The Voyage Author:Washington Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Can centre in a little quiet nest All that desire would fly for through the earth ; That can, the world eluding, be itself A world enjoyed ; that wants ... more »no witnesses But its own sharers, and approving Heaven ; That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft, Smiles, though 't is looking only at the sky. THE COUNTRY CHURCH. A gentleman! What, o' the woolpack ? or the sugar-chest ? Or lists of velvet ? which is 't, pound, or yard, You vend your gentry by ? Beooar's BusH.1 There are few places more favorable to the study of character than an English country church. I was once passing a few weeks at the seat of a friend, who resided in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity which give such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and contained, within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated dust of many noble generations. The interior walls were encrusted with monuments of every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts of the church were tombs of knights, and high-born dames, of gorgeous workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble.On every side, the eye was struck with some instance of aspiring mortality; some haughty memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust, in this temple of the most humble of all religions. 1 A comedy by John Fletcher (1579-1625), dramatist. It depicts the woodland life of beggars. The congregation was composed of the neighboring people of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded prayer- books, and decorated with thei...« less