luminaries have become conspicuous by their obscurity in the midst of that illustrious company.  On the whole, the Abbey produces a distinct sense of being overcrowded.  It appears too much like a lapidary’s store-room.  Look up at the lofty roof, which we willingly pardon for shutting out the heaven above us,—­at least in an average London day; look down at the floor and think of what precious relics it covers; but do not look around you with the hope of getting any clear, concentrated, satisfying effect from this great museum of gigantic funereal bricabrac.  Pardon me, shades of the mighty dead!  I had something of this feeling, but at another hour I might perhaps be overcome by emotion, and weep, as my fellow-countryman did at the grave of the earliest of his ancestors.  I should love myself better in that aspect than I do in this coldblooded criticism; but it suggested itself, and as no flattery can soothe, so no censure can wound, “the dull, cold ear of death.”

Of course we saw all the sights of the Abbey in a hurried way, yet with such a guide and expositor as Archdeacon Farrar our two hours’ visit was worth a whole day with an undiscriminating verger, who recites his lesson by rote, and takes the life out of the little mob that follows him round by emphasizing the details of his lesson, until “Patience on a monument” seems to the sufferer, who knows what he wants and what he does not want, the nearest emblem of himself he can think of.  Amidst all the imposing recollections of the ancient edifice, one impressed me in the inverse ratio of its importance.  The Archdeacon pointed out the little holes in the stones, in one place, where the boys of the choir used to play marbles, before America was discovered, probably,—­ centuries before, it may be.  It is a strangely impressive glimpse of a living past, like the graffiti of Pompeii.  I find it is often the accident rather than the essential which fixes my attention and takes hold of my memory.  This is a tendency of which I suppose I ought to be ashamed, if we have any right to be ashamed of those idiosyncrasies which are ordered for us.  It is the same tendency which often leads us to prefer the picturesque to the beautiful.  Mr. Gilpin liked the donkey in a forest landscape better than the horse.  A touch of imperfection interferes with the beauty of an object and lowers its level to that of the picturesque.  The accident of the holes in the stone of the noble building, for the boys to play marbles with, makes me a boy again and at home with them, after looking with awe upon the statue of Newton, and turning with a shudder from the ghastly monument of Mrs. Nightingale.