Part 2 — THINGS AND THOUGHTS IN EUROPE.

LETTER I.

Passage in the Cambria.—Lord and Lady Falkland.—Captain Judkins.—Liverpool.—Manchester.—Mechanics' Institute.—"The Dial."—Peace and War.—The Working-Men of England.—Their Tribute to Sir Robert Peel.—The Royal Institute.—Statues.—Chester.—Bathing.

Ambleside, Westmoreland, 23d August, 1846.

I take the first interval of rest and stillness to be filled up by some lines for the Tribune. Only three weeks have passed since leaving New York, but I have already had nine days of wonder in England, and, having learned a good deal, suppose I may have something to tell.

As many contradictory counsels were given us with regard to going in one of the steamers in preference to a sailing vessel, I will mention here, for the benefit of those who have not yet tried one, that he must be fastidious indeed who could complain of the Cambria. The advantage of a quick passage and certainty as to the time of arrival, would, with us, have outweighed many ills; but, apart from this, we found more space than we expected and as much as we needed for a very tolerable degree of convenience in our sleeping-rooms, better ventilation than Americans in general can be persuaded to accept, general cleanliness, and good attendance. In the evening, when the wind was favorable, and the sails set, so that the vessel looked like a great winged creature darting across the apparently measureless expanse, the effect was very grand, but ah! for such a spectacle one pays too dear; I far prefer looking out upon "the blue and foaming sea" from a firm green shore.

Our ship's company numbered several pleasant members, and that desire prevailed in each to contribute to the satisfaction of all, which, if carried out through the voyage of life, would make this earth as happy as it is a lovely abode. At Halifax we took in the Governor of Nova Scotia, returning from his very unpopular administration. His lady was with, him, a daughter of William the Fourth and the celebrated Mrs. Jordan. The English on board, and the Americans, following their lead, as usual, seemed to attach much importance to her left-handed alliance with one of the dullest families that ever sat upon a throne, (and that is a bold word, too,) none to her descent from one whom Nature had endowed with her most splendid regalia,—genius that fascinated the attention of all kinds and classes of men, grace and winning qualities that no heart could resist. Was the cestus buried with her, that no sense of its pre-eminent value lingered, as far as I could perceive, in the thoughts of any except myself?

We had a foretaste of the delights of living under an aristocratical government at the Custom-House, where our baggage was detained, and we waiting for it weary hours, because of the preference given to the mass of household stuff carried back by this same Lord and Lady Falkland.

Captain Judkins of the Cambria, an able and prompt commander, is the man who insisted upon Douglass being admitted to equal rights upon his deck with the insolent slave-holders, and assumed a tone toward their assumptions, which, if the Northern States had had the firmness, good sense, and honor to use, would have had the same effect, and put our country in a very different position from that she occupies at present. He mentioned with pride that he understood the New York Herald called him "the Nigger Captain," and seemed as willing to accept the distinction as Colonel McKenney is to wear as his last title that of "the Indian's friend."

At the first sight of the famous Liverpool Docks, extending miles on each side of our landing, we felt ourselves in a slower, solider, and not on that account less truly active, state of things than at home. That impression is confirmed. There is not as we travel that rushing, tearing, and swearing, that snatching of baggage, that prodigality of shoe-leather and lungs, which attend the course of the traveller in the United States; but we do not lose our "goods," we do not miss our car. The dinner, if ordered in time, is cooked properly, and served punctually, and at the end of the day more that is permanent seems to have come of it than on the full-drive system. But more of this, and with a better grace, at a later day.

The day after our arrival we went to Manchester. There we went over the magnificent warehouse of —— Phillips, in itself a Bazaar ample to furnish provision for all the wants and fancies of thousands. In the evening we went to the Mechanics' Institute, and saw the boys and young men in their classes. I have since visited the Mechanics' Institute at Liverpool, where more than seventeen hundred pupils are received, and with more thorough educational arrangements; but the excellent spirit, the desire for growth in wisdom and enlightened benevolence, is the same in both. For a very small fee, the mechanic, clerk, or apprentice, and the women of their families, can receive various good and well-arranged instruction, not only in common branches of an English education, but in mathematics, composition, the French and German, languages, the practice and theory of the Fine Arts, and they are ardent in availing themselves of instruction in the higher branches. I found large classes, not only in architectural drawing, which may be supposed to be followed with a view to professional objects, but landscape also, and as large in German as in French. They can attend many good lectures and concerts without additional charge, for a due place is here assigned to music as to its influence on the whole mind. The large and well-furnished libraries are in constant requisition, and the books in most constant demand are not those of amusement, but of a solid and permanent interest and value. Only for the last year in Manchester, and for two in Liverpool, have these advantages been extended to girls; but now that part of the subject is looked upon as it ought to be, and begins to be treated more and more as it must and will be wherever true civilization is making its way. One of the handsomest houses in Liverpool has been purchased for the girls' school, and room and good arrangement been afforded for their work and their play. Among other things they are taught, as they ought to be in all American schools, to cut out and make dresses.

I had the pleasure of seeing quotations made from our Boston "Dial," in the address in which the Director of the Liverpool Institute, a very benevolent and intelligent man, explained to his disciples and others its objects, and which concludes thus:—

"For myself, if I be asked what my purpose is in relation to you, I would briefly reply, It is that I may help, be it ever so feebly, to train up a race of young men, who shall escape vice by rising above it; who shall love truth because it is truth, not because it brings them wealth or honor; who shall regard life as a solemn thing, involving too weighty responsibilities to be wasted in idle or frivolous pursuits; who shall recognize in their daily labors, not merely a tribute to the "hard necessity of daily bread," but a field for the development of their better nature by the discharge of duty; who shall judge in all things for themselves, bowing the knee to no sectarian or party watchwords of any kind; and who, while they think for themselves, shall feel for others, and regard their talents, their attainments, their opportunities, their possessions, as blessings held in trust for the good of their fellow-men."

I found that The Dial had been read with earnest interest by some of the best minds in these especially practical regions, that it had been welcomed as a representative of some sincere and honorable life in America, and thought the fittest to be quoted under this motto:—

Among other signs of the times we bought Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and, opening it, found extracts from the writings of our countrymen, Elihu Burritt and Charles Sumner, on the subject of Peace, occupying a leading place in the "Collect," for the month, of this little hand-book, more likely, in an era like ours, to influence the conduct of the day than would an illuminated breviary. Now that peace is secured for the present between our two countries, the spirit is not forgotten that quelled the storm. Greeted on every side with expressions of feeling about the blessings of peace, the madness and wickedness of war, that would be deemed romantic in our darker land, I have answered to the speakers, "But you are mightily pleased, and illuminate for your victories in China and Ireland, do you not?" and they, unprovoked by the taunt, would mildly reply, "We do not, but it is too true that a large part of the nation fail to bring home the true nature and bearing of those events, and apply principle to conduct with as much justice as they do in the case of a nation nearer to them by kindred and position. But we are sure that feeling is growing purer on the subject day by day, and that there will soon be a large majority against war on any occasion or for any object."

I heard a most interesting letter read from a tradesman in one of the country towns, whose daughters are self-elected instructors of the people in the way of cutting out from books and pamphlets fragments on the great subjects of the day, which they send about in packages, or paste on walls and doors. He said that one such passage, pasted on a door, he had seen read with eager interest by hundreds to whom such thoughts were, probably, quite new, and with some of whom it could scarcely fail to be as a little seed of a large harvest. Another good omen I found in written tracts by Joseph Barker, a working-man of the town of Wortley, published through his own printing-press.

How great, how imperious the need of such men, of such deeds, we felt more than ever, while compelled to turn a deaf ear to the squalid and shameless beggars of Liverpool, or talking by night in the streets of Manchester to the girls from the Mills, who were strolling bareheaded, with coarse, rude, and reckless air, through the streets, or seeing through the windows of the gin-palaces the women seated drinking, too dull to carouse. The homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of "each man's castle," for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason to believe that

Blest be those who aid, who doubt not that

Other things we saw in Liverpool,—the Royal Institute, with the statue of Roscoe by Chantrey, and in its collection from the works of the early Italian artists, and otherwise, bearing traces of that liberality and culture by which the man, happy enough to possess them, and at the same time engaged with his fellow-citizens in practical life, can do so much more to enlighten and form them, than prince or noble possibly can with far larger pecuniary means. We saw the statue of Huskisson in the Cemetery. It is fine as a portrait statue, but as a work of art wants firmness and grandeur. I say it is fine as a portrait statue, though we were told it is not like the original; but it is a good conception of an individuality which might exist, if it does not yet. It is by Gibson, who received his early education in Liverpool. I saw there, too, the body of an infant borne to the grave by women; for it is a beautiful custom, here, that those who have fulfilled all other tender offices to the little being should hold to it the same relation to the very last.

From Liverpool we went to Chester, one of the oldest cities in England, a Roman station once, and abode of the "Twentieth Legion," "the Victorious." Tiles bearing this inscription, heads of Jupiter, and other marks of their occupation, have, not long ago, been detected beneath the sod. The town also bears the marks of Welsh invasion and domestic struggles. The shape of a cross in which it is laid out, its walls and towers, its four arched gateways, its ramparts and ruined, towers, mantled with ivy, its old houses with Biblical inscriptions, its cathedral,—in which tall trees have grown up amid the arches, a fresh garden-plot, with flowers, bright green and red, taken place of the altar, and a crowd of revelling swallows supplanted the sallow choirs of a former priesthood,—present a tout-ensemble highly romantic in itself, and charming, indeed, to Transatlantic eyes. Yet not to all eyes would it have had charms, for one American traveller, our companion on the voyage, gravely assured us that we should find the "castles and that sort of thing all humbug," and that, if we wished to enjoy them, it would "be best to sit at home and read some handsome work on the subject."

At the hotel in Liverpool and that in Manchester I had found no bath, and asking for one at Chester, the chambermaid said, with earnest good-will, that "they had none, but she thought she could get me a note from her master to the Infirmary (!!) if I would go there." Luckily I did not generalize quite as rapidly as travellers in America usually do, and put in the note-book,—"Mem.: None but the sick ever bathe in England"; for in the next establishment we tried, I found the plentiful provision for a clean and healthy day, which I had read would be met everywhere in this country.

All else I must defer to my next, as the mail is soon to close.

LETTER II.

Chester.—Its Museum.—Travelling Companions.—A Bengalese.—Westmoreland.—Ambleside.—Cobden and Bright.—A Scotch Lady.—Wordsworth.—His Flowers.—Miss Martineau.

Ambleside. Westmoreland, 27th August, 1846.

I forgot to mention, in writing of Chester, an object which gave me pleasure. I mentioned, that the wall which enclosed the old town was two miles in circumference; far beyond this stretches the modern part of Chester, and the old gateways now overarch the middle of long streets. This wall is now a walk for the inhabitants, commanding a wide prospect, and three persons could walk abreast on its smooth flags. We passed one of its old picturesque towers, from whose top Charles the First, poor, weak, unhappy king, looked down and saw his troops defeated by the Parliamentary army on the adjacent plain. A little farther on, one of these picturesque towers is turned to the use of a Museum, whose stock, though scanty, I examined with singular pleasure, for it had been made up by truly filial contributions from, all who had derived benefit from Chester, from the Marquis of Westminster—whose magnificent abode, Eton Hall, lies not far off—down to the merchant's clerk, who had furnished it in his leisure hours with a geological chart, the soldier and sailor, who sent back shells, insects, and petrifactions from their distant wanderings, and a boy of thirteen, who had made, in wood, a model of its cathedral, and even furnished it with a bell to ring out the evening chimes. Many women had been busy in filling these magazines for the instruction and the pleasure of their fellow-townsmen. Lady ——, the wife of the captain of the garrison, grateful for the gratuitous admission of the soldiers once a month,—a privilege of which the keeper of the Museum (a woman also, who took an intelligent pleasure in her task) assured me that they were eager to avail themselves,—had given a fine collection of butterflies, and a ship. An untiring diligence had been shown in adding whatever might stimulate or gratify imperfectly educated minds. I like to see women perceive that there are other ways of doing good besides making clothes for the poor or teaching Sunday-school; these are well, if well directed, but there are many other ways, some as sure and surer, and which benefit the giver no less than the receiver.

I was waked from sleep at the Chester Inn by a loud dispute between the chambermaid and an unhappy elderly gentleman, who insisted that he had engaged the room in which I was, had returned to sleep in it, and consequently must do so. To her assurances that the lady was long since in possession, he was deaf; but the lock, fortunately for me, proved a stronger defence. With all a chambermaid's morality, the maiden boasted to me, "He said he had engaged 44, and would not believe me when I assured him it was 46; indeed, how could he? I did not believe myself." To my assurance that, if I had known the room, was his, I should not have wished for it, but preferred taking a worse, I found her a polite but incredulous listener.

Passing from Liverpool to Lancaster by railroad, that convenient but most unprofitable and stupid way of travelling, we there took the canal-boat to Kendal, and passed pleasantly through a country of that soft, that refined and cultivated loveliness, which, however much we have heard of it, finds the American eye—accustomed to so much wildness, so much rudeness, such a corrosive action of man upon nature—wholly unprepared. I feel all the time as if in a sweet dream, and dread to be presently awakened by some rude jar or glare; but none comes, and here in Westmoreland—but wait a moment, before we speak of that.

In the canal-boat we found two well-bred English gentlemen, and two well-informed German gentlemen, with whom we had some agreeable talk. With one of the former was a beautiful youth, about eighteen, whom I supposed, at the first glance, to be a type of that pure East-Indian race whose beauty I had never seen represented before except in pictures; and he made a picture, from which I could scarcely take my eyes a moment, and from it could as ill endure to part. He was dressed in a broadcloth robe richly embroidered, leaving his throat and the upper part of his neck bare, except that he wore a heavy gold chain. A rich shawl was thrown gracefully around him; the sleeves of his robe were loose, with white sleeves below. He wore a black satin cap. The whole effect of this dress was very fine yet simple, setting off to the utmost advantage the distinguished beauty of his features, in which there was a mingling of national pride, voluptuous sweetness in that unconscious state of reverie when it affects us as it does in the flower, and intelligence in its newly awakened purity. As he turned his head, his profile was like one I used to have of Love asleep, while Psyche leans over him with the lamp; but his front face, with the full, summery look of the eye, was unlike that. He was a Bengalese, living in England for his education, as several others are at present. He spoke English well, and conversed on several subjects, literary and political, with grace, fluency, and delicacy of thought.

Passing from Kendal to Ambleside, we found a charming abode furnished us by the care of a friend in one of the stone cottages of this region, almost the only one not ivy-wreathed, but commanding a beautiful view of the mountains, and truly an English home in its neatness, quiet, and delicate, noiseless attention to the wants of all within its walls. Here we have passed eight happy days, varied by many drives, boating excursions on Grasmere and Winandermere, and the society of several agreeable persons. As the Lake district at this season draws together all kinds of people, and a great variety beside come from, all quarters to inhabit the charming dwellings that adorn its hill-sides and shores, I met and saw a good deal of the representatives of various classes, at once. I found here two landed proprietors from other parts of England, both "travelled English," one owning a property in Greece, where he frequently resides, both warmly engaged in Reform measures, anti-Corn-Law, anti-Capital-Punishment,—one of them an earnest student of Emerson's Essays. Both of them had wives, who kept pace with their projects and their thoughts, active and intelligent women, true ladies, skilful in drawing and music; all the better wives for the development of every power. One of them told me, with a glow of pride, that it was not long since her husband had been "cut" by all his neighbors among the gentry for the part he took against the Corn Laws; but, she added, he was now a favorite with them all. Verily, faith will remove mountains, if only you do join with it any fair portion of the dove and serpent attributes.

I found here, too, a wealthy manufacturer, who had written many valuable pamphlets on popular subjects. He said: "Now that the progress of public opinion was beginning to make the Church and the Army narrower fields for the younger sons of 'noble' families, they sometimes wish to enter into trade; but, beside the aversion which had been instilled into them for many centuries, they had rarely patience and energy for the apprenticeship requisite to give the needed knowledge of the world and habits of labor." Of Cobden he said: "He is inferior in acquirements to very many of his class, as he is self-educated and had everything to learn after he was grown up; but in clear insight there is none like him." A man of very little education, whom I met a day or two after in the stage-coach, observed to me: "Bright is far the more eloquent of the two, but Cobden is more felt, just because his speeches are so plain, so merely matter-of-fact and to the point."

We became acquainted also with Dr. Gregory, Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh, a very enlightened and benevolent man, who in many ways both instructed and benefited us. He is the friend of Liebig, and one of his chief representatives here.

We also met a fine specimen of the noble, intelligent Scotchwoman, such as Walter Scott and Burns knew how to prize. Seventy-six years have passed over her head, only to prove in her the truth of my theory, that we need never grow old. She was "brought up" in the animated and intellectual circle of Edinburgh, in youth an apt disciple, in her prime a bright ornament of that society. She had been an only child, a cherished wife, an adored mother, unspoiled by love in any of these relations, because that love was founded on knowledge. In childhood she had warmly sympathized in the spirit that animated the American Revolution, and Washington had been her hero; later, the interest of her husband in every struggle for freedom had cherished her own; she had known in the course of her long life many eminent men, knew minutely the history of efforts in that direction, and sympathized now in the triumph of the people over the Corn Laws, as she had in the American victories, with as much ardor as when a girl, though with a wiser mind. Her eye was full of light, her manner and gesture of dignity; her voice rich, sonorous, and finely modulated; her tide of talk marked by candor, justice, and showing in every sentence her ripe experience and her noble, genial nature. Dear to memory will be the sight of her in the beautiful seclusion of her home among the mountains, a picturesque, flower-wreathed dwelling, where affection, tranquillity, and wisdom were the gods of the hearth, to whom was offered no vain oblation. Grant us more such women, Time! Grant to men the power to reverence, to seek for such!

Our visit to Mr. Wordsworth was very pleasant. He also is seventy-six, but his is a florid, fair old age. He walked with us to all his haunts about the house. Its situation is beautiful, and the "Rydalian Laurels" are magnificent. Still I saw abodes among the hills that I should have preferred for Wordsworth, more wild and still, more romantic; the fresh and lovely Rydal Mount seems merely the retirement of a gentleman, rather than the haunt of a poet. He showed his benignity of disposition in several little things, especially in his attentions to a young boy we had with us. This boy had left the Circus, exhibiting its feats of horsemanship in Ambleside "for that day only," at his own desire to see Wordsworth, and I feared he would be disappointed, as I know I should have been at his age, if, when called to see a poet, I had found no Apollo, flaming with youthful glory, laurel-crowned and lyre in hand, but, instead, a reverend old man clothed in black, and walking with cautious step along the level garden-path; however, he was not disappointed, but seemed in timid reverence to recognize the spirit that had dictated "Laodamia" and "Dion,"—and Wordsworth, in his turn, seemed to feel and prize a congenial nature in this child.

Taking us into the house, he showed us the picture of his sister, repeating with much expression some lines of hers, and those so famous of his about her, beginning, "Five years," &c.; also his own picture, by Inman, of whom he spoke with esteem.

Mr. Wordsworth is fond of the hollyhock, a partiality scarcely deserved by the flower, but which marks the simplicity of his tastes. He had made a long avenue of them of all colors, from the crimson-brown to rose, straw-color, and white, and pleased himself with having made proselytes to a liking for them among his neighbors.

I never have seen such magnificent fuchsias as at Ambleside, and there was one to be seen in every cottage-yard. They are no longer here under the shelter of the green-house, as with us, and as they used to be in England. The plant, from its grace and finished elegance, being a great favorite of mine, I should like to see it as frequently and of as luxuriant a growth at home, and asked their mode of culture, which I here mark down, for the benefit of all who may be interested. Make a bed of bog-earth and sand, put down slips of the fuchsia, and give them a great deal of water,—this is all they need. People have them out here in winter, but perhaps they would not bear the cold of our Januaries.

Mr. Wordsworth spoke with, more liberality than we expected of the recent measures about the Corn Laws, saying that "the principle was certainly right, though as to whether existing interests had been as carefully attended to as was just, he was not prepared to say." His neighbors were pleased to hear of his speaking thus mildly, and hailed it as a sign that he was opening his mind to more light on these subjects. They lament that his habits of seclusion keep him much ignorant of the real wants of England and the world. Living in this region, which is cultivated by small proprietors, where there is little poverty, vice, or misery, he hears not the voice which cries so loudly from other parts of England, and will not be stilled by sweet poetic suasion or philosophy, for it is the cry of men in the jaws of destruction.

It was pleasant to find the reverence inspired by this great and pure mind warmest nearest home. Our landlady, in heaping praises upon him, added, constantly, "And Mrs. Wordsworth, too." "Do the people here," said I, "value Mr. Wordsworth most because he is a celebrated writer?" "Truly, madam," said she, "I think it is because he is so kind a neighbor."

Dr. Arnold, too,—who lived, as his family still live, here,—diffused the same ennobling and animating spirit among those who knew him in private, as through the sphere of his public labors.

Miss Martineau has here a charming residence; it has been finished only a few months, but all about it is in unexpectedly fair order, and promises much beauty after a year or two of growth. Here we found her restored to full health and activity, looking, indeed, far better than she did when in the United States. It was pleasant to see her in this home, presented to her by the gratitude of England for her course of energetic and benevolent effort, and adorned by tributes of affection and esteem from many quarters. From the testimony of those who were with her in and since her illness, her recovery would seem to be of as magical quickness and sure progress as has been represented. At the house of Miss Martineau I saw Milman, the author, I must not say poet,—a specimen of the polished, scholarly man of the world.

We passed one most delightful day in a visit to Langdale,—the scene of "The Excursion,"—and to Dungeon-Ghyll Force. I am finishing my letter at Carlisle on my way to Scotland, and will give a slight sketch of that excursion, and one which occupied another day, from Keswick to Buttermere and Crummock Water, in my next.

LETTER III.

Westmoreland.—Langdale.—Dungeon-Ghyll Force.—Keswick.—Carlisle.—Branxholm.—Scott.—Burns.

Edinburgh, 20th September, 1846.

I have too long delayed writing up my journal.—Many interesting observations slip from recollection if one waits so many days: yet, while travelling, it is almost impossible to find an hour when something of value to be seen will not be lost while writing.

I said, in closing my last, that I would write a little more about Westmoreland; but so much, has happened since, that I must now dismiss that region with all possible brevity.

The first day of which I wished to speak was passed in visiting Langdale, the scene of Wordsworth's "Excursion." Our party of eight went in two of the vehicles called cars or droskas,—open carriages, each drawn by one horse. They are rather fatiguing to ride in, but good to see from. In steep and stony places all alight, and the driver leads the horse: so many of these there are, that we were four or five hours in going ten miles, including the pauses when we wished to look.

The scenes through which we passed are, indeed, of the most wild and noble character. The wildness is not savage, but very calm. Without recurring to details, I recognized the tone and atmosphere of that noble poem, which was to me, at a feverish period in my life, as pure waters, free breezes, and cold blue sky, bringing a sense of eternity that gave an aspect of composure to the rudest volcanic wrecks of time.

We dined at a farm-house of the vale, with its stone floors, old carved cabinet (the pride of a house of this sort), and ready provision of oaten cakes. We then ascended a near hill to the waterfall called Dungeon-Ghyll Force, also a subject touched by Wordsworth's Muse. You wind along a path for a long time, hearing the sound of the falling water, but do not see it till, descending by a ladder the side of the ravine, you come to its very foot. You find yourself then in a deep chasm, bridged over by a narrow arch of rock; the water falls at the farther end in a narrow column. Looking up, you see the sky through a fissure so narrow as to make it look very pure and distant. One of our party, passing in, stood some time at the foot of the waterfall, and added much to its effect, as his height gave a measure by which to appreciate that of surrounding objects, and his look, by that light so pale and statuesque, seemed to inform the place with the presence of its genius.

Our circuit homeward from this grand scene led us through some lovely places, and to an outlook upon the most beautiful part of Westmoreland. Passing over to Keswick we saw Derwentwater, and near it the Fall of Lodore. It was from Keswick that we made the excursion of a day through Borrowdale to Buttermere and Crummock Water, which I meant to speak of, but find it impossible at this moment. The mind does not now furnish congenial colors with which to represent the vision of that day: it must still wait in the mind and bide its time, again to emerge to outer air.

At Keswick we went to see a model of the Lake country which gives an excellent idea of the relative positions of all objects. Its maker had given six years to the necessary surveys and drawings. He said that he had first become acquainted with the country from his taste for fishing, but had learned to love its beauty, till the thought arose of making this model; that while engaged in it, he visited almost every spot amid the hills, and commonly saw both sunrise and sunset upon them; that he was happy all the time, but almost too happy when he saw one section of his model coming out quite right, and felt sure at last that he should be quite successful in representing to others the home of his thoughts. I looked upon him as indeed an enviable man, to have a profession so congenial with his feelings, in which he had been so naturally led to do what would be useful and pleasant for others.

Passing from Keswick through a pleasant and cultivated country, we paused at "fair Carlisle," not voluntarily, but because we could not get the means of proceeding farther that day. So, as it was one in which

we visited its Cathedral and Castle, and trod, for the first time, in some of the footsteps of the unfortunate Queen of Scots.

Passing next day the Border, we found the mosses all drained, and the very existence of sometime moss-troopers would have seemed problematical, but for the remains of Gilnockie,—the tower of Johnnie Armstrong, so pathetically recalled in one of the finest of the Scottish ballads. Its size, as well as that of other keeps, towers, and castles, whose ruins are reverentially preserved in Scotland, gives a lively sense of the time when population was so scanty, and individual manhood grew to such force. Ten men in Gilnockie were stronger then in proportion to the whole, and probably had in them more of intelligence, resource, and genuine manly power, than ten regiments now of red-coats drilled to act out manoeuvres they do not understand, and use artillery which needs of them no more than the match to go off and do its hideous message.

Farther on we saw Branxholm, and the water in crossing which the Goblin Page was obliged to resume his proper shape and fly, crying, "Lost, lost, lost!" Verily these things seem more like home than one's own nursery, whose toys and furniture could not in actual presence engage the thoughts like these pictures, made familiar as household words by the most generous, kindly genius that ever blessed this earth.

On the coach with us was a gentleman coming from London to make his yearly visit to the neighborhood of Burns, in which he was born. "I can now," said he, "go but once a year; when a boy, I never let a week pass without visiting the house of Burns." He afterward observed, as every step woke us to fresh recollections of Walter Scott, that Scott, with all his vast range of talent, knowledge, and activity, was a poet of the past only, and in his inmost heart wedded to the habits of a feudal aristocracy, while Burns is the poet of the present and the future, the man of the people, and throughout a genuine man. This is true enough; but for my part I cannot endure a comparison which by a breath of coolness depreciates either. Both were wanted; each acted the important part assigned him by destiny with a wonderful thoroughness and completeness. Scott breathed the breath just fleeting from the forms of ancient Scottish heroism and poesy into new,—he made for us the bridge by which we have gone into the old Ossianic hall and caught the meaning just as it was about to pass from us for ever. Burns is full of the noble, genuine democracy which seeks not to destroy royalty, but to make all men kings, as he himself was, in nature and in action. They belong to the same world; they are pillars of the same church, though they uphold its starry roof from opposite sides. Burns was much the rarer man; precisely because he had most of common nature on a grand scale; his humor, his passion, his sweetness, are all his own; they need no picturesque or romantic accessories to give them due relief: looked at by all lights they are the same. Since Adam, there has been none that approached nearer fitness to stand up before God and angels in the naked majesty of manhood than Robert Burns;—but there was a serpent in his field also! Yet but for his fault we could never have seen brought out the brave and patriotic modesty with which he owned it. Shame on him who could bear to think of fault in this rich jewel, unless reminded by such confession.

We passed Abbotsford without stopping, intending to go there on our return. Last year five hundred Americans inscribed their names in its porter's book. A raw-boned Scotsman, who gathered his weary length into our coach on his return from a pilgrimage thither, did us the favor to inform us that "Sir Walter was a vara intelligent mon," and the guide-book mentions "the American Washington" as "a worthy old patriot." Lord safe us, cummers, what news be there!

This letter, meant to go by the Great Britain, many interruptions force me to close, unflavored by one whiff from the smoke of Auld Reekie. More and better matter shall my next contain, for here and in the Highlands I have passed three not unproductive weeks, of which more anon.

LETTER IV.

Edinburgh, Old and New.—Scott and Burns.—Dr. Andrew Combe.—American Re-publishing.—The Bookselling Trade.—The Messrs. Chambers.—De Quincey the Opium-Eater.—Dr. Chalmers.

Edinburgh, September 22d, 1846.

The beautiful and stately aspect of this city has been the theme of admiration so general that I can only echo it. We have seen it to the greatest advantage both from Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat, and our lodgings in Princess Street allow us a fine view of the Castle, always impressive, but peculiarly so in the moonlit evenings of our first week here, when a veil of mist added to its apparent size, and at the same time gave it the air with which Martin, in his illustrations of "Paradise Lost," has invested the palace which "rose like an exhalation."

On this our second visit, after an absence of near a fortnight in the Highlands, we are at a hotel nearly facing the new monument to Scott, and the tallest buildings of the Old Town. From my windows I see the famous Kirk, the spot where the old Tolbooth was, and can almost distinguish that where Porteous was done to death, and other objects described in the most dramatic part of "The Heart of Mid-Lothian." In one of these tall houses Hume wrote part of his History of England, and on this spot still nearer was the home of Allan Ramsay. A thousand other interesting and pregnant associations present themselves every time I look out of the window.

In the open square between us and the Old Town is to be the terminus of the railroad, but as the building will be masked with trees, it is thought it will not mar the beauty of the place; yet Scott could hardly have looked without regret upon an object that marks so distinctly the conquest of the New over the Old, and, appropriately enough, his statue has its back turned that way. The effect of the monument to Scott is pleasing, though without strict unity of thought or original beauty of design. The statue is too much hid within the monument, and wants that majesty of repose in the attitude and drapery which a sitting figure should have, and which might well accompany the massive head of Scott. Still the monument is an ornament and an honor to the city. This is now the fourth that has been erected within two years to commemorate the triumphs of genius. Monuments that have risen from the same idea, and in such quick succession, to Schiller, to Goethe, to Beethoven, and to Scott, signalize the character of the new era still more happily than does the railroad coming up almost to the foot of Edinburgh Castle.

The statue of Burns has been removed from the monument erected in his honor, to one of the public libraries, as being there more accessible to the public. It is, however, entirely unworthy its subject, giving the idea of a smaller and younger person, while we think of Burns as of a man in the prime of manhood, one who not only promised, but was, and with a sunny glow and breadth, of character of which this stone effigy presents no sign.

A Scottish gentleman told me the following story, which would afford the finest subject for a painter capable of representing the glowing eye and natural kingliness of Burns, in contrast to the poor, mean puppets he reproved.

Burns, still only in the dawn of his celebrity, was invited to dine with one of the neighboring so-called gentry (unhappily quite void of true gentle blood). On arriving he found his plate set in the servants' room!! After dinner he was invited into a room where guests were assembled, and, a chair being placed for him at the lower end of the board, a glass of wine was offered, and he was requested to sing one of his songs for the entertainment of the company. He drank off the wine, and thundered forth in reply his grand song, "For a' that and a' that," with which it will do no harm to refresh the memories of our readers, for we doubt there may be, even in Republican America, those who need the reproof as much, and with far less excuse, than had that Scottish company.

And, having finished this prophecy and prayer, Nature's nobleman left his churlish entertainers to hide their diminished heads in the home they had disgraced.

We have seen all the stock lions. The Regalia people still crowd to see, though the old natural feelings from which they so long lay hidden seem almost extinct. Scotland grows English day by day. The libraries of the Advocates, Writers to the Signet, &c., are fine establishments. The University and schools are now in vacation; we are compelled by unwise postponement of our journey to see both Edinburgh and London at the worst possible season. We should have been here in April, there in June. There is always enough to see, but now we find a majority of the most interesting persons absent, and a stagnation in the intellectual movements of the place.

We had, however, the good fortune to find Dr. Andrew Combe, who, though a great invalid, was able and disposed for conversation at this time. I was impressed with great and affectionate respect by the benign and even temper of his mind, his extensive and accurate knowledge, accompanied, as such should naturally be, by a large and intelligent liberality. Of our country he spoke very wisely and hopefully, though among other stories with which we, as Americans, are put to the blush here, there is none worse than that of the conduct of some of our publishers toward him. One of these stories I had heard in New York, but supposed it to be exaggerated till I had it from the best authority. It is of one of our leading houses who were publishing on their own account and had stereotyped one of his works from an early edition. When this work had passed through other editions and he had for years been busy in reforming and amending it, he applied to this house to republish from the later and better edition. They refused. In vain he urged that it was not only for his own reputation as an author that he was anxious, but for the good of the great country through which writings on such, important subjects were to be circulated, that they might have the benefit of his labors and best knowledge. Such arguments on the stupid and mercenary tempers of those addressed fell harmless as on a buffalo's hide might a gold-tipped arrow. The book, they thought, answered THEIR purpose sufficiently, for IT SELLS. Other purpose for a book they knew none. And as to the natural rights of an author over the fruits of his mind, the distilled essence of a life consumed in the severities of mental labor, they had never heard of such a thing. His work was in the market, and he had no more to do with it, that they could see, than the silkworm with the lining of one of their coats.

Mr. Greeley, the more I look at this subject, the more I must maintain, in opposition to your views, that the publisher cannot, if a mere tradesman, be a man of honor. It is impossible in the nature of things. He must have some idea of the nature and value of literary labor, or he is wholly unfit to deal with its products. He cannot get along by occasional recourse to paid critics or readers; he must himself have some idea what he is about. One partner, at least, in the firm, must be a man of culture. All must understand enough to appreciate their position, and know that he who, for his sordid aims, circulates poisonous trash amid a great and growing people, and makes it almost impossible for those whom Heaven has appointed as its instructors to do their office, are the worst of traitors, and to be condemned at the bar of nations under a sentence no less severe than false statesmen and false priests. This matter should and must be looked to more conscientiously.

Dr. Combe, repelled by all this indifference to conscience and natural equity in the firm who had taken possession of his work, applied to others. But here he found himself at once opposed by the invisible barrier that makes this sort of tyranny so strong and so pernicious. "It was the understanding among the trade that they were not to interfere with one another; indeed, they could have no chance," &c., &c. When at last he did get the work republished in another part of the country less favorable for his purposes, the bargain made as to the pecuniary part of the transaction was in various ways so evaded, that, up to this time, he has received no compensation from that widely-circulated work, except a lock of Spurzheim's hair!!

I was pleased to hear the true view expressed by one of the Messrs. Chambers. These brothers have worked their way up to wealth and influence by daily labor and many steps. One of them is more the business man, the other the literary curator of their Journal. Of this Journal they issue regularly eighty thousand copies, and it is doing an excellent work, by awakening among the people a desire for knowledge, and, to a considerable extent, furnishing them with good materials. I went over their fine establishment, where I found more than a hundred and fifty persons, in good part women, employed, all in well-aired, well-lighted rooms, seemingly healthy and content. Connected with the establishment is a Savings Bank, and evening instruction in writing, singing, and arithmetic. There was also a reading-room, and the same valuable and liberal provision we had found attached to some of the Manchester warehouses. Such accessories dignify and gladden all kinds of labor, and show somewhat of the true spirit of human brotherhood in the employer. Mr. Chambers said he trusted they should never look on publishing chiefly as business, or a lucrative and respectable employment, but as the means of mental and moral benefit to their countrymen. To one so wearied and disgusted as I have been by vulgar and base avowals on such subjects, it was very refreshing to hear this from the lips of a successful publisher.

Dr. Combe spoke with high praise of Mr. Hurlbart's book, "Human Rights and their Political Guaranties," which was published at the Tribune office. He observed that it was the work of a real thinker, and extremely well written. It is to be republished here. Dr. Combe said that it must make its way slowly, as it could interest those only who were willing to read thoughtfully; but its success was sure at last.

He also spoke with, great interest and respect of Mrs. Farnham, of whose character and the influence she has exerted on the female prisoners at Sing Sing he had heard some account.

A person of a quite different character and celebrity is De Quincey, the English Opium-Eater, and who lately has delighted us again with the papers in Blackwood headed "Suspiria de Profundis." I had the satisfaction, not easily attainable now, of seeing him for some hours, and in the mood of conversation. As one belonging to the Wordsworth, and Coleridge constellation, (he too is now seventy-six years of age,) the thoughts and knowledge of Mr. De Quincey lie in the past; and oftentimes he spoke of matters now become trite to one of a later culture. But to all that fell from his lips, his eloquence, subtile and forcible as the wind, full and gently falling as the evening dew, lent a peculiar charm. He is an admirable narrator, not rapid, but gliding along like a rivulet through a green meadow, giving and taking a thousand little beauties not absolutely required to give his story due relief, but each, in itself, a separate boon.

I admired, too, his urbanity, so opposite to the rapid, slang, Vivian-Greyish style current in the literary conversation of the day. "Sixty years since," men had time to do things better and more gracefully than now.

With Dr. Chalmers we passed a couple of hours. He is old now, but still full of vigor and fire. We had an opportunity of hearing a fine burst of indignant eloquence from him. "I shall blush to my very bones," said he, "if the Chaarrch"—(sound these two rr's with as much burr as possible and you will get at an idea of his mode of pronouncing that unweariable word)—"if the Chaarrch yields to the storm." He alluded to the outcry now raised against the Free Church by the Abolitionists, whose motto is, "Send back the money," i.e. money taken from the American slaveholders. Dr. Chalmers felt that, if they did not yield from conviction, they must not to assault. His manner of speaking on this subject gave me an idea of the nature of his eloquence. He seldom preaches now.

A fine picture was presented by the opposition of figure and lineaments between a young Indian, son of the celebrated Dwarkanauth Tagore, who happened to be there that morning, and Dr. Chalmers, as they were conversing together. The swarthy, half-timid, yet elegant face and form of the Indian made a fine contrast with the florid, portly, yet intellectually luminous appearance of the Doctor; half shepherd, half orator, he looked a Shepherd King opposed to some Arabian story-teller.

I saw others in Edinburgh of a later date who haply gave more valuable as well as fresher revelations of the spirit, and whose names may be by and by more celebrated than those I have cited; but for the present this must suffice. It would take a week, if I wrote half I saw or thought in Edinburgh, and I must close for to-day.

LETTER V.

Perth.—Travelling by Coach.—Loch Leven.—Queen Mary.—Loch Katrine.—The Trosachs.—Rowardennan.—A Night on Ben Lomond.—Scotch Peasantry.

Birmingham, September 30th, 1846.

I was obliged to stop writing at Edinburgh before the better half of my tale was told, and must now begin there again, to speak of an excursion into the Highlands, which occupied about a fortnight.

We left Edinburgh, by coach for Perth, and arrived there about three in the afternoon. I have reason to be very glad that I visit this island before the reign of the stage-coach is quite over. I have been constantly on the top of the coach, even one day of drenching rain, and enjoy it highly. Nothing can be more inspiring than this swift, steady progress over such smooth roads, and placed so high as to overlook the country freely, with the lively flourish of the horn preluding every pause. Travelling by railroad is, in my opinion, the most stupid process on earth; it is sleep without the refreshment of sleep, for the noise of the train makes it impossible either to read, talk, or sleep to advantage. But here the advantages are immense; you can fly through this dull trance from one beautiful place to another, and stay at each during the time that would otherwise be spent on the road. Already the artists, who are obliged to find their home in London, rejoice that all England is thrown open to them for sketching-ground, since they can now avail themselves of a day's leisure at a great distance, and with choice of position, whereas formerly they were obliged to confine themselves to a few "green, and bowery" spots in the neighborhood of the metropolis. But while in the car, it is to me that worst of purgatories, the purgatory of dulness.

Well, on the coach we went to Perth, and passed through Kinross, and saw Loch Leven, and the island where Queen Mary passed those sorrowful months, before her romantic escape under care of the Douglas. As this unhappy, lovely woman stands for a type in history, death, time, and distance do not destroy her attractive power. Like Cleopatra, she has still her adorers; nay, some are born to her in each new generation of men. Lately she has for her chevalier the Russian Prince Labanoff, who has spent fourteen years in studying upon all that related to her, and thinks now that he can make out a story and a picture about the mysteries of her short reign, which shall satisfy the desire of her lovers to find her as pure and just as she was charming. I have only seen of his array of evidence so much, as may be found in the pages of Chambers's Journal, but that much does not disturb the original view I have taken of the case; which is, that from a princess educated under the Medici and Guise influence, engaged in the meshes of secret intrigue to favor the Roman Catholic faith, her tacit acquiescence, at least, in the murder of Darnley, after all his injurious conduct toward her, was just what was to be expected. From a poor, beautiful young woman, longing to enjoy life, exposed both by her position and her natural fascinations to the utmost bewilderment of flattery, whether prompted by interest or passion, her other acts of folly are most natural, and let all who feel inclined harshly to condemn her remember to

Surely, in all the stern pages of life's account-book there is none on which a more terrible price is exacted for every precious endowment. Her rank and reign only made her powerless to do good, and exposed her to danger; her talents only served to irritate her foes and disappoint her friends. This most charming of women was the destruction of her lovers: married three times, she had never any happiness as a wife, but in both the connections of her choice found that she had either never possessed or could not retain, even for a few weeks, the love of the men she had chosen, so that Darnley was willing to risk her life and that of his unborn child to wreak his wrath upon Rizzio, and after a few weeks with Bothwell she was heard "calling aloud for a knife to kill herself with." A mother twice, and of a son and daughter, both the children were brought forth in loneliness and sorrow, and separated from her early, her son educated to hate her, her daughter at once immured in a convent. Add the eighteen years of her imprisonment, and the fact that this foolish, prodigal world, when there was in it one woman fitted by her grace and loveliness to charm all eyes and enliven all fancies, suffered her to be shut up to water with her tears her dull embroidery during all the full rose-blossom of her life, and you will hardly get beyond this story for a tragedy, not noble, but pallid and forlorn.

Such were the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's head, as it lay on the pillow when severed from the block, hung opposite to a fine caricature of "Queen Elizabeth dancing high and disposedly." In this last the face is like a mask, so frightful is the expression of cold craft, irritated, vanity, and the malice of a lonely breast in contrast with the attitude and elaborate frippery of the dress. The ambassador looks on dismayed; the little page can scarcely control the laughter which swells his boyish cheeks. Such can win the world which, better hearts (and such Mary's was, even if it had a large black speck in it) are most like to lose.

That was a most lovely day on which we entered Perth, and saw in full sunshine its beautiful meadows, among them the North-Inch, the famous battle-ground commemorated in "The Fair Maid of Perth," adorned with graceful trees like those of the New England country towns. In the afternoon we visited the modern Kinfauns, the stately home of Lord Grey. The drive to it is most beautiful, on the one side the Park, with noble heights that skirt it, on the other through a belt of trees was seen the river and the sweep of that fair and cultivated country. The house is a fine one, and furnished with taste, the library large, and some good works in marble. Among the family pictures one arrested my attention,—the face of a girl full of the most pathetic sensibility, and with no restraint of convention upon its ardent, gentle expression. She died young.

Returning, we were saddened, as almost always on leaving any such place, by seeing such swarms of dirty women and dirtier children at the doors of the cottages almost close by the gate of the avenue. To the horrors and sorrows of the streets in such places as Liverpool, Glasgow, and, above all, London, one has to grow insensible or die daily; but here in the sweet, fresh, green country, where there seems to be room for everybody, it is impossible to forget the frightful inequalities between the lot of man and man, or believe that God can smile upon a state of things such as we find existent here. Can any man who has seen these things dare blame the Associationists for their attempt to find prevention against such misery and wickedness in our land? Rather will not every man of tolerable intelligence and good feeling commend, say rather revere, every earnest attempt in that direction, nor dare interfere with any, unless he has a better to offer in its place?

Next morning we passed on to Crieff, in whose neighborhood we visited Drummond Castle, the abode, or rather one of the abodes, of Lord Willoughby D'Eresby. It has a noble park, through which you pass by an avenue of two miles long. The old keep is still ascended to get the fine view of the surrounding country; and during Queen Victoria's visit, her Guards were quartered there. But what took my fancy most was the old-fashioned garden, full of old shrubs and new flowers, with its formal parterres in the shape of the family arms, and its clipped yew and box trees. It was fresh from a shower, and now glittering and fragrant in bright sunshine.

This afternoon we pursued our way, passing through the plantations of Ochtertyre, a far more charming place to my taste than Drummond Castle, freer and more various in its features. Five or six of these fine places lie in the neighborhood of Crieff, and the traveller may give two or three days to visiting them with a rich reward of delight. But we were pressing on to be with the lakes and mountains rather, and that night brought us to St. Fillan's, where we saw the moon shining on Loch Earn.

All this region, and that of Loch Katrine and the Trosachs, which we reached next day, Scott has described exactly in "The Lady of the Lake"; nor is it possible to appreciate that poem, without going thither, neither to describe the scene better than he has done after you have seen it. I was somewhat disappointed in the pass of the Trosachs itself; it is very grand, but the grand part lasts so little while. The opening view of Loch Katrine, however, surpassed, expectation. It was late in the afternoon when we launched our little boat there for Ellen's isle.

The boatmen recite, though not con molto espressione, the parts of the poem which describe these localities. Observing that they spoke of the personages, too, with the same air of confidence, we asked if they were sure that all this really happened. They replied, "Certainly; it had been told from father to son through so many generations." Such is the power of genius to interpolate what it will into the regular log-book of Time's voyage.

Leaving Loch Katrine the following day, we entered Rob Roy's country, and saw on the way the house where Helen MacGregor was born, and Rob Roy's sword, which is shown in a house by the way-side.

We came in a row-boat up Loch Katrine, though both on that and Loch Lomond you may go in a hateful little steamer with a squeaking fiddle to play Rob Roy MacGregor O. I walked almost all the way through the pass from Loch Katrine to Loch Lomond; it was a distance of six miles; but you feel as if you could walk sixty in that pure, exhilarating air. At Inversnaid we took boat again to go down Loch Lomond to the little inn of Rowardennan, from which the ascent is made of Ben Lomond, the greatest elevation in these parts. The boatmen are fine, athletic men; one of those with us this evening, a handsome young man of two or three and twenty, sang to us some Gaelic songs. The first, a very wild and plaintive air, was the expostulation of a girl whose lover has deserted her and married another. It seems he is ashamed, and will not even look at her when they meet upon the road. She implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance. The sad crooning burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this request was very touching. When the boatman had finished, he hung his head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we asked for another, he said he would sing another about a girl that was happy. This one was in three parts. First, a tuneful address from a maiden to her absent lover; second, his reply, assuring her of his fidelity and tenderness; third, a strain which expresses their joy when reunited. I thought this boatman had sympathies which would prevent his tormenting any poor women, and perhaps make some one happy, and this was a pleasant thought, since probably in the Highlands, as elsewhere,

I don't know that I quote the words correctly, but that is the sum and substance of a masculine report on these matters.

The first day at Rowardennan not being propitious for ascending the mountain, we went down the lake to sup, and got very tired in various ways, so that we rose very late next morning. Their we found a day of ten thousand for our purpose; but unhappily a large party had come with the sun and engaged all the horses, so that, if we went, it must be on foot. This was something of an enterprise for me, as the ascent is four miles, and toward the summit quite fatiguing; however, in the pride of newly gained health and strength, I was ready, and set forth with Mr. S. alone. We took no guide,—and the people of the house did not advise it, as they ought. They told us afterward they thought the day was so clear that there was no probability of danger, and they were afraid of seeming mercenary about it. It was, however, wrong, as they knew what we did not, that even the shepherds, if a mist comes on, can be lost in these hills; that a party of gentlemen were so a few weeks before, and only by accident found their way to a house on the other side; and that a child which had been lost was not found for five days, long after its death. We, however, nothing doubting, set forth, ascending slowly, and often stopping to enjoy the points of view, which are many, for Ben Lomond consists of a congeries of hills, above which towers the true Ben, or highest peak, as the head of a many-limbed body.

On reaching the peak, the night was one of beauty and grandeur such as imagination never painted. You see around you no plain ground, but on every side constellations or groups of hills exquisitely dressed in the soft purple of the heather, amid which gleam the lakes, like eyes that tell the secrets of the earth and drink in those of the heavens. Peak beyond peak caught from the shifting light all the colors of the prism, and on the farthest, angel companies seemed hovering in their glorious white robes.

Words are idle on such subjects; what can I say, but that it was a noble vision, that satisfied the eye and stirred the imagination in all its secret pulses? Had that been, as afterward seemed likely, the last act of my life, there could not have been a finer decoration painted on the curtain which was to drop upon it.

About four o'clock we began our descent. Near the summit the traces of the path are not distinct, and I said to Mr. S., after a while, that we had lost it. He said, he thought that was of no consequence, we could find oar way down. I thought however it was, as the ground was full of springs that were bridged over in the pathway. He accordingly went to look for it, and I stood still because so tired that I did not like to waste any labor. Soon he called to me that he had found it, and I followed in the direction where he seemed to be. But I mistook, overshot it, and saw him no more. In about ten minutes I became alarmed, and called him many times. It seems he on his side did the same, but the brow of some hill was between us, and we neither saw nor heard one another.

I then thought I would make the best of my way down, and I should find him upon my arrival. But in doing so I found the justice of my apprehension about the springs, as, so soon as I got to the foot of the hills, I would sink up to my knees in bog, and have to go up the hills again, seeking better crossing-places. Thus I lost much time; nevertheless, in the twilight I saw at last the lake and the inn of Rowardennan on its shore.

Between me and it lay direct a high heathery hill, which I afterward found is called "The Tongue," because hemmed in on three sides by a watercourse. It looked as if, could I only get to the bottom of that, I should be on comparatively level ground. I then attempted to descend in the watercourse, but, finding that impracticable, climbed on the hill again and let myself down by the heather, for it was very steep and full of deep holes. With great fatigue I got to the bottom, but when about to cross the watercourse there, it looked so deep in the dim twilight that I felt afraid. I got down as far as I could by the root of a tree, and threw down a stone; it sounded very hollow, and made me afraid to jump. The shepherds told me afterward, if I had, I should probably have killed myself, it was so deep and the bed of the torrent full of sharp stones.

I then tried to ascend the hill again, for there was no other way to get off it, but soon sunk down utterly exhausted. When able to get up again and look about me, it was completely dark. I saw far below me a light, that looked about as big as a pin's head, which I knew to be from the inn at Rowardennan, but heard no sound except the rush of the waterfall, and the sighing of the night-wind.

For the first few minutes after I perceived I had got to my night's lodging, such as it was, the prospect seemed appalling. I was very lightly clad,—my feet and dress were very wet,—I had only a little shawl to throw round me, and a cold autumn wind had already come, and the night-mist was to fall on me, all fevered and exhausted as I was. I thought I should not live through the night, or, if I did, live always a miserable invalid. There was no chance to keep myself warm by walking, for, now it was dark, it would be too dangerous to stir.

My only chance, however, lay in motion, and my only help in myself, and so convinced was I of this, that I did keep in motion the whole of that long night, imprisoned as I was on such a little perch of that great mountain. How long it seemed under such circumstances only those can guess who may have been similarly circumstanced. The mental experience of the time, most precious and profound,—for it was indeed a season lonely, dangerous, and helpless enough for the birth of thoughts beyond what the common sunlight will ever call to being,—may be told in another place and time.

For about two hours I saw the stars, and very cheery and companionable they looked; but then the mist fell, and I saw nothing more, except such apparitions as visited Ossian on the hill-side when he went out by night and struck the bosky shield and called to him the spirits of the heroes and the white-armed maids with their blue eyes of grief. To me, too, came those visionary shapes; floating slowly and gracefully, their white robes would unfurl from the great body of mist in which they had been engaged, and come upon me with a kiss pervasively cold as that of death. What they might have told me, who knows, if I had but resigned myself more passively to that cold, spirit-like breathing!

At last the moon rose. I could not see her, but the silver light filled the mist. Then I knew it was two o'clock, and that, having weathered out so much of the night, I might the rest; and the hours hardly seemed long to me more.

It may give an idea of the extent of the mountain to say that, though I called every now and then with all my force, in case by chance some aid might be near, and though no less than twenty men with their dogs were looking for me, I never heard a sound except the rush of the waterfall and the sighing of the night-wind, and once or twice the startling of the grouse in the heather. It was sublime indeed,—a never-to-be-forgotten presentation of stern, serene realities.

At last came the signs of day, the gradual clearing and breaking up; some faint sounds, from I know not what. The little flies, too, arose from their bed amid the purple heather, and bit me; truly they were very welcome to do so. But what was my disappointment to find the mist so thick, that I could see neither lake nor inn, nor anything to guide me. I had to go by guess, and, as it happened, my Yankee method served me well. I ascended the hill, crossed the torrent in the waterfall, first drinking some of the water, which was as good at that time as ambrosia. I crossed in that place because the waterfall made steps, as it were, to the next hill; to be sure they were covered with water, but I was already entirely wet with the mist, so that it did not matter. I then kept on scrambling, as it happened, in the right direction, till, about seven, some of the shepherds found me. The moment they came, all my feverish strength departed, though, if unaided, I dare say it would have kept me up during the day; and they carried me home, where my arrival relieved my friends of distress far greater than I had undergone, for I had had my grand solitude, my Ossianic visions, and the pleasure of sustaining myself while they had only doubt amounting to anguish and a fruitless search through the night.

Entirely contrary to my expectations, I only suffered for this a few days, and was able to take a parting look at my prison, as I went down the lake, with feelings of complacency. It was a majestic-looking hill, that Tongue, with the deep ravines on either side, and the richest robe of heather I have seen anywhere.

Mr. S. gave all the men who were looking for me a dinner in the barn, and he and Mrs. S. ministered to them, and they talked of Burns, really the national writer, and known by them, apparently, as none other is, and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and fell. Afterwards they were all brought up to see me, and it was pleasing indeed to observe the good breeding and good, feeling with which they deported themselves on the occasion. Indeed, this adventure created quite an intimate feeling between us and the people there. I had been much pleased, with them before, in attending one of their dances, on account of the genuine independence and politeness of their conduct. They were willing and pleased to dance their Highland flings and strathspeys for our amusement, and did it as naturally and as freely as they would have offered the stranger the best chair.

All the rest must wait a while. I cannot economize time to keep up my record in any proportion with what happens, nor can I get out of Scotland on this page, as I had intended, without utterly slighting many gifts and graces.

LETTER VI.

Inverary.—The Argyle Family.—Dumbarton.—Sunset on the Clyde.—Glasgow.—Dirt and Intellect.—Stirling.—"The Scottish Chiefs."—Stirling Castle.—The Tournament Ground.—Edinburgh.—James Simpson.—Infant Schools.—Free Baths.—Melrose.—Abbotsford.—Walter Scott.—Dryburgh Abbey.—Scott's Tomb.

Paris, November, 1846.

I am very sorry to leave such a wide gap between my letters, but I was inevitably prevented from finishing one that was begun for the steamer of the 4th of November. I then hoped to prepare one after my arrival here in time for the Hibernia, but a severe cold, caught on the way, unfitted me for writing. It is now necessary to retrace my steps a long way, or lose sight of several things it has seemed desirable to mention to friends in America, though I shall make out my narrative more briefly than if nearer the time of action.

If I mistake not, my last closed just as I was looking back on the hill where I had passed the night in all the miserable chill and amid the ghostly apparitions of a Scotch mist, but which looked in the morning truly beautiful, and (had I not known it too well to be deceived) alluring, in its mantle of rich pink heath, the tallest and most full of blossoms we anywhere saw, and with, the waterfall making music by its side, and sparkling in the morning sun.

Passing from Tarbet, we entered the grand and beautiful pass of Glencoe,—sublime with purple shadows with bright lights between, and in one place showing an exquisitely silent and lonely little lake. The wildness of the scene was heightened by the black Highland cattle feeding here and there. They looked much at home, too, in the park at Inverary, where I saw them next day. In Inverary I was disappointed. I found, indeed, the position of every object the same as indicated in the "Legend of Montrose," but the expression of the whole seemed unlike what I had fancied. The present abode of the Argyle family is a modern structure, and boasts very few vestiges of the old romantic history attached to the name. The park and look-out upon the lake are beautiful, but except from the brief pleasure derived from these, the old cross from Iona that stands in the market-place, and the drone of the bagpipe which lulled me to sleep at night playing some melancholy air, there was nothing to make me feel that it was "a far cry to Lochawe," but, on the contrary, I seemed in the very midst of the prosaic, the civilized world.

Leaving Inverary, we left that day the Highlands too, passing through. Hell Glen, a very wild and grand defile. Taking boat then on Loch Levy, we passed down the Clyde, stopping an hour or two on our way at Dumbarton. Nature herself foresaw the era of picture when she made and placed this rock: there is every preparation for the artist's stealing a little piece from her treasures to hang on the walls of a room. Here I saw the sword of "Wallace wight," shown by a son of the nineteenth century, who said that this hero lived about fifty years ago, and who did not know the height of this rock, in a cranny of which he lived, or at least ate and slept and "donned his clothes." From the top of the rock I saw sunset on the beautiful Clyde, animated that day by an endless procession of steamers, little skiffs, and boats. In one of the former, the Cardiff Castle, we embarked as the last light of day was fading, and that evening found ourselves in Glasgow.

I understand there is an intellectual society of high merit in Glasgow, but we were there only a few hours, and did not see any one. Certainly the place, as it may be judged of merely from the general aspect of the population and such objects as may be seen in the streets, more resembles an Inferno than any other we have yet visited. The people are more crowded together, and the stamp of squalid, stolid misery and degradation more obvious and appalling. The English and Scotch do not take kindly to poverty, like those of sunnier climes; it makes them fierce or stupid, and, life presenting no other cheap pleasure, they take refuge in drinking.

I saw here in Glasgow persons, especially women, dressed in dirty, wretched tatters, worse than none, and with an expression of listless, unexpecting woe upon their faces, far more tragic than the inscription over the gate of Dante's Inferno. To one species of misery suffered here to the last extent, I shall advert in speaking of London.

But from all these sorrowful tokens I by no means inferred the falsehood of the information, that here was to be found a circle rich in intellect and in aspiration. The manufacturing and commercial towns, burning focuses of grief and vice, are also the centres of intellectual life, as in forcing-beds the rarest flowers and fruits are developed by use of impure and repulsive materials. Where evil comes to an extreme, Heaven seems busy in providing means for the remedy. Glaring throughout Scotland and England is the necessity for the devoutest application of intellect and love to the cure of ills that cry aloud, and, without such application, erelong help must be sought by other means than words. Yet there is every reason to hope that those who ought to help are seriously, though, slowly, becoming alive to the imperative nature of this duty; so we must not cease to hope, even in the streets of Glasgow, and the gin-palaces of Manchester, and the dreariest recesses of London.

From Glasgow we passed to Stirling, like Dumbarton endeared to the mind which cherishes the memory of its childhood more by association with Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, than with "Snowdon's knight and Scotland's king." We reached the town too late to see the castle before the next morning, and I took up at the inn "The Scottish Chiefs," in which I had not read a word since ten or twelve years old. We are in the habit now of laughing when this book is named, as if it were a representative of what is most absurdly stilted or bombastic, but now, in reading, my maturer mind was differently impressed from what I expected, and the infatuation with which childhood and early youth regard this book and its companion, "Thaddeus of Warsaw," was justified. The characters and dialogue are, indeed, out of nature, but the sentiment that animates them is pure, true, and no less healthy than noble. Here is bad drawing, bad drama, but good music, to which the unspoiled heart will always echo, even when the intellect has learned to demand a better organ for its communication.

The castle of Stirling is as rich as any place in romantic associations. We were shown its dungeons and its Court of Lions, where, says tradition, wild animals, kept in the grated cells adjacent, were brought out on festival occasions to furnish entertainment for the court. So, while lords and ladies gay danced and sang above, prisoners pined and wild beasts starved below. This, at first blush, looks like a very barbarous state of things, but, on reflection, one does not find that we have outgrown it in our present so-called state of refined civilization, only the present way of expressing the same facts is a little different. Still lords and ladies dance and sing, unknowing or uncaring that the laborers who minister to their luxuries starve or are turned into wild beasts. Man need not boast his condition, methinks, till he can weave his costly tapestry without the side that is kept under looking thus sadly.

The tournament ground is still kept green and in beautiful order, near Stirling castle, as a memento of the olden time, and as we passed away down the beautiful Firth, a turn of the river gave us a very advantageous view of it. So gay it looked, so festive in the bright sunshine, one almost seemed to see the graceful forms of knight and noble pricking their good steeds to the encounter, or the stalwart Douglas, vindicating his claim to be indeed a chief by conquest in the rougher sports of the yeomanry.

Passing along the Firth to Edinburgh, we again passed two or three days in that beautiful city, which I could not be content to leave so imperfectly seen, if I had not some hope of revisiting it when the bright lights that adorn it are concentred there. In summer almost every one is absent. I was very fortunate to see as many interesting persons as I did. On this second visit I saw James Simpson, a well-known philanthropist, and leader in the cause of popular education. Infant schools have been an especial care of his, and America as well as Scotland has received the benefit of his thoughts on this subject. His last good work has been to induce the erection of public baths in Edinburgh, and the working people of that place, already deeply in his debt for the lectures he has been unwearied in delivering for their benefit, have signified their gratitude by presenting him with a beautiful model of a fountain in silver as an ornament to his study. Never was there a place where such a measure would be more important; if cleanliness be akin to godliness, Edinburgh stands at great disadvantage in her devotions. The impure air, the terrific dirt which surround the working people, must make all progress in higher culture impossible; and I saw nothing which seemed to me so likely to have results of incalculable good, as this practical measure of the Simpsons in support of the precept,

We returned into England by the way of Melrose, not content to leave Scotland without making our pilgrimage to Abbotsford. The universal feeling, however, has made this pilgrimage so common that there is nothing left for me to say; yet, though I had read a hundred descriptions, everything seemed new as I went over this epitome of the mind and life of Scott. As what constitutes the great man is more commonly some extraordinary combination and balance of qualities, than the highest development of any one, so you cannot but here be struck anew by the singular combination in Scott's mind of love for the picturesque and romantic with the plainest common sense,—a delight in heroic excess with the prudential habit of order. Here the most pleasing order pervades emblems of what men commonly esteem disorder and excess.

Amid the exquisite beauty of the ruins of Dryburgh, I saw with regret that Scott's body rests in almost the only spot that is not green, and cannot well be made so, for the light does not reach it. That is not a fit couch for him who dressed so many dim and time-worn relics with living green.

Always cheerful and beneficent, Scott seemed to the common eye in like measure prosperous and happy, up to the last years, and the chair in which, under the pressure of the sorrows which led to his death, he was propped up to write when brain and eye and hand refused their aid, the product remaining only as a guide to the speculator as to the workings of the mind in case of insanity or approaching imbecility, would by most persons be viewed as the only saddening relic of his career. Yet when I recall some passages in the Lady of the Lake, and the Address to his Harp, I cannot doubt that Scott had the full share of bitter in his cup, and feel the tender hope that we do about other gentle and generous guardians and benefactors of our youth, that in a nobler career they are now fulfilling still higher duties with serener mind. Doubtless too they are trusting in us that we will try to fill their places with kindly deeds, ardent thoughts, nor leave the world, in their absence,

LETTER VII.

Newcastle.—Descent into a Coal-Mine.—York with its Minster.—Sheffield.—Chatsworth.—Warwick Castle.—Leamington and Stratford.—Shakespeare.—Birmingham.—George Dawson.—James Martineau.—W.J. Fox.—W.H. Charming and Theodore Parker.—London and Paris.

Paris, 1846.

We crossed the moorland in a heavy rain, and reached Newcastle late at night. Next day we descended into a coal-mine; it was quite an odd sensation to be taken off one's feet and dropped down into darkness by the bucket. The stables under ground had a pleasant Gil-Blas air, though the poor horses cannot like it much; generally they see the light of day no more after they have once been let down into these gloomy recesses, but pass their days in dragging cars along the rails of the narrow passages, and their nights in eating hay and dreaming of grass!! When we went down, we meant to go along the gallery to the place where the miners were then at work, but found this was a walk of a mile and a half, and, beside the weariness of picking one's steps slowly along by the light of a tallow candle, too wet and dirty an enterprise to be undertaken by way of amusement; so, after proceeding half a mile or so, we begged to be restored to our accustomed level, and reached it with minds slightly edified and face and hands much blackened.

Passing thence we saw York with its Minster, that dream of beauty realized. From, its roof I saw two rainbows, overarching that lovely country. Through its aisles I heard grand music pealing. But how sorrowfully bare is the interior of such a cathedral, despoiled of the statues, the paintings, and the garlands that belong to the Catholic religion! The eye aches for them. Such a church is ruined by Protestantism; its admirable exterior seems that of a sepulchre; there is no correspondent life within.

Within the citadel, a tower half ruined and ivy-clad, is life that has been growing up while the exterior bulwarks of the old feudal time crumbled to ruin. George Fox, while a prisoner at York for obedience to the dictates of his conscience, planted here a walnut, and the tall tree that grew from it still "bears testimony" to his living presence on that spot. The tree is old, but still bears nuts; one of them was taken away by my companions, and may perhaps be the parent of a tree somewhere in America, that shall shade those who inherit the spirit, if they do not attach importance to the etiquettes, of Quakerism.

In Sheffield I saw the sooty servitors tending their furnaces. I saw them, also on Saturday night, after their work was done, going to receive its poor wages, looking pallid and dull, as if they had spent on tempering the steel that vital force that should have tempered themselves to manhood.

We saw, also, Chatsworth, with its park and mock wilderness, and immense conservatory, and really splendid fountains and wealth of marbles. It is a fine expression of modern luxury and splendor, but did not interest me; I found little there of true beauty or grandeur.

Warwick Castle is a place entirely to my mind, a real representative of the English aristocracy in the day of its nobler life. The grandeur of the pile itself, and its beauty of position, introduce you fitly to the noble company with which the genius of Vandyke has peopled its walls. But a short time was allowed to look upon these nobles, warriors, statesmen, and ladies, who gaze upon us in turn with such a majesty of historic association, yet was I very well satisfied. It is not difficult to see men through the eyes of Vandyke. His way of viewing character seems superficial, though commanding; he sees the man in his action on the crowd, not in his hidden life; he does not, like some painters, amaze and engross us by his revelations as to the secret springs of conduct. I know not by what hallucination I forebore to look at the picture I most desired to see,—that of Lucy, Countess of Carlisle. I was looking at something else, and when the fat, pompous butler announced her, I did not recognize her name from his mouth. Afterward it flashed across me, that I had really been standing before her and forgotten to look. But repentance was too late; I had passed the castle gate to return no more.

Pretty Leamington and Stratford are hackneyed ground. Of the latter I only observed what, if I knew, I had forgotten, that the room where Shakespeare was born has been an object of devotion only for forty years. England has learned much of her appreciation of Shakespeare from the Germans. In the days of innocence, I fondly supposed that every one who could understand English, and was not a cannibal, adored Shakespeare and read him on Sundays always for an hour or more, and on week days a considerable portion of the time. But I have lived to know some hundreds of persons in my native land, without finding ten who had any direct acquaintance with their greatest benefactor, and I dare say in England as large an experience would not end more honorably to its subjects. So vast a treasure is left untouched, while men are complaining of being poor, because they have not toothpicks exactly to their mind.

At Stratford I handled, too, the poker used to such good purpose by Geoffrey Crayon. The muse had fled, the fire was out, and the poker rusty, yet a pleasant influence lingered even in that cold little room, and seemed to lend a transient glow to the poker under the influence of sympathy.

In Birmingham I heard two discourses from one of the rising lights of England, George Dawson, a young man of whom I had earlier heard much in praise. He is a friend of the people, in the sense of brotherhood, not of a social convenience or patronage; in literature catholic; in matters of religion antisectarian, seeking truth in aspiration and love. He is eloquent, with good method in his discourse, fire and dignity when wanted, with a frequent homeliness in enforcement and illustration which offends the etiquettes of England, but fits him the better for the class he has to address. His powers are uncommon and unfettered in their play; his aim is worthy. He is fulfilling and will fulfil an important task as an educator of the people, if all be not marred by a taint of self-love and arrogance now obvious in his discourse. This taint is not surprising in one so young, who has done so much, and in order to do it has been compelled to great self-confidence and light heed of the authority of other minds, and who is surrounded almost exclusively by admirers; neither is it, at present, a large speck; it may be quite purged from him by the influence of nobler motives and the rise of his ideal standard; but, on the other hand, should it spread, all must be vitiated. Let us hope the best, for he is one that could ill be spared from the band who have taken up the cause of Progress in England.