e appearance of an author whose writings I am at all
familiar with, or a statesman whose speeches I have read. I had pictured
in my own mind a tall, stately-looking lady of about sixty years, as the
authoress of "Travels in the East," and for once I was right, with the
single exception that I had added on too many years by twelve. The
evening was spent in talking about the United States; and William Craft
had to go through the narrative of his escape from slavery. When I
retired for the night, I found it almost impossible to sleep. The idea
that I was under the roof of the authoress of "The Hour and the Man,"
and that I was on the banks of the sweetest lake in Great Britain,
within half a mile of the residence of the late poet Wordsworth, drove
sleep from my pillow. But I must leave an account of my visit to the
Lakes for a future letter.

When I look around and see the happiness here, even among the poorer
classes, and that too in a country where the soil is not at all to be
compared with our own, I mourn for our down-trodden countrymen, who are
plundered, oppressed, and made chattels of, to enable an ostentatious
aristocracy to vie with each other in splendid extravagance.

LETTER XVI.

_Miss Martineau--"The Knoll"--"Ridal Mount"--"The Dove's Nest"--Grave of
William Wordsworth, Esq.--The English Peasant._

_May 30, 1851_.

A series of public meetings, one pressing close upon the heel of
another, must be an apology for my six or eight weeks' silence. But I
hope that no temporary suspense on my part will be construed into a want
of interest in our cause, or a wish to desist from giving occasionally a
scrap (such as it is) to the _North Star_.

My last letter left me under the hospitable roof of Harriet Martineau. I
had long had an invitation to visit this distinguished friend of our
race, and as the invitation was renewed during my tour through the
North, I did not feel disposed to decline it, and thereby lose so
favourable an opportunity of meeting with one who had written so much in
behalf of the oppressed of our land. About a mile from the head of Lake
Windermere, and immediately under Wonsfell, and encircled by mountains
on all sides, except the south-west, lies the picturesque little town of
Ambleside, and the brightest spot in the place is "The Knoll," the
residence of Miss Martineau.

We reached "The Knoll" a little after nightfall, and a cordial shake of
the hand by Miss M., w