udy, after finishing some chosen
paper for the _Spectator_. This memento of a great man, was the work of
the British public. Such a mark of national respect was but justice to
one who has contributed more to purify and raise the standard of English
literature, than any man of his day. We next visited the other end of
the same transept, near the northern door. Here lie Mansfield, Chatham,
Fox, the second William Pitt, Grattan, Wilberforce, and a few other
statesmen. But, above all, is the stately monument to the Earl of
Chatham. In no other place so small, do so many great men lie together.
To these men, whose graves strangers from all parts of the world wish to
view, the British public are in a great measure indebted for England's
fame. The high pre-eminence which England has so long enjoyed and
maintained in the scale of empire, has constantly been the boast and
pride of the English people. The warm panegyrics that have been lavished
on her constitution and laws--the songs chaunted to celebrate her
glory--the lustre of her arms, as the glowing theme of her warriors--the
thunder of her artillery in proclaiming her moral prowess, her flag
being unfurled to every breeze and ocean, rolling to her shores the
tribute of a thousand realms--show England to be the greatest nation in
the world, and speak volumes for the great departed, as well as for
those of the living present. One requires no company, no amusements, no
books in such a place as this. Time and death have placed within those
walls sufficient to occupy the mind, if one should stay here a week.

On my return, I spent an hour very pleasantly in the National Academy,
in the same building as the National Gallery. Many of the paintings here
are of a fine order. Oliver Cromwell looking upon the headless corpse of
King Charles I., appeared to draw the greatest number of spectators. A
scene from "As You Like it," was one of the best executed pieces we saw.
This was "Rosalind, Celia, and Orlando." The artist did himself and the
subject great credit. Kemble, in Hamlet, with that ever memorable skull
in his hand, was one of the pieces which we viewed with no little
interest. It is strange that Hamlet is always represented as a thin,
lean man, when the Hamlet of Shakspere was a fat, John Bull-kind of a
man. But the best piece in the Gallery was "Dante meditating the episode
of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, S'Inferno, Canto V." Our
first interest for the great Italia