_New Zealander and Westminster Bridge_ (Vol. ix., p. 74.).--Before I saw
the thought in Walpole's letter to Sir H. Mann, quoted in "N. & Q.," I
ventured to suppose that Mrs. Barbauld's noble poem, _Eighteen Hundred and
Eleven_, might have suggested Mr. Macaulay's well-known passage. The
following extracts extracts describe the wanderings of those who--
"With duteous zeal, their pilgrimage shall take,
From the blue mountains on Ontario's lake,
With fond adoring steps to press the sod,
By statesmen, sages, poets, heroes, trod."
"Pensive and thoughtful shall the wanderers greet
Each splendid square, and still untrodden street;
Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time,
The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb,
Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round,
By scatter'd hamlets trace its ancient bound,
And choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey,
Through reeds and sedge pursue his idle way.
. . . . . .
Oft shall the strangers turn their eager feet,
The rich remains of ancient art to greet,
The pictured walls with critic eye explore,
And Reynolds be what Raphael was before,
On spoils from every clime their eyes shall gaze,
Egyptian granites and the Etruscan vase;
And when, 'midst fallen London, they survey
The stone where Alexander's ashes lay,
Shall own with humble pride the lesson just,
By Time's slow finger written in the dust."