very modest dimensions,
and the eaves so low that I could touch them with my walking-stick. We
looked into the windows, and beheld the dim and quiet interior, a narrow
space, but venerable with the consecration of many centuries, and
keeping its sanctity as entire and inviolate as that of a vast
cathedral. The nave was divided from the side aisles of the church by
pointed arches resting on very sturdy pillars: it was good to see how
solemnly they held themselves to their age-long task of supporting that
lowly roof. There was a small organ, suited in size to the vaulted
hollow, which it weekly filled with religious sound. On the opposite
wall of the church, between two windows, was a mural tablet of white
marble, with an inscription in black letters,--the only such memorial
that I could discern, although many dead people doubtless lay beneath
the floor, and had paved it with their ancient tombstones, as is
customary in old English churches. There were no modern painted windows,
flaring with raw colors, nor other gorgeous adornments, such as the
present taste for medieval restoration often patches upon the decorous
simplicity of the gray village-church. It is probably the
worshipping-place of no more distinguished a congregation than the
farmers and peasantry who inhabit the houses and cottages which I have
just described. Had the lord of the manor been one of the parishioners,
there would have been an eminent pew near the chancel, walled high
about, curtained, and softly cushioned, warmed by a fireplace of its
own, and distinguished by hereditary tablets and escutcheons on the
inclosed stone pillar.

A well-trodden path led across the church-yard, and the gate being on
the latch, we entered, and walked round among the graves and monuments.
The latter were chiefly head-stones, none of which were very old, so far
as was discoverable by the dates; some, indeed, in so ancient a
cemetery, were disagreeably new, with inscriptions glittering like
sunshine, in gold letters. The ground must have been dug over and over
again, innumerable times, until the soil is made up of what was once
human clay, out of which have sprung successive crops of gravestones,
that flourish their allotted time, and disappear, like the weeds and
flowers in their briefer period. The English climate is very unfavorable
to the endurance of memorials in the open air. Twenty years of it
suffice to give as much antiquity of aspect, whether to tombstone or
e