rest
product of the soul of man, humble, disinterested tenderness.

Hampstead has still a good deal of romantic beauty. I was told it was
the favorite sketching-ground of London artists, till the railroads
gave them easy means of spending a few hours to advantage farther
off. But, indeed, there is a wonderful deal of natural beauty lying in
untouched sweetness near London. Near one of our cities it would all
have been grabbed up the first thing. But we, too, are beginning to
grow wiser.

At Richmond I went to see another lady of more than threescore years'
celebrity, more than fourscore in age, Miss Berry the friend of Horace
Walpole, and for her charms of manner and conversation long and still
a reigning power. She has still the vivacity, the careless nature, or
refined art, that made her please so much in earlier days,--still is
girlish, and gracefully so. Verily, with her was no sign of labor or
sorrow.

From the older turning to the young, I must speak with pleasure
of several girls I know in London, who are devoting themselves to
painting as a profession. They have really wise and worthy views of
the artist's avocation; if they remain true to them, they will enjoy
a free, serene existence, unprofaned by undue care or sentimental
sorrow. Among these, Margaret Gillies has attained some celebrity;
she may be known to some in America by engravings in the "People's
Journal" from her pictures; but, if I remember right, these are
coarse things, and give no just notion of her pictures, which are
distinguished for elegance and refinement; a little mannerized, but
she is improving in that respect.

The "People's Journal" comes nearer being a fair sign of the times
than any other publication of England, apparently, if we except Punch.
As for the Times, on which you all use your scissors so industriously,
it is managed with vast ability, no doubt, but the blood would tingle
many a time to the fingers' ends of the body politic, before that
solemn organ which claims to represent the heart would dare to beat in
unison. Still it would require all the wise management of the Times,
or wisdom enough to do without it, and a wide range and diversity of
talent, indeed, almost sweeping the circle, to make a People's Journal
for England. The present is only a bud of the future flower.

Mary and William Howitt are its main support. I saw them several times
at their cheerful and elegant home. In Mary Howitt I found the same
engaging