SKETCHES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL (continued 4)

If, in the above hints concerning the way to travel pleasantly and cheaply in Europe, I have succeeded in removing any of the bugbear obstacles which hold back so many from the great advantages they might here enjoy, I shall feel that I have not tasked my poor eyes and brain for nothing. We are a long way behind Europe in many things, and it is only by frequent communication that we can make up our deficiencies. It cannot be done by boasting, nor by claiming for America all the enterprise and enlightenment of the nineteenth century. Neither can it be done by setting up the United States as superior to every historical precedent, and an exception to every rule. Most men (as the old French writer says) are mortal; and we Americans shall find that our country, with all its prosperity and unequalled progress, is subject to the same vicissitudes as the countries we now think we can afford to despise; and that our history is

"——but the same rehearsal of the past—

First Freedom, and then Glory; when that fails,

Wealth, vice, corruption,—barbarism at last."

No, we cannot safely scorn the lesson which Europe teaches us; for if we do, we shall have to learn it at the expense of much adversity and wounding of our pride. Every American who comes abroad, if he knows how to travel, ought to carry home with him a new idea of the amenities of life, and of moderation in the pursuit and the use of wealth, such as will make itself felt in the course of time, and make the fast living and recklessness of authority and tendency to bankruptcy of the present day, give way to a spirit of moderation and obedience to law such as always produces private prosperity and public stability.

PARIS TO BOULOGNE

It was a delicious morning when I packed my trunk to leave Paris. Indeed it was so bright and cloudless that it seemed wrong to go away and leave so fine a combination of perfections. It was more than the "bridal of the earth and sky"; it was the bridal of all the created beings around one and their works with the sky. The deep blue of the heavens, the glittering sunbeams, the clean streets, the fair house fronts, the gay shop windows, the white caps, and shining morning faces of the bonnes and market women, the busy, prosperous look of the passers by, were all blended together in one harmonious whole, more touching and poetical than any scene of mere natural beauty that the dewy morn, "with breath all incense and with cheek all bloom," ever looked upon. "Earth hath not any thing to show more fair." Others may delight in communing with solitary nature, and may rave in rhyme about the glories of woods, lakes, mountains, and Ausonian skies; but what is all that compared to the awakening of a great city to the life of day? What are the floods of golden light that every morning bathe the mountain tops, and are poured down into the valleys and fields below, compared to the playing of the sunbeams in the smoke from ten thousand chimneys, and the din of toil displacing the silence of night? I have seen the sunsets of the Archipelago—I have seen Lesbos and Egina clad in those robes of purple and gold, which till then I had thought were a mere figment of the painter's brain—I have enjoyed that "hush of world's expectation as day died"—I have often drunk in the glory of a cloudless sunrise on the Atlantic, and even now my heart leaps up at the remembrance of it; but after all, commend me to the deeper and more sympathetic feelings inspired by the dingy walls and ungraceful chimney-pots of a metropolis. Thousands of human hearts are there, throbbing with hope, or joy, or sorrow,—weighed down perchance by guilt; and humanity with all its imperfections is a noble thing. A single human heart, though erring, is a grander creation than the Alps or the Andes, for it shall outlive them. It is moved by aspirations that outrun the universe, and possesses a destiny that shall outlive the stars. It is the better side of human nature that we see in the early morning in large cities. Vice flourishes best under the glare of gas-lights, and does not salute the rising sun. The bloated form, the sunken eye, the painted cheek, shrink from that which would make their deformity more hideous, and hide themselves in places which their presence makes almost pestilential. Honest, healthful labour meets us at every step, and imparts to us something of its own hopefulness and activity. We miss the dew-drops glittering like jewels in the grass, but the loss is more than made up to us by the bright eyes of happy children, helping their parents in their work, or sporting together on their way to school.

There was a time when I thought it very poetical to roam the broad fields in that still hour when the golden light seems to clasp every object that it meets, as if it loved it; but of late years a comfortable sidewalk has been more suggestive of poetry and less productive of wet feet. Give me a level pavement before all your groves and fields. The only rus that wears well in the long run is Russ in urbe. Nine tenths of all the fine things in our literature concerning the charms of country life, have been written, not beneath the shade of overarching boughs, but within the crowded city's smoke-stained walls. Depend upon it, Shakespeare could never have written about the moonlight sleeping on the bank any where but in the city; had the realities of country life been present to him, he would have rejected any such metaphor, for he loved the moonlight too dearly to subject it to the rheumatic attack that would inevitably have followed such a nap as that. It is with country life very much as it is with life at sea. Mr. Choate, who pours out his noblest eloquence on the glories and romance of the sea, seldom sees the outside of his state-room while he is out of sight of land, and all his glowing periods are forgotten in the realities of his position. So, too, the man who wishes to destroy the poetry and romance of country life, has only to walk about in the wet grass or the scorching heat, or to be obliged to pick the pebbles out of his shoes, or a caterpillar off his neck, or to be mocked at by unruly cattle, or pestered by any of the myriads of insect and reptiles which abound in every well-regulated country.

The excellent Madame Busque (la dame aux pumpkin pies) had prepared for me a viaticum in the shape of a small loaf of as good gingerbread as was ever made west of Cape Cod—a motherly attention quite in keeping with her ordinary way of taking care of her customers. All who frequent the crêmerie are her enfans, and if she does not show them every little maternal attention, and tie a bib upon every one's neck, it is only that we may know better how to behave when we are beyond the reach of her kindly hand. Fortified with the gingerbread, I found myself whirling out of the terminus of the Northern Railway, and Paris, with its far-stretching fortifications, its domes and towers, and its windmill-crowned Montmartre, was soon out of sight.

The train was very full, and the weather very warm. Two of my car-companions afforded me a good deal of amusement. They were a fat German and his wife. He was one of the jolliest old gentlemen I ever had the good fortune to travel with. His silvery hair was cropped close to his head, and he rode along with his cuffs turned up and his waistcoat open. He seemed to feel that he was occupying a good deal of room; but he was the only one there who felt it. No one of us would have had his circumference reduced an inch, but we should all of us have delighted to put a thin man who was there out by the roadside. His wife—a bright-eyed little woman, whose hair was just getting a little silvery—had a small box-cage in which she carried a large, intelligent-looking parrot. Before we had gone very far, the bird began to carry on an animated conversation with its mistress, but finally disgusted her and surprised us all by swearing in French and German at the whole company, with all the vehemence of a regiment of troopers. The lady tried hard to stop him, but it was useless. The old gentleman (like a great many good people who would not swear themselves, but rather like to hear a good round oath occasionally) seemed to enjoy it intensely, and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. At noon the worthy pair made solemn preparations for a dinner. A basket, a carpet-bag, and sundry paper parcels were brought out. The lady spread a large checked handkerchief over their laps for a table cloth, and then produced a staff of life about two feet in length, and cut off a good thick slice for each of them. Cheese was added to it, and also a species of sausage about a foot in length, and three inches in diameter. From these they made a comfortable meal—not eating by stealth, as we Americans should have done—but diving in heartily, and chatting together all the while as cosily as if they had been at home. A bottle of wine was then brought out from the magic carpet-bag, and a glass, also a nice dessert of peaches and grapes. There was a charming at-home-ativeness about the whole proceeding that contrasted strongly with our American way of doing such things, and all the other passengers apparently took no notice of it.

We arrived at Boulogne in the midst of a storm as severe as the morning had been serene. So fair and foul a day I have not seen. An omnibus whisked me to a hotel in what my venerable grandmother used to call a jiffy, and I was at once independent of the weather's caprices. A comfortable dinner at the table d'hôte repaired the damages of the journey, and I spent the evening with some good friends, whose company was made the more delightful by the months that had separated us. The storm raged without, and we chatted within. The old hotel creaked and sighed as the blast assailed it, and I dreamed all night of close-reefed topsails.

"'Tis a wild night out of doors;

The wind is mad upon the moors.

And comes into the rocking town,

Stabbing all things up and down:

And then there is a weeping rain

Huddling 'gainst the window pane;

And good men bless themselves in bed;

The mother brings her infant's head

Closer with a joy like tears,

And thinks of angels in her prayers,

Then sleeps with his small hand in hers."

Having in former years merely passed through Boulogne, I had never known before what a pleasant old city it is. Its clean streets and well-built houses, and the air of respectable antiquity which pervades it, make a very pleasant impression upon the mind. As you stand on the quay, and look across at the white cliffs on the other side of the Channel, which are distinctly visible on a clear day, the differences in the character of the two nations so slightly separated from one another, strike you more forcibly than ever. The very fish taken on the French side of the channel are different from any that you see in England; and as to the fishwomen, whose sunburnt legs, bare to the knee, are the astonishment of all new-comers,—go over all Europe, and you will find nothing like them. That superb cathedral, the shrine of our Lady of Boulogne, upon which the storm of the first French revolution beat with such fury, is now beginning to wear a look of completion. Its dome, one of the loftiest and most graceful in the world, is a striking and beautiful feature in the view of the city. For more than twelve centuries this has been a famous shrine. Kings and princes have visited it, not with the pomp and circumstance of royalty, but in the humble garb of the pilgrim. Henry VIII. made a pilgrimage hither in his unenlightened days, before the pious Cranmer had taught him how wicked it was to honour the Mother whom his Saviour honoured, and how godly and just it was to divorce and put to death the mothers of his children. Here it was that the heroic crusader, Godfrey, kindled the flame of that devotion which nerved his arm against the foes of Christianity, and added a new lustre to his knightly fame. It is a fashion of the present day to sneer at the age of chivalry and the crusades, and some of our best writers have been enticed into the following of it. While we have so many subjects deserving the treatment of the satirist, at our very doors,—while we have the fashionable world to draw upon,—while we can look around on political parsons, professional philanthropists and patriots, politicians who talk of principle, and followers who are weak enough to believe in them—it would really seem as if we might allow the crusaders and troubadours to rest. Supposing, for the sake of argument, Christianity to be a true religion,—supposing it to be a fact that eighteen hundred years ago the plains of Palestine were trodden by the blessed feet that were "nailed for our advantage on the bitter cross"—the redemption of the land which had been the scene of the sacred history, from the sacrilegious hands of the Saracens, was certainly an enterprise creditable to St. Louis, and Richard the lion-hearted, and Godfrey, and the other gentlemen who sacrificed so much in it. It was certainly as respectable an undertaking as any of the crusades of modern times,—as that of the Spaniards in America, the English in India, or the United States in Mexico,—with this exception, that it was not so profitable. I am afraid that some of our modern satirists are lacking in the spirit of their profession, and allow themselves to be made the mouthpieces of that worldly wisdom which it is their office to rebuke. I can see nothing to sneer at in the crusader exiling himself from his native land, and forfeiting his life in the defence of the Holy Sepulchre; indeed, I am inclined to respect a man who makes such a sacrifice to a conscientious conviction: it is a noble conquest of the visible temporal by the unseen eternal. I can well understand how such efforts for the protection of a mere empty tomb would seem worthy of laughter and ridicule to those who can find no food for satire in the auri sacra fames which has been the motive of modern foreign expeditions. It would be well for the world could we bring back something of that age of chivalry which Edmund Burke regretted so eloquently. We need it sorely; for we are every day sliding farther down from its high standard of honour and of unselfish devotion to principle.

There is a little fishing village about a mile and a half from Boulogne, on the sea coast towards Calais, which is celebrated in history as having been the scene of the landing of Prince Louis Napoleon and his companions in their unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of Louis Philippe. Napoleon III. has not distinguished the spot by any memorial; but he has erected a colossal statue of Napoleon I. on the spot where that insatiable conqueror, with his mighty army around him, looked longingly at the coast of England. There is something of a contrast between the day thus commemorated and that on which the "nephew of his uncle" received Queen Victoria at Boulogne, when she visited France. It must have been a great satisfaction to Louis Napoleon, after his life of exile, and particularly after the studied neglect which he experienced from the English nobility, to have welcomed the British Queen to his realm with that kiss which is the token of equality among sovereigns. Waterloo must have been blotted out when he saw the Queen—in whose realm he had served the cause of good order in the rank of special constable—bending down at his knee to confer upon him the order of the garter.

In spite of its geographical situation, Boulogne can hardly be considered a French town. The police department and the custom house are in the hands of the French, to be sure; but in the course of a walk through its streets, you hear much more of the English than of the French language. You meet those brown shooting jackets, and checked trousers, and thick shoes and gaiters that are at home every where in the "inviolate island of the sage and free." You cannot turn a corner without coming upon some of those beefy and beery countenances which symbolize so perfectly the genius of British civilization, and hearing the letter H exasperated to a wonderful degree. Every where you see bevies of young ladies wearing those peculiar brown straw hats, edged with black lace, with a brown feather put in horizontally on one side of the crown, a style of head dress to which the French and Italians have given the name of "Ingleesh spoken here." There is a large class among the English population of Boulogne upon which the disinterested spectator will look with interest and with pity. I mean those unfortunate persons who have been obliged by "force of circumstances" and the importunity of creditors to exile themselves for a time from their native land. You see them on every side; and all ranks in society are represented among them, from the distinguished-looking man, with the tortoise-shell spectacles, who ran through his wife's property at the club, to the pale, unhappy-looking fellow in the loose thread gloves and sleepless coat. You can distinguish them at a glance from their fellow-countrymen who have gone over for purposes of recreation, the poor devils walk about with such an evident wish to appear to be doing something or going somewhere. The condition of the prisoners, or rather the "collegians," in the old Marshalsea prison, must have been an enviable one, compared to these unfortunates, condemned to gaze at the cliffs of Old England from a distance, and wait vainly for something to turn up.

The arrival and departure of the English steamers is the only source of excitement that the quiet city of Boulogne possesses. I was astonished to find, after being there a day or two, what an interest I took in those occurrences. I found myself on the quay with the rest of the foreign population of the town, an hour before the departure of the boat, to make sure, like every body else there, that not a traveller for England should escape my notice. Besides the pleasure of inspecting the motley crowd of spectators, I was gratified one day to see the big, manly form and good-natured ugly face of Thackeray, following a leathern portmanteau on its path from the omnibus to the boat. The great satirist took an observation of the crowd through his spectacles as if he were making a mental note, to be overhauled in due season, and then hurried on board, as if he longed to get back to London among his books. He had been spending the warm season at the baths of Hombourg. But the great excitement of the day is the arrival of the afternoon boat from Folkestone. It is better as an amusement than many plays that I have seen, and it has this advantage, (an indispensable one to a large part of the English population of Boulogne,) that it costs nothing. During the days when I was there, the equinoctial gale was in full blow, and, of course, there was a greater rush than usual to the quay. It was necessary to go very early to secure a good place. From the steamer to the passport office, a distance of two or three hundred feet, ropes were stretched to keep back the spectators, forming an avenue some thirty feet wide. Through this the wretched victims of the "chop sea" of the Channel were obliged to pass, and listen to the remarks or laughter which their pitiable condition excited among the crowd of their disinterested countrymen. Any person who has ever been seasick can imagine what it would be to go on shore from a boat that has just been pitching and rolling about in the most absurd manner, and try to walk like a Christian, with the eyes of several hundred amusement-seeking people fixed upon him. Sympathy is entirely out of the question. The pallid countenance and uncertain step, as if the walker were waiting for the pavement to rise to meet his foot, excite nothing but mirth in the spectators. The whole scene, including the lookers-on, was one of the funniest things I ever saw. The observations of the crowd, too, were well calculated to heighten the effect. "Ease her when she pitches," cried out a youngster at my side, as an old lady, who was supported by a gentleman and a maid servant, seemed to be trying to accommodate herself to the motion of the street, and testify her love for terra firma by lying down. "Hard a' starboard," shouted another, as a gentleman, with a felt hat close reefed to his head with a white handkerchief, sidled along up the leeward side of the passage way. "That 'ere must 'a been a sewere case of sickness," said a little old man, in an advanced state of seediness, as a tall man, looking defiance at the crowd, walked ashore with a carpet-bag in his hand, and an expression on his face very like that of Mr. Warren, in the farce, when he says, "Shall I slay him at once, or shall I wait till the cool of the evening?" "Don't go yet, Mary," said a young gentleman in a jacket and precocious hat, to his sister, who seemed to fear that it was about to begin to rain again,—"don't go yet; the best of all is to come; there's a fat lady on board who has been so sick—we must wait to see her!" And so they went on, carrying out in the most exemplary manner that golden rule which, applied to the period of seasickness, enjoins upon us that we shall do unto others just as others would do to us.

It is no joke to most people to cross the Channel at any time, but to cross it on the tail-end of the equinoctial storm is far from being a humorous matter. I had crossed from almost all the ports between Havre and Rotterdam in former years; so I resolved to try a new route in spite of the weather, and booked myself for a passage in the boat from Boulogne to London, direct. The steamer was called the Seine; and when we had once got into the open sea, a large part of the passengers seemed to think that they were insane to have come in her. She was a very good sea-boat, but I could not help contrasting her with our Sound and Hudson River steamers at home. If the "General Steam Navigation Company" were to import a steamer from America like the Metropolis or the Isaac Newton, there would be a revolution in the travelling world of England. The people here would no longer put up with steamers without an awning or any shelter from sun or rain. After they had enjoyed the accommodations of one of our great floating hotels, they would not think of shutting themselves up in the miserable cabins which people pay so dearly for here. But to proceed: when we got fairly out upon the nasty deep, I ventured to gratify my curiosity, as a connoisseur in seasickness, by a visit to the cabin. If I were in the habit of writing for the newspapers, I suppose I should say that the scene "baffled description." It certainly was one that I shall not soon forget. The most rabid republican would have been satisfied with the equality that prevailed there. The squalls that assailed us on deck were nothing compared to the demonstrations of a whole regiment of infantry below, who were illustrating, in a manner worthy of Retsch, one of the first lines in Shakespeare's Seven Ages. Ladies of all ages were keeled up on every side in various postures of picturesque negligence, and with a forgetfulness of the conventionalities of society quite charming to look upon. The floor, where it was unoccupied by prostrate humanity, was nearly covered with hatboxes, and bonnets, and bowls, and anonymous articles of crockery ware, which were performing a lively quadrille, being assisted therein by the motion of the ship. But a little of such sights, and sounds, and smells as these goes a great way with me, and I was glad to return to the wet deck. They had managed to rig a tarpaulin between the paddle-boxes, and there I took refuge until the rain ceased. It was comparatively pleasant weather when we sailed past Walmer Castle, where that old hero died on whom all the world has conferred the title of "The Duke"; and of course there was no rough sea as soon as we got into the Downs. Black-eyed Susan might have gone on board of any of the fleet of vessels that were lying there without discolouring her ribbons by a single dash of spray. Ramsgate and Margate (the Newport and Cape May of England) looked full of company as we sailed by them, and crowds of bathers were battling with the surf. The heavy black yards of the ships of war loomed up at Sheerness in the distance, and suggested thoughts of Nelson, and Dibdin, and Ben Bowlin. Now and then we passed by some splendid American clipper ship towing up or down the river, and I felt proud of my nationality as I contrasted her graceful lines and majestic proportions with the tub-like models of British origin that every where met my eye. The dock-yards of Woolwich seemed like a vast ant-hill for numbers and busy life. Greenwich, with its fine architecture and fresh foliage in the distance, was most grateful to my eyes; and it was pleasing to reflect, as I passed the observatory, that I could begin to reckon my longitude to the westward, for it made me feel nearer home.

LONDON

No man can really appreciate the grandeur of London until he has approached it from the sea. The sail up the river from Gravesend to London Bridge is a succession of wonders, each one more overwhelming than that which preceded it. There is no display of fortifications; but here and there you see some storm-tossed old hulk, which, having finished its active career, has been safely anchored in that repose which powder magazines always enjoy. As the river grows narrower, the number of ships, steamers, coal barges, wherries, and boats of every description, seems to increase; and as you sail on, the grand panorama of the world-wide commerce of this great metropolis unfolds before you, and you are lost, not so much in admiration as in astonishment. Woolwich, Greenwich, Rotherhithe, Bermondsey, Blackwall, Millwall, Wapping, &c., follow rapidly in the vision, like the phantom kings before the eyes of the unfortunate Scotch usurper, until one is temped to inquire with him, whether the "line will stretch out to the crack of doom." The buildings grow thicker and more unsightly as you advance; the black sides of the enormous warehouses seem to be bulging out over the edge of the wharves on which they stand; far off, beyond the reach of the tides, you see the forests of masts that indicate the site of the docks. The bright green water of the Channel has been exchanged for the filthy, drain-like current of the Thames. Hundreds of monstrous chimneys belch forth the smoke that constitutes the legitimate atmosphere of London. Every thing seems to be dressed in the deepest mourning for the cruel fate of nature, and you look at the distant hills and bright lawns, over in the direction of Sydenham, with very much of the feeling that Dives must have had, when he gazed on the happiness of Lazarus from his place of torment. Every thing presents a most striking contrast to the clean, fair cities of the continent. Paris, with its cream-coloured palaces adorning the banks of the Seine, seems more beautiful than ever as you recall it while surrounded by such sights, and sounds, and smells, as offend your senses here. The winding Arno, and the towers, and domes, and bridges, of Florence and Pisa, seem to belong to a celestial vision rather than to an earthly reality, as you contrast them with the monuments of England's commercial greatness. At last, you come in sight of London Bridge, with its never-ceasing current of vehicles and human beings crossing it; and your amazement is crowned by realizing that, notwithstanding the wonders you have seen, you have just reached the edge of the city, and that you can ride for miles and miles through a closely-built labyrinth of bricks and mortar, hidden under the veil of smoke before you.

And what a change it is—from Paris to London! To a Frenchman it must be productive of a suicidal feeling. The scene has shifted from the sunny Boulevards to the blackened bricks and mortar, which neither great Neptune's ocean, nor Lord Palmerston's anti-smoke enactment can wash clean. In the place of the smiling, good-humoured Frenchman, you have the serious, stately Englishman. One misses the wining courtesy of which a Frenchman's hat is the instrument, and the ready pardon or merci is heard no more. The beggary, the drunkenness, and the depravity, so apparent on every side, appall one. Paris may be the most immoral city in the world; but there, vice must be sought for in its own haunts. Here in London, it prowls up and down in the streets, seeking for its victims. Put all the other European capitals together, and I do not believe that you could meet with so much to pain and disgust you as you would in one hour in the streets of London. And yet, with all this staring people in the face here, how do they go to work to remedy it? They pass laws enforcing the suspension of business on Sundays, and when they succeed in keeping all the shutters closed, by fear of the law, they fold their arms, and say, "See what a godly nation is this!" If this is not "making clean the outside of the cup and platter," what is it? For my part, I much prefer that perfect religious liberty which allows each man to keep Sunday as he pleases; and the recent improvement in the observance of the day in France is all the more gratifying, because it does not spring from any compulsory motive. Let the Jews keep the Sabbath as they are commanded to in the Old Testament; but Sunday is the Christian's day, and Sunday is a day of festivity and rejoicing, and not of fasting and penitential sadness.

Despite the smoke, and the lack of continental courtesy which is felt on arriving from France, despite the din and hurry, I cannot help loving London. The very names of the streets have been mad classical by writers whose works are a part of our own intellectual being. The illustrious and venerable names of Barclay and Perkins, of Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton, that meet our eyes at every corner, are the synonymes of English hospitality and cheer. It is a pleasure, too, to hear one's native language spoken on all sides, after so many months of French twang. The hissing and sputtering English seems under such circumstances to be more musical than the most elegant phrases of the Tuscan in the mouth of a dignified Roman. Even the omnibus conductors' talk about the "Habbey," the "Benk," 'Igh 'Olborn, &c., does not offend the ear, so delightful does it seem to be able to say beefsteak instead of biftek. The odour of brown stout that prevails every where is as fragrant as the first sniff of the land breeze after a long voyage. Temple Bar is eloquent of the genius of Hogarth, whose deathless drawings first made its ugly form familiar to your youthful eyes in other lands. The very stones of Fleet Street prate of Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith. You walk into Bolt Court, and if you feel as I do the associations of the place, you eat a chop in the tavern that stands where stood the house of Dr. Johnson. Then you cross over the way to Inner Temple Lane, and mourn over the march of improvement when you see that its sacrilegious hand is sweeping away a row of four brick houses, which, dilapidated and unsightly as they may appear, are dear to every lover of English literature. In No. 1, formerly dwelt Dr. Johnson; in No. 4, Charles Lamb. You walk into the Temple Church, and muse over the effigies of the knights who repose there in marble or bronze, or go into the quiet Temple Gardens, and meditate on the wars of the red and white roses that were plucked there centuries ago, before the iron fences were built. It would be as difficult to pluck any roses there now as the most zealous member of the Peace Society could wish. You climb up Ludgate Hill, getting finely spattered by the cabs and omnibuses, and find yourself at St. Paul's. You smile when you think that that black pile of architecture, with its twopenny fee of admission, was intended to rival St. Peter's, and your smile becomes audible when you enter it, and see that while the images of the Saviour and the Saints may not be "had and retained," the statues of admirals and generals are considered perfectly in place there. You walk out with the conviction that consistency is a jewel, and tread a pavement that is classical to every lover of books. Paternoster Row receives you, and you slowly saunter through it. Nobody walks rapidly through Paternoster Row. Situated midway between the bustle and turmoil of Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, it is a kind of resting-place for pedestrians. They breathe the more quiet air of bookland there, and the windows are a temptation which few loiterers can withstand.

The old church of St. Mary le Bow reminds you that you are at the very centre of Cockneydom, as you walk on towards the Bank and the Exchange. Crossing the street at the risk of your life through a maze of snorting horses and rattling wheels, you get into Cornhill. Here the faces that you see are a proof that the anxious, money-getting look is not confined to the worshippers of the almighty dollar. You push on until you reach Eastcheap. How great is your disappointment! The very name has called up all your recollections of the wild young prince and his fat friend—but nothing that you see there serves to heighten your Shakespearean enthusiasm. Coal-heavers and draymen make the air vocal with their oaths and slang, which once resounded with the laughter of Jack Falstaff and his jolly companions. No Mistress Quickly stands in the doorway of any of the numerous taverns. The whole scene is a great falling-off from what you had imagined of Eastcheap. The sanded floors, the snowy window curtains, the bright pewter pots, have given way to dirt and general frowsiness. You read on a card in a window that within you can obtain "a go of brandy for sixpence, and a go of gin for fourpence," and that settles all your Falstaffian associations. You stop to look at an old brick house which is being pulled down, for you think that perhaps its heavy timbered ceilings, and low windows, and Guy Fawkesy entries date back to Shakespeare's times; but you are too much incommoded by the dust from its crumbling walls to stop long, and you leave the place carrying with you the only reminder of Falstaff you have seen there—you leave with lime in your sack!

I know of nothing better calculated to take down a man's self-esteem than a walk through the streets of London. To a man who has always lived in a small town, where every second person he meets is an acquaintance, a walk from Hyde Park corner to London Bridge must be a crusher. If that does not convince him that he is really of very little importance in the world, he is past cure. The whirl of vehicles, the throngs upon the sidewalks, seem to overwhelm and blot out our own individuality. Xerxes cried when he gazed upon his assembled forces, and reflected that out of all that vast multitude not one person would be alive in a hundred years. Xerxes ought to have ridden through Oxford Street or the Strand on the top of an omnibus. Spitalfields and Bandanna (two places concerning the geography of which I am rather in the dark) could not have furnished him with handkerchiefs to dry his eyes.

I was never so struck with the lack of architectural beauty in London as I have been during this visit. There are, it is true, a few fine buildings—Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, Somerset House, &c.; but they are all as black as my hat, with this soot in which all London is clothed; so there is really very little beauty about them. The new Houses of Parliament are a fine pile of buildings, certainly, and the lately finished towers are a pleasing feature in the view from the bridges; but they are altogether too gingerbready to wear well. They lack boldness of light and shade; and this lack is making itself more apparent every day as the smoke of the city is enveloping them in its everlasting shade. Buckingham Palace looks like a second rate American hotel, and as to St. James, the barracks at West Point are far more palatial than that. It is not architecture, however, that we look for in London. It has a charm in spite of all its deformities,—in spite of its climate, which is such an encouragement to the umbrella makers—in spite of its smoky atmosphere, through which the sun looks like a great copper ball—in spite of the mud, which the water-carts insure when the dark skies fail in the discharge of their daily dues to the metropolis. London, with all thy fogs, I love thee still! It is this great agglomeration of towns which we call London—this great human family of more than two millions and a half of beings that awakens our sympathy. It is the fact that through England we Americans trace our relationship to the ages that are past. It is the fact that we are here surrounded by the honoured tombs of heroes and wise men, whose very names have become, as it were, a part of our own being. These are the things that bind us to London, and which make the aureola of light that hangs over it at night time seem a crown of glory.

But we must not forget that there is a dark side to the picture. There is a serious drawback to all our enthusiasm. Poverty and vice beset us at every step. Beggary more abject than all the world besides can show appeals to us at every crossing. The pale hollow cheek and sunken eye tell such a story of want as no language can express. The mother, standing in a doorway with her two hungry-looking children, and imploring the passers-by to purchase some of the netting work her hands have executed, is a sight that touches your heart. But walk into some of those lanes and alleys which abound almost under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament and the royal residence,—slums "whose atmosphere is typhus, and whose ventilation is cholera,"—and the sentiment of pity is lost in one of fear. There you see on every side that despair and recklessness which spring from want and neglect. Walk through Regent Street, and the Haymarket, and the Strand in the evening, and you shall be astonished at the gay dresses and painted cheeks that surround you. The rummy atmosphere reëchoes with profanity from female lips. From time to time you are obliged to shake off the vice and crinoline that seek to be companions of your walk.

There is a distinguished prize-fighter here—one Benjamin Caunt. He keeps a gin shop in St. Martin's Lane, and rejoices in a profitable business and the title of the "Champion of England." He transacted a little business in the prize-fighting line over on the Surrey side of the river a few days ago, and is to sustain the honour of England against another antagonist to-morrow. During the entire week his gin shop has been surrounded by admiring crowds, anxious to catch a glimpse of the hero. And such crowds! It would be wronging the lowest of the race of quadrupeds to call those people beastly and brutal wretches. Most Americans think that the Bowery and Five Points can rival almost any thing in the world for displays of all that is disgusting in society; but London leaves us far behind. I stopped several times to note the character of Mr. Caunt's constituents. There were men there with flashy cravats around necks that reminded me of Mr. Buckminster's Devon cattle—their hair cropped close for obvious reasons—moving about among the crowd, filling the air with damns and brandy fumes. There were others in a more advanced stage of "fancy" existence—men with all the humanity blotted out of them, not a spark of intellect left in their beery countenances. There were women drabbled with dirt, soggy with liquor, with eyes artificially black. There were children pale and stunted from the use of gin, or bloated with beer, assuming the swagger of the blackguards around them, and looking as old and depraved as any of them. It seemed as if hell were empty and all the devils were there. The police—those guardians of the public weal, who are so efficient when a poor woman is trying to earn her bread by selling a few apples—so prompt to make the well-intentioned "move on"—did not appear to interfere. They evidently considered the street to be blockaded for a just cause, and looked as if, in aiding people to get a look at the Champion of England, they were sustaining the honour of England herself.

And this is the same England that assumes to teach other nations the science of benevolence. This is the same England that laments over the tyranny of continental governments, and boasts of how many millions of Bibles it has sent to people who could not read them if they would, and would not if they could. This is the same England that turns up the whites of its eyes at American slavery, and wishes to teach the King of Naples how to govern. Why, you can spend months in going about the worst quarters of the continental cities, and not see so much of vice and poverty as you can in the great thoroughfares of London in a single day. There is vice enough in every large city, as we all know; but in most of them it has to be sought for by its votaries—in London it goes about seeking whom it may devour. The press of England may try to advance the interests of a prime minister anxious to get possession of Sicily by slandering Ferdinand of Naples; but every body knows, who has visited that fair kingdom, that there are few monarchs more public spirited and popular with all classes of their subjects than he. Every body knows that there is no class in that community corresponding to the prize-fighting class in London—that the horrors of the mining districts are unknown there, and that an English workhouse would make even an Englishman blush when compared with those magnificent institutions that relieve the poor of Italy. I had rather be sold at auction in Alabama any day than to take my chance as a denizen of the slums of London, or as a worker in the coal mines. I have no patience with this telescopic philanthropy of the English, while there are abuses all around them so much greater than those that disgrace any other civilized country. What can be more disgusting than this pharisaical cant—this thanking God that they are not as others are—extortioners and slaveholders—when you look at the real condition of things? Englishmen always boast that their country has escaped the revolutionary storm which has so many times swept over Europe during this century, and would try to persuade people that there is little or no discontent here. The fact is, the lower classes in this country have been so ground down by the money power and the force of the government, and are so ignorant and vicious, that they cannot be organized into a revolutionary force. Walk through Whitechapel, and observe the people there—contrast them with the blouses in the Faubourg St. Antoine—and you will acknowledge the truth of this. The people in the manufacturing districts in France are, indeed, far from being models of morality or of intellectual culture; but they have retained enough of the powers of humanity to make them very dangerous, when collected under the leadership of demagogues of the school of Ledru Rollin. But the farming districts of France have remained comparatively free from the infection of socialism and infidelity. The late Henry Colman, in his agricultural tour, found villages where almost the entire population went to mass every morning, before commencing the labour of the day. But the degradation of the labouring classes of England is not confined to the manufacturing towns; the peasantry is in a most demoralized condition: the Chartist leaders found nearly as great a proportion of adherents among the farm labourers as among the distressed operatives of Birmingham and Sheffield; and Mormonism counts its victims among both of those neglected classes by thousands. It is, perhaps, all very well for ambitious orators to make the House of Commons or Exeter Hall resound with their denunciations of French usurpations, Austrian tyranny, Neapolitan dungeons, Russian serfdom, and American slavery; but thinking men, when they note these enthusiastic demonstrations of philanthropy, cannot help thinking of England's workhouses, the brutalized workers in her coal mines and factories, and her oppressive and cruel rule in Ireland and in India; and it strikes them as strange that a country, whose eyesight is obstructed by a beam of such extraordinary magnitude, should be so exceedingly solicitous about the motes that dance in the vision of its neighbours.