were crossed two ancient halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under Leicester in the Low Countries; and elsewhere on the walls were displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmates of the hospital may have levelled against the French.  Another ornament of the mantel-piece was a square of silken needlework or embroidery, faded nearly white, but dimly representing that wearisome Bear and Ragged Staff, which we should hardly look twice at, only that it was wrought by the fair fingers of poor Amy Robsart, and beautifully framed in oak from Kenilworth Castle at the expense of a Mr. Conner, a countryman of our own.  Certainly, no Englishman would be capable of this little bit of enthusiasm.  Finally, the kitchen-firelight glistens on a splendid display of copper flagons, all of generous capacity, and one of them about as big as a half-barrel; the smaller vessels contain the customary allowance of ale, and the larger one is filled with that foaming liquor on four festive occasions of the year, and emptied amain by the jolly brotherhood.  I should be glad to see them do it; but it would be an exploit fitter for Queen Elizabeth’s age than these degenerate times.

The kitchen is the social hall of the twelve brethren.  In the day-time, they bring their little messes to be cooked here, and eat them in their own parlors; but after a certain hour, the great hearth is cleared and swept, and the old men assemble round its blaze, each with his tankard and his pipe, and hold high converse through the evening.  If the Master be a fit man for his office, methinks he will sometimes sit down sociably among them; for there is an elbow-chair by the fireside which it would not demean his dignity to fill, since it was occupied by King James at the great festival of nearly three centuries ago.  A sip of the ale and a whiff of the tobacco-pipe would put him in friendly relations with his venerable household; and then we can fancy him instructing them by pithy apothegms and religious texts which were first uttered here by some Catholic priest and have impregnated the atmosphere ever since.  If a joke goes round, it shall be of an elder coinage than Joe Miller’s, as old as Lord Bacon’s collection, or as the jest-book that Master Slender asked for when he lacked small-talk for sweet Anne Page.  No news shall be spoken of, later than the drifting ashore, on the northern coast, of sonic stern-post or figure-head, a barnacled fragment of one of the great galleons of the Spanish Armada.  What a tremor would pass through the antique group, if a damp newspaper should suddenly be spread to dry before the fire!  They would feel as if either that printed sheet or they themselves must be an unreality.  What a mysterious awe, if the shriek of the railway-train, as it reaches the Warwick station, should ever so faintly invade their ears!  Movement of any kind seems inconsistent with the stability of such an institution.  Nevertheless, I trust that the ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind of dream for an American to find his way thither, and behold a piece of the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart, and think of its arched door-way as a spell-guarded entrance which will never be accessible or visible to him any more.