classic soil of Greece? where the eye cannot turn, or the foot move to a place which is not eternalized by its associations: where the waters will not remind you of Castalian founts; the flowers of Parnassian wreaths; the eminences of the Phocian hills; and where the air of all breathes inspiration. To a mind prone to contemplation, a walk through Athens must awaken the most exquisite reveries. Although "fallen from its high estate," there is enough in the tottering ruins which yet remain to recall the history of its ancient grandeur: the shattered Acropolis and the Pyraeus tell the tale of other days, in language at once pathetic and intelligible—

The mind must be distracted with the multiplicity of its recollections; all that is great or good or glorious in our nature, must be identified with some forcible remembrance; and heroes, poets, statesmen, patriots, legislators, philosophers, and the historical events connected with their names, must congregate before us in sublime and touching similitude. "Alas, poor country!"—On those shores the monuments of science and of art, which drew admirers from the remotest corners of the earth, are now demolished by the savage and cowardly slaves of a despot, who is himself a slave; the eloquence which swayed the passions of applauding multitudes is dumb; the pencil of Appelles that breathed over the canvass, and the chisel of Praxiteles that gave life and animation to shapeless blocks, are now no more; and the all-powerful lyre, whose sweeping chords would rouse the soul to rage or melt it into pity, is now, and perhaps FOR EVER, mute and unstrung!

These observations, which you may think too enthusiastic, were elicited by the perusal of an article in your No. 388, entitled "A Desultory Chapter on Localities." Your Correspondent states, that "it is needless to travel to foreign countries in search of localities. In our own metropolis and its environs a diligent inquirer will find them at every step." The following Collection will serve to confirm the truth of his statement, and should you deem it worthy "a local habitation" in your excellent journal, I doubt not it will prove interesting, if not quite new to many of your readers. ¹

C.E.

"In St. Giles' Church lie Chapman, the earliest and best translator of Homer; and Andrew Marvell, the wit and patriot, whose poverty Charles II. could not bribe.—Who would suppose that the Borough was the most classical ground in the metropolis? And yet it is undoubtedly so. The Globe Theatre was there, of which Shakspeare himself was a proprietor, and for which he wrote his plays. Globe-lane, in which it stood, is still extant, we believe, under that name. It is probable that he lived near it: it is certain that he must have been much there. It is also certain that on the Borough side of the river, then and still called the Bank-side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some say, with other participations more remarkable, lived Beaumont and Fletcher. In the Borough, also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger in one grave; in the same church, under a monument and effigy, lies Chaucer's contemporary, Gower; and from an inn in the Borough, the existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed out by a picture and inscription, Chaucer set out his pilgrims and himself on their famous road to Canterbury.

"To return over the water, who would expect any thing poetical from East Smithfield? Yet there was born the most poetical even of poets, Spenser. Pope was born within the sound of Bowbell, in a street no less anti-poetical than Lombard-street. So was Gray, in Cornhill. So was Milton, in Bread-street, Cheapside. The presence of the same great poet and patriot has given happy memories to many parts of the metropolis. He lived in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street; in Alders-gate-street, in Jewin-street, in Barbican, in Bartholomew-close; in Holborn, looking back to Lincoln's Inn Fields; in Holborn, near Red-lion-square; in Scotland-yard; in a house looking to St. James' Park, now belonging to an eminent writer on legislation, and lately occupied by a celebrated critic and metaphysician; and he died in Artillery-walk, Bunhill-fields; and was buried in St. Giles', Cripplegate.

"Ben Jonson, who was born 'in Hartshorne-lane, near Charing-cross,' was at one time 'master' of a theatre in Barbican. He appears also to have visited a tavern called the Sun and Moon, in Aldersgate-street; and is known to have frequented with Beaumont and others, the famous one called the Mermaid, which was in Cornhill.

"The other celebrated resort of the great wits of that time was the Devil Tavern, in Fleet-street, close to Temple-bar. Ben Jonson lived also in Bartholomew-close, where Milton afterwards lived. It was in the passage from the cloisters of Christ's Hospital into St. Bartholomew's. Aubrey gives it as a common opinion, that at the time when Jonson's father-in-law made him help him in his business of bricklayer, he worked with his own hands upon the Lincoln's Inn garden wall, which looks upon Chancery-lane, and which seems old enough to have some of his illustrious brick and mortar still remaining.

"Under the cloisters in Christ's Hospital (which stand in the heart of the city unknown to most persons, like a house kept invisible for young and learned eyes) lie buried a multitude of persons of all ranks; for it was once a monastery of Gray Friars. Among them is John of Bourbon, one of the prisoners taken at the battle of Agincourt. Here also lies Thomas Burdet, ancestor of the present Sir Francis, who was put to death in the reign of Edward IV., for wishing the horns of a favourite white stag, which the King had killed, in the body of the person who advised him to do it. And here too (a sufficing contrast) lies Isabella, wife of Edward II.

"Her 'mate's' heart was buried with her, and placed upon her bosom! a thing that looks like the fantastic incoherence of a dream. It is well we did not know of her presence when at school; or after reading one of Shakspeare's tragedies, we should have run twice as fast round the cloisters at night time, as we used. Camden, 'the nourrice of antiquitie,' received part of his education in this school; and here also, not to mention a variety of others known in the literary world, were bred two of the most powerful and deep-spirited writers of the present day; whose visits to the cloisters we well remember.

"In a palace on the site of Hatton-garden, died John of Gaunt. Brook House, at the corner of the street of that name in Holborn, was the residence of the celebrated Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brook, the 'friend of Sir Philip Sydney.' In the same street, died, by a voluntary death, of poison, that extraordinary person, Thomas Chatterton—-

He was buried in the workhouse in Shoe-lane; a circumstance, at which one can hardly help feeling a movement of indignation. Yet what could beadles and parish officers know about such a being? No more than Horace Walpole. In Gray's Inn, lived, and in Gray's Inn Garden meditated, Lord Bacon. In Southampton-row, Holborn, Cowper was a fellow-clerk to an attorney with the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow. At the Fleet-street corner of Chancery-lane, Cowley, we believe, was born. In Salisbury-court, Fleet-street, was the house of Thomas Sackville, first Earl of