ne were peopled with shadows; as if indistinct forms were
beckoning along its lonely aisles, or waiting the stranger's approach in
its deep and vaulted recesses. The building is not always of great extent,
(this of Penshurst is not so,) but the impression seems to be the result
not more of the solemn style of the building and its accessories, than of
the admirable harmony which they preserve with the recollections and
associations of all around them. Hence it may well be doubted whether, if
we could transport one of these time-honored structures to our own land,
with all its architectural peculiarities, it would have for us exactly the
meaning or the charms which it possesses at home. Our career is as yet too
brief, our land too full of the sounds of enterprise and excitement; our
interest lies too largely and exclusively in the present and the future.
The dawning light and the keen air of morning (soevus equis oriens
anhelis) are not, as represented by the poets, more uncongenial to the
spectral shapes of night, than the recent origin and energetic action of
our rising country to the dim traditions and mouldering memories which
have grown incorporate with the weather-stains and damps of these hoary
sanctuaries. At Penshurst in particular, so complete is this harmony
between the ideal and the actual, and so strongly does it bring before us
the image of the past, that it might seem no unnatural incident of our
reverie, were the grave and reverend knight, the ancient head of the
Sydneys and patron of the church, once more to enter with his retinue from
the neighboring mansion and take his seat in the family chancel. But of
that honored name nothing remains to Penshurst except the memory, and
those fading inscriptions which inform us that they who slumber here bore
it irreproachably in life, and have long since ceased from their earthly
labors. Among these, however, we look in vain for the name of Sir Philip
Sydney. He fell in a foreign land, and his country, we are told, mourned
for him with a loud and poignant lamentation. His remains were afterward
transferred to Saint Paul's, where the ruin which fell at a later period
upon the great national temple involved also the memorial of Sir Philip
Sydney. But it matters less, since the achievements of his pen and sword
have made all places where the name of England comes, his monument, and
every heart which is alive to honor, a sanctuary for his memory.

Let us then pass on to t