or every habitation that I saw,
from the aristocratical mansion, amidst the lordly repose of stately
groves and solitary parts, to the straw-thatched cottage, with its
scanty garden and its cherished woodbine. I thought I never could be
sated with the sweetness and freshness of a country so completely
carpeted with verdure; where every air breathed of the balmy pasture,
and the honey-suckled hedge. I was continually coming upon some little
document of poetry, in the blossomed hawthorn, the daisy, the cowslip,
the primrose, or some other simple object that has received a
supernatural value from the muse. The first time that I heard the song
of the nightingale, I was intoxicated more by the delicious crowd of
remembered associations than by the melody of its notes; and I shall
never forget the thrill of ecstasy with which I first saw the lark
rise, almost from beneath my feet, and wing its musical flight up into
the morning sky.

In this way I traversed England, a grown-up child, delighted by every
object, great and small; and betraying a wondering ignorance, and
simple enjoyment, that provoked many a stare and a smile from my wiser
and more experienced fellow-travellers. Such too was the odd confusion
of associations that kept breaking upon me, as I first approached
London. One of my earliest wishes had been to see this great
metropolis. I had read so much about it in the earliest books that had
been put into my infant hands; and I had heard so much about it from
those around me who had come from the "old countries." I was familiar
with the names of its streets, and squares, and public places, before
I knew those of my native city. It was, to me, the great centre of the
world, round which every thing seemed to revolve. I recollect
contemplating so wistfully, when a boy, a paltry little print of the
Thames, and London Bridge, and St. Paul's, that was in front of an old
magazine; and a picture of Kensington Gardens, with gentlemen in
three-cornered hats and broad skirts, and ladies in hoops and lappets,
that hung up in my bed-room; even the venerable cut of St. John's
Gate, that has stood, time out of mind, in front of the Gentleman's
Magazine, was not without its charms to me; and I envied the
odd-looking little men that appeared to be loitering about its arches.

How then did my heart warm when the towers of Westminster Abbey were
pointed out to me, rising above the rich groves of St. James's Park,
with a thin blue haz