lection from the works
of the early Italian artists, and otherwise, bearing traces of that
liberality and culture by which the man, happy enough to possess them,
and at the same time engaged with his fellow-citizens in practical
life, can do so much more to enlighten and form them, than prince or
noble possibly can with far larger pecuniary means. We saw the statue
of Huskisson in the Cemetery. It is fine as a portrait statue, but
as a work of art wants firmness and grandeur. I say it is fine as a
portrait statue, though we were told it is not like the original; but
it is a good conception of an individuality which might exist, if it
does not yet. It is by Gibson, who received his early education in
Liverpool. I saw there, too, the body of an infant borne to the grave
by women; for it is a beautiful custom, here, that those who have
fulfilled all other tender offices to the little being should hold to
it the same relation to the very last.

From Liverpool we went to Chester, one of the oldest cities in
England, a Roman station once, and abode of the "Twentieth Legion,"
"the Victorious." Tiles bearing this inscription, heads of Jupiter,
and other marks of their occupation, have, not long ago, been detected
beneath the sod. The town also bears the marks of Welsh invasion and
domestic struggles. The shape of a cross in which it is laid out, its
walls and towers, its four arched gateways, its ramparts and ruined,
towers, mantled with ivy, its old houses with Biblical inscriptions,
its cathedral,--in which tall trees have grown up amid the arches, a
fresh garden-plot, with flowers, bright green and red, taken place
of the altar, and a crowd of revelling swallows supplanted the sallow
choirs of a former priesthood,--present a _tout-ensemble_ highly
romantic in itself, and charming, indeed, to Transatlantic eyes. Yet
not to all eyes would it have had charms, for one American traveller,
our companion on the voyage, gravely assured us that we should find
the "castles and that sort of thing all humbug," and that, if we
wished to enjoy them, it would "be best to sit at home and read some
_handsome_ work on the subject."

At the hotel in Liverpool and that in Manchester I had found no bath,
and asking for one at Chester, the chambermaid said, with earnest
good-will, that "they had none, but she thought she could get me
a note from her master to the Infirmary (!!) if I would go there."
Luckily I did not generalize quite as rapidly