ckney Coachman.--Winchester Assizes.
--Approach to London.--The Parks.--Piccadilly.--Street Excursion.
--Strangers in London.--Americans in England.--Westminster Abbey.
--Gothic Decorations.--Westminster Hall.--Inquisitive Barber.--Pasta
and Malibran.--Drury-lane Theatre.--A Pickpocket.--A Fellow-traveller.
--English Gentlemen.--A Radical.--Encampment of Gipsies.--National
Distinctions.--Antiquities.--National Peculiarities.

To R. COOPER, ESQ. COOPERSTOWN.

At a very early hour one of the London coaches stopped at the door. I had
secured a seat by the side of the coachman, and we went through the "bar"
at a round trot. The distance was about sixty miles, and I had paid a
guinea for my place. There were four or five other passengers, all on the
outside.

The road between Southampton and London is one of little interest; even
the highway itself is not as good as usual, for the first twenty or thirty
miles, being made chiefly of gravel, instead of broken stones. The soil
for a long distance was thirsty, and the verdure was nearly gone. England
feels a drought sooner than most countries, probably from the
circumstances of its vegetation being so little accustomed to the absence
of moisture, and to the comparative lightness of the dews. The winds,
until just before the arrival of the Hudson, had been blowing from the
eastward for several weeks, and in England this is usually a dry wind. The
roads were dusty, the hedges were brown, and the fields had nothing to
boast of over our own verdure. Indeed, it is unusual to see the grasses
of New York so much discoloured, so early in the season.

I soon established amicable relations with my companion on the box. He had
been ordered at the Vine to stop for an American, and he soon began to
converse about the new world. "Is America anywhere near Van Diemen's
Land?" was one of his first questions. I satisfied him on this head, and
he apologised for the mistake, by explaining that he had a sister settled
in Van Diemen's Land, and he had a natural desire to know something about
her welfare! We passed a house which had more the air of a considerable
place than any I had yet seen, though of far less architectural
pretensions than the miniature castle near Cowes. This, my companion
informed me, had once been occupied by George IV. when Prince of Wales.
"Here his Royal Highness enjoyed what I call the perfection of life, sir;
women, wine, and fox-hunting!" added the professor of the wh