I looked
up to the towers and battlements of the old castle. We went in through a
passage way cut in solid rock, about twenty feet deep, and I should
think fifty long. These walls were entirely covered with ivy, hanging
down like green streamers; gentle and peaceable pennons these are,
waving and whispering that the old war times are gone.

At the end of this passage there is a drawbridge over what was formerly
the moat, but which is now grassed and planted with shrubbery. Up over
our heads we saw the great iron teeth of the portcullis. A rusty old
giant it seemed up there, like Pope and Pagan in Pilgrim's Progress,
finding no scope for himself in these peaceable times.

When we came fairly into the court yard of the castle, a scene of
magnificent beauty opened before us. I cannot describe it minutely. The
principal features are the battlements, towers, and turrets of the old
feudal castle, encompassed by grounds on which has been expended all
that princely art of landscape gardening for which England is
famous--leafy thickets, magnificent trees, openings, and vistas of
verdure, and w