wants; and we felt, while looking round us from the ruined tower, that no fitter place could have been chosen for the noble festivities and solemn tragedies. which have given to this castle such world-wide renown. We could have lingered for hours, unnoticing the flight of time, in weaving together its history, its romance, and its poetry; and left the "ruin hoary" with "lingering steps and slow," and very reluctantly turned our faces towards Coventry.

gorse

The five miles from Kenilworth to Coventry is a splendid one for ramblers. It is full of variety. Now rich corn-fields, in which, when we passed them, the harvesters were busy in their golden work; the sweet grazing land with groups of sheep and cows quietly taking the "good the gods provide them;" the occasional woods; and now a wild heath, covered with and heather, attracts our notice and causes us to pause. This heath was a great temptation. We could hardly keep down our excited and heathloving spirit. It was a task indeed to walk straight on, going neither to the right nor the left. Far, far away on either hand this common stretched before our longing eyes. It was of no avail. Sighs were but empty wind; yearnings but a waste of heart-love; the spirit of our desires had to be checked; inexorable time would not pause, and the train had to be met. So on we walked, straining our eyes to the utmost, to get as much of the wild country under them as possible. Some day we shall visit that heath. Its spirit has haunted us ever since, and haunts us yet; and in our busy, plodding, industrious, and smoky

town, we often fancy those far-away stretching ferns, glorious to look on, those splendid gorse bushes, that matchless heather; we still hear the wild enamoured wind making sweet music with the grateful stems and leaves, which, like so many Æolian harps, are hung out to catch its faintest murmur and return its sweetness in notes a thousand-fold more delicious, more entrancing, more musical. We shall ramble over that heath, and taste its beauties yet. And when there, we shall not fail to recall the delights of the day on which we first saw it, after having crammed the hours with joy in a ramble over the ruins of Kenilworth Castle.

125

NASEBY AND ITS FIGHT.

On the 14th of June, 1645, was fought the "great and decisive" battle of Naseby; and on the 14th of June, 1856, its two-hundred-and-eleventh anniversary, we made our pilgrimage to the scene of this immortal action.

Naseby is in almost the centre of England; and gentle dulness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes derives it from Navel; Naseby, quasi Navelsby, from being, &c. :" so says Carlyle. Whatever may be the etymology of the name, its situation is clearly one of the most central in the kingdom. It stands on the north-western borders of Northamptonshire, about six miles from Market-Harborough, and some sixteen from Northampton, Kettering, Rugby, Lutterworth, and Daventry. Although we might have made our starting-place Crick, which is only some six miles distant, we chose Rugby, because of the superior walks which that course affords. The day before we set out on our pilgrimage had been one of incessant rain, but the morning was fair and encouraging. We left Rugby at nine o'clock, and passed slowly through the pleasant places known as Clifton, Lilburne, and Yelvertoft. We lingered a short time at each of these resting-places, and saw what little of interest they had to show. Between Clifton and Lilburne you cross

the great Roman road, the straightness and perfection of which still remain a noble eulogy on the energy and engineering skill of the conquerors of the world.

The hamlet of Naseby is a straggling place of some eight hundred inhabitants, and is only famous for two things, the great battle which was fought in its neighbouring fields, and for containing the source of the river Avon. We trod its streets with feelings of reverence, as we thought of the great work which had been done on its soil; and as we neared the church, we compared the present peaceable visit to a scene where was achieved one of the noblest deeds of English valour, and English freedom, with that which our forefathers paid it two centuries before. The church is well situated, is surrounded by some fine old chestnut trees, and is peculiarly distinguished by its truncated spire. It looks as if some giant mower had cut away about half of it with an enormous scythe,-and as if some fatal spell had ever afterwards prevented its being repaired. On the top of this half-spire is placed a "hollow copper ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time;" and is capable, we were told, of holding sixty gallons of ale,

-or any other liquor with which you may be disposed to fill it. By the help of five ladders we ascended to the top of the tower; groping up among its bells, and creeping out through a small tower-window. The view obtained was one of the finest we ever saw, surpassing those which we have had on fine days from the tops of Snowdon, Cader Idris, and Arran. For miles on miles the horizon extended around us.

From this height the spires of thirty-nine churches may be counted, whose distances from each other vary from one to twenty-five miles. The objects, however, which attracted our attention most, were the battlefield, and the monument erected in its celebration. The plain on which the two armies met in the shock of death is somewhat hidden from the eye, by the hill on which the Parliament's forces were placed; but we could get a tolerably correct bird's-eye view of the field, and were more than rewarded for the trouble of the strain given to delicate nerves by the somewhat treacherous and unpleasant means of ascent to this noble view. We were sincerely glad that we adventured it.

Before going to the battle-field there are two objects of interest which have claims on every visitor, -the source of the Avon, and the monument already mentioned. The source of this river, so dear to the lovers of poetry, of pleasant rambles, of beautiful scenery, and immortalized as "Shakspere's Avon," is a small well-like spring in a garden close by the church. We hung about this spring a long time, and it was not without some feeling of the pre-ordained harmony of things that we rejoiced in the fact that Shakspere's river should have its rise in a spot glorified for ever by one of the most heroic of "freedom's fights." The philosophy of Leibnitz had in us for the time thorough and devoted believers; and we should have held it heresy in any one who should have been bold enough to have expressed his belief that the battle could, under any circumstances, have been fought elsewhere. No; it was pre-ordained that the battle of Naseby