THE YOUTHS' MAGAZINE; OR, EVANGELICAL MISCELLANY. SEPTEMBER, 1852. LORD WINCHELSEA'S WALK. THERE are some passages in every one's life, which he never forgets. We need not go into the philosophy of the matter, but so it is. They are linked with associations that, somehow or other, find deep and firm anchorage in the heart, and afford us many sweet and comfortable reminiscences in after days. Perhaps, the circumstances connected with them were anything but pleasurable at the time, and yet they afford unmingled delight, when looked at through the vista of by-gone years. Either the joyous only is immortal, or the Memory has the talismanic power of transmuting the painful into matter for complacent and cheerful contemplation. Gloomy thoughts, a vexed spirit, a hopelessly wet day, in the dreariest of all dreary seasons-a long and weary walk over desolate roads that crunched beneath the tread, and more desolate moors on which the grey sky seemed to have come down to roost-are elements of discomfort, such as man rarely meets with; and yet we are cheered at the remembrance of a combination of casualties into which all these grievances entered, as some eight or ten months since, we wandered over Salisbury Plain, homeless and shelterless. ・ But we must not anticipate. The previous day had been glorious beyond all precedent. We had left Salisbury early in the afternoon, with the intention of passing the night at Amesbury, that in the morning we might spend a few hours at Stonehenge. Choosing the many-tinted valley of the Avon in preference to the bald, flint-strown downs, we passed in succession, through the villages of Stratford and the three Woodfords, wondering, by the time we reached the last, that we were not at our journey's end-so long we found the miles in this untravelled district. There is still something of the mythic clinging around such old British wonders as Stonehenge. No one speaks of them with certainty; every one with reserve and awe. They mystify the very country in which they stand. We were not, therefore, much surprised that we could not learn our relative whereabout. Some told us-presuming on a long local residence-that there might be twelve miles between Salisbury and Stonehenge; some, sixteen; and others, eight or nine! For ourselves, we did not live in Cloudland, and were not at the mercy of these rustics. We had with us our ordnance map; and our enquiries had reference less to the real position of affairs, than to the state of knowledge in these rude parts. "Your miles seem to be very long about here?" said we to an old shepherd, whom we met at Upper Woodford. 66 Yees, yees," he answered; "so they be: they was altered a few years ago." We toiled on. A turn in the road, shadowed by old trees, and surrounded by park-like meadows, brought us in sight of Lake House, complacently reposing in the cool twilight, corruscated by the flaming blossoms of the geranium, and overlooking a sweet and tranquil landscape. We had entered one of the prettiest villages in Wiltshire, and were curious to know its name. We asked a sun-bronzed child or two; but could only elicit a short, quick monosyllable in reply, very like the inquisitive note of an aggrieved jackdaw; so we gave it up. It was a sweet place; and still floats before us like a dream-wood, water, dell, and dingle, all strangely blended in a fairy-like picture. Foot-sore and weary, we passed through little Amesbury, a model of clipped and cropped rusticity-very neat and quiet. Another mile, and the evening wind brought us the welcome sound of gushing waters, as we entered the pretty town of Amesbury. The night was close and cloudy, and a few drops of rain made the shelter of a friendly roof more than usually desirable. Tea, supper, bed, breakfast, waiter, chambermaid, and boots, were the next items in this eventful history." After a restless night, we woke up to a deplorably wet morning. The whole sky had donned its livery of scotch grey. “Without a break, without a bound," it wrapped the firmament around. We threw open our chamber window. The air had that soft, warm, grateful feel, that almost always indicates a hopelessly pouring day. We thrust out our hands, and persuaded ourselves that it was nothing-a mere mist which would only make the turf more fragrant, and bathe in a mystic, gleamy light, the old pillars of Stonehenge. It would not do our sleeve was fairly drunk with the mountain dew; and we had no alleviation but to tell our host that it would probably be a fine day, after all. He hoped so, and we took our leave. For years, it had been a passion with us to see Stonehenge! and it was not a little that could divert us from our purpose. Some rainy days are only passively disagreeable: you go through them; you get wet, and that is all. But this memorable morning was aggressively officious. You climbed a bank to enlarge your horizon, and were blown down again. You crouched under its lee, and the wind seemed to slue round, on purpose to send the blinding rain into your face. You took out your handkerchief, and the effort lifted off your your note-book fluttering over hedge and ditch. to jot down a memorandum, and your pencil quisitively on the wrong side of your paper. Nothing could be done, but resolutely to march on, with closely buttoned coat, and damp, red, gloveless hands. hat, and sent You attempted peeped out in But even in such a walk as this, the philosophic mind finds ample solace. Our thoughts were with the past-our eyes upon the future. We had never seen Stonehenge, and our anxiety was all alive to catch the first view of it. Our mind was sorely tried and troubled with other matters just thenbut perhaps, this only served to harmonize it with the gloom around us, and the awful page of Britain's history we were about to read in the charmed circle of the Giant's Dance. A dark clump, not unlike a group of trees-a series of gigantic mounds, and a huge leaning stone, now loomed before us; the downs on either hand rolling away like the waves after a coarse night, at sea. It was Stonehenge, surrounded by its many barrows. The first view was striking; but it was the wide, wild, wondrous plain, billowy with the burial places of those old Britons, rather than the stones themselves, that filled our hearts with awe and wonderment. We had come to make a deliberate survey of the place, and we stood still, not knowing what to do for some time. Not a soul was within sight. The wind, the rain, the lowering clouds, the huge stones, shadowless, grey, without a salient point, and gloomy as the grave itself, made up a picture of veriest desolation. It would have been easy to "think down hours," in moody meditation, but we were anxious to register facts. Placing our hat beneath the fallen altar-stone, and tying on our travelling cap, we essayed a sketch of the bowing stonevery like a long-bearded Druid, making his obeisance towards the fallen temple, as if to intimate to those who worshipped there, the propriety of drawing near with reverence. "I am inclined," says Dr. Stukeley, "to think that a part of the religious worship in old patriarchal times, consisted in a solemn adoration, or three silent bowings, the first bowing might be performed at this stone.” No hint could be more palpable ; for it requires scarcely any effort of the imagination to suppose this crwm lech, seen at some little distance, a white-robed, white-bearded, Bedoween, leaning in the act of worship, on some visionary staff. Authors, and antiquarians especially, are always looked upon as privileged. Little men of fact, even, follow innocently in their wake, and put up with all their errors. They take their thinkings and their writings on trust, and are willingly misled. It is astonishing how a little personal research cures this reliance. We know already more of Stonehenge, than half the theorists who have written volumes on it. Standing in the shelter of the sloping stone, we have seen it through the haze of a pitiless, driving shower, and with the wind shrieking round its grim and stalwart pillars. Before, we had only known it through the media of prints and printing. Its outline had |