dred years our posterity will doubtless smile at the romantic chivalry of the nineteenth century, although it would now puzzle the shrewdest observer of human nature to find anything resembling it, according to the present standard. Railway speculations in a few centuries may be considered in the same light as the Crusades are now, and an act of generosity may be put on a parallel with the heroism of Curtius, who fell into a common sewer, or of Mucius Scævola, who burned his fingers at King Porsenna's fire. Many antiquated persons groan over the alleged decay of romance and poetry. They would have done the same had they been living in the days of Sesostris, Alexander the Great, Robin Hood, Tom Thumb, or any other Gogs and Magogs of the shadowy and fictitious past. If these admirers of the antediluvian would walk face foremost, and use their eyes, instead of turning their backs upon the future, like Moses on Pisgah, looking on the wilderness instead of towards the promised land, they would see there was more romance in a steam-engine and more poetry in a railway than either in a warrior on his charger, clad in complete steel, or in a bower full of ladies, listening to some young vagabond of a troubadour. Every age grows more and more poetical and romantic, until we shall reach the perfection of both in the world to come. We hope this assurance will comfort Mrs. Kirkland, and its realization make amends for the inevitable demolition of the tumble-down houses of Chester. We will let her speak for herself.

"As you walk the streets you see how Romance was born in England. Instead of great staring rows of houses, in the plan of whose fronts all shadow is excluded as if it were death, we have

here upper stories projecting over the street, or in default of these, deep recesses with only a railing in front, where the family appear at their various occupations of business or pleasure-mothers getting their children ready for school, maids sweeping and dusting, and the like. It is as if the whole second story were drawn back some ten or twelve feet, leaving a shaded parlor without a front,— an arrangement so contrary to the modern exclusiveness which prompts a blank white linen curtain to protect even the backs of the chairs from the view of the passers-by, that we felt it to be symbolical of older and freer and more natural times. Some of the people we saw in these recesses were fit for pictures; and one old lady whom we observed as she appeared to be dismissing her grandson on an errand with many cautions, looked and moved just as people do on the stage, in character, when they desire to seem old and quaint. Indeed we see now where the old style of stagedresses came from-they were faithful transcripts of real life in England. We had supposed the monstrous cap-border surmounted by a red bow, the gown tucked up to the waist, the flounced apron, the short sleeves and coarse black mitts, the length of black ankle, and the high-heeled shoe, were only the ideal of an old English woman of the lower class; we find them here on the very woman herself, as she moves about in every-day life. The picturesque in costume is so completely unknown in our country, where society is macadamized, as it were, that the peculiarities and individualities of English outer life form a perpetual source of amusement and interest for us, especially in these older country towns. Every man, woman, and child, seems to dress without the least reference to anybody else, wearing exactly what taste or convenience may dictate. We are inclined to hope it may be long before the roller of fashion passes over them, crushing all this variety, till daily life resembles a huge skating-pond, whose only inequality of surface consists in the flourishes cut by a few expert skaters."

She abounds with little bits of "word-painting" which are very felicitous. She says, "We asked for a fire, and after some time were served with a smoke." A little further on Mrs. Kirkland makes an admission which lets us into the foundation of her romance. Breakfast, it appears, is a primary element therein :

"But a Coventry breakfast is soon dispatched, so we made our way to the railway station in good time, scarcely waiting to admire the really pretty old town as we passed. It is wonderful indeed that a bad breakfast can so starve out one's romance; but all we shall remember of Coventry will be our many resolutions of never sending any of our friends there.”

One of the peculiarities in the American people which most surprises an Englishman on first coming among them, is their perfect familiarity with all the idioms and local allusions of the old country; their intimate acquaintance also with their politics shows an infinite superiority of knowledge in the masses over the English people. They may not possibly have so many profound scholars, but for the diffusion of practical learning there is no comparison between the two countries. Mrs. Kirkland, in the conclusion to the above quotation, turns her knowledge of old English proverbs to good account.

In the next page our traveller allows, despite her admiration of the shell of romance, viz. the tumble down houses of Chester-"Any attempt to reproduce the outward semblance of that grand old style, when the spirit from which it emanated has departed, has a would-be air, false and heartless: no nearer to true dignity than the Chinese villa of the cit, or the pastediamonds of the soubrette !"

She has a true artist's feeling of the poetical suggestiveness of a natural ruin, when she says:

"Kenilworth is all the better and more satisfactory view, from there being so little of it, comparatively. There are just landmarks enough to serve the purpose of fancy. As everything is better conveyed or expressed by means of the inherent poetry or philosophy of it, so is the Kenilworth of Elizabeth's days more completely restored to us by these few remaining towers and walls, than it could have been if every battlement were standing unbroken; as witness that one beautiful gate-tower so nicely fitted up and made perfect, which excites so little feeling in the observer. Dilapidation is in truth a voucher for the reasonableness of our interest. A ruin mended up is a vexatious impertinence, in spite of all we may say of the piety of the thing. Who likes to look upon rouge and brown curls on the octogenarian ?"

And her eye for artificial scenery is displayed when she says:

"English landscape has a minutely-finished look; it lacks grandeur; its features are delicate, and the impression left is that of softness and gentle beauty. The grass grows to the very rim of the water, like carpet to a rich drawing-room, which must not betray an inch of unadorned floor. The fields are rolled to a perfect smoothness; the hedges look as if they had no use but beauty; the trees and multitudinous vines have a draperied air, and strike the eye rather as part of the charming whole than as possessing an individual interest. We have seen woodlands in the far west that were far more gracefully majestic than any we have yet seen in England; but we have no such miles of cultured and closefitted scenery. Nature with us throws on her clothes negligently,

confident in beauty; in England she has evidently looked in the glass until not a curl strays from its fillet, not a dimple is unschooled. She is mise à quatre épingles, as the French milliners say; but how lovely!"

We purposely say "artificial scenery," for, with a few exceptions, there is scarcely a bit of uncultivated nature in all England. She has no naked scenery; it has all been dressed up, put into special attitudes, and grouped so as to form the best possible "tout ensemble." It has no more real nature in it than a garden, to which it is so often compared: like a little woman, she is obliged to make the most of a pretty face and agreeable person, by the elaboration of her toilet, the judicious arrangement of her ornaments, and the elegance of her manners. She cannot afford to have a curl awry or a ribbon misplaced, while a Patagonian Venus of six feet or so can afford to leave the impression to her stature.

The common-place feeling which some have for ruins is well illustrated by an incident related by a gentleman who was himself the happy possessor of one. Having invited some antiquarians to inspect it, he told his steward to have all arranged by the day in question. On arriving at the venerable relic of the feudal ages they were astounded by the modernization it had evidently undergone: it was elegantly whitewashed, carpets laid down, chairs and tables placed, and some curtains hung to give a snug air to the sublimity in question. The steward broke the speechless astonishment of the party by saying: "Your Lordship must allow I have much improved their appearance, and made them decent !”

To return to Mrs. Kirkland.