e that
looks down on the street. It presents a venerable specimen of the
timber-and-plaster style of building; the front rises into many gables,
the windows mostly open on hinges; the whole affair looks very old, but
the state of repair is perfect.

On a bench, enjoying the sunshine, and looking into the street, a few
old men are generally to be seen, wrapped in old-fashioned cloaks and
wearing the identical silver badges which the Earl of Leicester gave to
the twelve original Brethren of Leicester's Hospital--a community which
exists to-day under the modes established for it in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. This sudden cropping-up of an apparently dead and buried
state of society produces a picturesque effect.

The charm of an English scene consists in the rich verdure of the
fields, in the stately wayside trees, and in the old and high
cultivation that has humanised the very sods. To an American there is a
kind of sanctity even in an English turnip-field.

After my first visit to Leamington, I went to Lichfield to see its
beautiful cathedral, and because it was the birthplace of Dr. Johnson,
with whose sturdy English character I became acquainted through the good
offices of Mr. Boswell. As a man, a talker, and a humorist, I knew and
loved him. I might, indeed, have had a wiser friend; the atmosphere in
which he breathed was dense, and he meddled only with the surface of
life. But then, how English!

I know not what rank the cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister
edifices. To my uninstructed vision it seemed the object best worth
gazing at in the whole world.

Seeking for Johnson's birthplace, I found a tall and thin house, with a
roof rising steep and high. In a corner-room of the basement, where old
Michael Johnson may have sold books, is now what we should call a
dry-goods store. I could get no admittance, and had to console myself
with a sight of the marble figure sitting in the middle of the Square
with his face turned towards the house. A bas-relief on the pedestal
shows Johnson doing penance in the market-place of Uttoxeter for an act
of disobedience to his father, committed fifty years before.

The next day I went to Uttoxeter on a sentimental pilgrimage to see the
very spot where Johnson had stood. How strange it is that tradition
should not have kept in mind the place! How shameful that there should
be no local memorial of this incident, as beautiful and touching a
passage as can be cited out of