tive Normandy, or points you to the
humble chamber or the peaceful valley where 'gorgeous Tragedy in sceptred
pall' first swept before the eyes of his dawning fancy? No; if you would
recall the memory of Corneille through the medium of places familiar with
his presence when living, you must repair to the Hotel de Rambouillet, in
one of the most noisy and unpoetic quarters of Paris.

Now with respect to England, all this is as nearly as possible reversed.
The political influences spoken of before, operating no doubt with others
of which it is unnecessary to speak, have acted dispersively on the sum of
national reputations, and equitably allotted to almost every part of the
fair island some _parcenary_ share of fame, some hallowing memory, like a
household genius, to preside over and endear its localities. London has
not, like Paris, proved itself in this the insatiate Saturn of the
national offspring. If you inquire, for instance, for memorials of the
life and presence of Shakspeare, it is not probable, as in the case of
Corneille, that you will be referred to the crowded streets and squares of
the metropolis, though his active life was passed and his unrivalled fame
achieved there; but far away to the west, where Nature received him on her
flowery lap, beside his own Avon; in the shades where his genius first
grew familiar with the shapes of beauty, sublimity, and terror, and
whither he retired at last 'to husband out life's taper' amid the common
charities of home; to this spot it is that you must repair, if you would
drink freshly of that well-spring of associations which hallows the
footsteps of England's immortal dramatist. In like manner, one might say,
that it is not in the sumptuous galleries of Holland House, neighbored by
the crowds and tumult of the parks, that the admirer of Addison would find
it most easy to call up the image of the sage; but in that quiet meadow
which he used to frequent on the banks of the Cheswell, when evening is
gathering on the tops of the lofty elms and around the gray towers of
Magdalen, how pleasing and unforced the effort which recalls him to our
imaginations!

And so too of others. Gray has not made the country church-yard immortal
in song alone, but has laid himself to rest with all the memories of that
imperishable strain around him, beneath as green a sod as wraps the head
of the humblest peasant for whom his muse implored 'the passing tribute of
a sigh.' The pensive shade of C