ell so plainly
of other days, its beautiful environs, and its generous citizens. I wish
you could see the prospect from the drawing-room window at a house where
we have often visited, and always with pleasure. The house stands on a
very high hill; the drawing-room has a large bay window, and outside a
balcony. You look down into a charming garden, with fine trees and
fountains,--the ground being on a great declivity, I should think a
slope of fifty degrees,--and then from the balcony you have the entire
city laid out before you, down, down in the valley; while before you,
and on either hand, stretch away the hills which adorn this noble city.
The towers and steeples of the glorious old churches make the prospect,
of a fine, clear summer evening, one never to be forgotten. Go where I
may, that room, and the kind faces of those who meet in it will often
rise in memory.

I have never had my feelings so enlisted by strangers as at Bristol; and
we all feel quite at home here.

We are to go off to-morrow on an excursion to Monmouthshire, and see
Chepstow, Tintern Abbey, and Ragland Castle, and expect that this last
of our wanderings will be very gratifying.

I have not told you how much we have enjoyed the fruit in England and on
the continent. Cherries and strawberries have been daily on our tables,
and of the best kinds. I do not think we ever enjoyed a fruit season so
much as this summer. In this humid climate the strawberry grows to an
immense size; and the gooseberry, which is here in high favor, is a far
finer fruit than with us.

Yours affectionately,

JAMES.

Letter 53.

BRISTOL.

DEAR CHARLEY:--

Let me tell you of a charming trip which we have had this week to
Chepstow Castle and its neighborhood. We have told you all about the
beautiful scenery of Clifton, and the Hot Wells at this place, and the
fine old rooks. Well, now we took passage in a little steamer, and went
down the Avon between these lofty rocks, and had a new and enlarged view
of this wondrous formation. The boat was well filled with tourists, as
this is a fashionable trip. The Avon for four miles is quite Rhenish in
its aspect; and one or two old castled towers on its crags afford a sort
of reminiscence of what we lately saw on the river of rivers.

We soon got out of the Avon into King Road, and there met the tide
setting strongly from the Severn--a large river, which divides
Monmouthshire from Gloucestershire. We then stretched