the land of WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE and GUY FAWKES, JOHN MILTON and TITUS OATES; the ideal realm of JOHN FALSTAFF and LITTLE NELL; the theatre of Roundheads and Cavaliers. Yonder, verily, just over to my right, actually grew into life that vigorous feudalism out of which rose the fabric of our own common law. These remembrances come over me wildly and strangely. Old England! Yes; God bless her! With ears in my eyes, I beseech Heaven's best benison upon her. I forget her, as the land of ruth and wrong; I remember her only as the land of noble deeds and generous hearts. Her literature, from Chaucer's first uncouth song to D'Israeli's last sarcasm, floats through the memory like a vivid power, transforming every prejudice into praise, and even wrong into glory.

But I am ahead of my reckoning. I am not yet done with the Ocean. Such an event as crossing the Atlantic by a backwoods Buckeye, deserves a fuller treatment.

Of course, in this gossiping of mine, you will not expect me to confine myself to any system. I reproduce only hasty impressions hastily; pretending to no insight, simply to sight; to no profundity in reading character and discussing vital principles, simply to superficial glances and occasional hearings.

Now that the horrors of sickness are over, the ocean presents itself under another sky. I have spoken of our "volant home," the noble steamship. Ours was not tested very strongly by Neptune; yet not a fear as to the result intruded itself into our minds. It requires a good share of confidence in a vessel, to step from the firm set earth upon its fragile planks, which are to be upborne by so unstable an element. It instils a thrilling awe, to feel yourself moving away to some mysterious realm, the existence of which seems to hang only upon the prompture of Faith. The divorce from the old and familiar has begun. Day after day, you are

"Borne darkly, fearfully afar," reaching no shore, and night after night, you hear, by your very pillow, the

"Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,

Currents of the restless main."

Yet to know that the potent water-breath, we call steam, car mate the Ocean in his wildest Saturnalia, gives all the joy of security, while it does not rob us of the vague mystery. Let the Sea King try his strongest, to crack our vessel's joints and sinews-cheerily sing the sailors, and merrily laugh and skip about the boat the frolicksome children. No drifting at the pleasure of the elements, with our vessel; but a straight path and a steady one. Vulcan, amid his coal smoke below, is the controlling spirit; and reeling Neptune drops his trident in the fire.

Can it be that here indeed is the rock-ribbed coast of England? Yes; for the tokens are evident. The rocks are all fissured, and gray as the hoar-frost with salt. Irregular masses seem to have been heaped ashore. No footing is found upon which to stand. The rocks impress one strangely, not alone because they form an outline of the isle of our ancestors, but (we must own it) because that isle affords our poor physical frames a steady foothold, and an uninterrupted appetite. How much of the crockery ware is burned into this human "wessel of wrath," along with the exquisite porcelain ?

We are about to turn up the Mersey, and to leave our open seaward for a narrower path. Perhaps from this point one may fully appreciate the glories of the ocean; for its roll no longer disturbs the mind. CAMPBELL has embalmed in the splendor of his verse, more of the beauty and sublimity of the sea, than any other poet, BYRON not excepted. He loved to retire from the bustle of London, Edinburgh, or Glasgow, and from the height of St. Leonard's (on solid ground-mind you !) listen to its murmurs, which to him were dearer than all the applause of the world. He found peacefulness in its din, and repose in its restlessness. He looked out upon the depths, amid the storms, and saw the lightning sink half way over the main, like a wearied bird too weak to sweep its space. He saw it in the calm,

when the firmament of stars found in it a gorgeous mirror for their Infinitude! What a fine thought is that of his, which calls the sky the mistress of the sea, giving from her brow his moods, morning's milky white, noon's sapphire, and the saffron glow of evening. So beautiful did it seem to his poetic eye, that he wondered not that Love's own Queen was fabled to have come from the bosom of the sea! He likens it to creation's common (a purely Anglo-Saxon metaphor), which no human power can parcel or inclose. This idea is akin to that of MADAME DE STAEL, which Byron engrafted upon his immortal Apostrophe. "Man," she says, " may plough the earth, and cut his way through mountains, or construct rivers into canals to transport his merchandise, but if his fleets for a moment furrow the ocean, its waves as instantly efface this slight mark of servitude, and it again appears as it was the first day of the creation." Or, as Byron phrases it,

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."

The figure, however, which pleases my taste most is that of the mirror. It has been used by BAILEY, in his "Angel World," to illustrate the most stupendous truth which the human mind may entertain; the mysterious combination of the Eternal Father with the everlasting Son, the union of Infinite Justice with all-gracious Love,

"The unseen likeness of the INEFFABLE ONE,
Each like the other, as the sky and sea,
Imbosoming the Infinite."

Material though the ocean be, it has a power to penetrate into the mind's immaterial recesses, to inspire it with Beauty, and elevate it with the emotions of Religion.

Have I written too much upon this theme? My Jeremiad on sea-sickness required an antidote to do justice to the element which has borne me over its bosom so safely.

II.

The Commercial Metropolis and Rural Scenery.

"All that Nature did thy soil deny,

The growth was of thy fruitful Industry;

And all the proud and dreadful sea

A constant tribute paid to thee."

ERE we are upon substantial soil. Liverpool! How languidly the word melts in the mouth! My partiality for steamships and big ponds could not restrain the outbreak of joy with which we pressed the solid land. The effects too of our experience, though sad at first, have resulted in a bound of animal spirits almost inconsistent with sanity.

At the mouth of the Mersey we took a pilot aboard, and with our "starboard, sir," "port, sir," and "steady, sir," we reached Liverpool at 11 o'clock, upon the night of the 17th of May, 1851. It was some recompense for missing the green, bright green banks of the Mersey, with its cottages and residences, that we passed up amid a galaxy of many-colored lights, which, reflected upon the water from Birkenhead on the one side, and Liverpool on the other, almost transformed the scene into one of fairyland. Our guns boomed; mails were taken; and after the custom-house proceedings, by no means vexatious, we were permitted to land. The first person that spoke to me was a little imp, modelled after the exterior of Oliver Twist. A police officer touched him with a bâton. He was non est in a jiffy.

Our first impression of the population here was not very favorable. True, we saw the fag-end of humanity in the shape

of beggars and loafers at the landing. We had no sooner taken up our march to our hotel, preferring to feel the delight of a walk, after so long a ride on the billows, than a fellow who said that he was a servant at the Waterloo, offered himself as our pilot. I suspected him, but thought that we would use him, as it was nearly two in the morning. We had not gone far before we were saluted with, "Which hotel, sir—which hotel?"

"Waterloo!"

"Sorry very sorry-can't accommodate you, sir-I'm boots Sorry-very at the Waterloo, sir-all full, sir. Three ship-loads just arrived, sir-very sorry-Victoria Hotel near by-few minutes walk, sir -own sister of the Waterloo keeps it."

He had said too much. We marched on, heartily laughing at "Boots" Saint Somebody's church illuminated the hour of two, and it was nearly daylight--a phenomenon belonging to this northern clime which considerably bewildered our Buckeye experience. We found the Waterloo open, and the lady at the door with her servants, ready to take down our names. duced our pilot as their servant. They, of course, disclaimed his acquaintance. "You are a pretty specimen of human veracity."

I intro

"But I suppose we ought to pay you for your guidance ?" 66 Oh yes, please you, sir, you are very kind, sir."

I gave him a shilling, with a caution about lying, which he, with a rub over his red nose, and a low bow, acknowledged.

We had scarcely appeared this morning at our window, when that extreme of English civilization called "starvation" was seen in the shape of a young urchin, whether boy or girl I could not discern, for the dress consisted of only two rags. He stood bobbing his head and whining, while I sketched him. His counterfeit presentment followed us. as soon as we left the hotel to take a stroll; and the little gipsey had the same monotone of grief. He was joined by another; and thus marshalled, we had to pass agony of some squares. It was not until a fretful threat to

the