Note (return) — NOTES OF A READER.

Every body knows the delightful romance of Kenilworth,—a tragedy, of which the dramatis personae are the parties themselves, called up from their graves by the novelist magician. Students who attend St. Mary's Church, Oxford, still look out for the flat stone which covers the dust and bones of poor Amy, and could any sculptured effigies supply the place of the whole historical picture, then imagined in the mind's eye? More than once attracted by the old ballad,1 we have, when undergraduates, walked to the "lonely towers of Cumnor Hall," fancied that we saw her struggle, and heard her screams, when she was thrown over the staircase (the traditional mode of her assassination,) and wondered how any man could have the heart to murder a simple lovesick pretty girl. Even now, in sorrow and in sadness, we read this account:—