in the conveyance remained unoccupied. This aroused the indignation of Mynheer, the coachman, who, being a great, coarse, burley fellow, attempted to frighten our friend by a long string of oaths, half English, half French, and half Dutch. Seeing this did not answer, what did he do but leap into the diligence, and seizing hold of the young Irishman, dragged him out. This was by no means a fortunate thing for himself, for in a moment, a blow from the enraged youth laid him spluttering on the pavement; and, another person engaging on the same side, shared immediately the same fate. We all got out and a regular mellee began, which ended in the total and entire discomfiture of the big Dutchman and his friends, and the election of a new and more civil driver.

Much of our road from Amsterdam to Utrecht, lay through a country intersected with pestilential canals, little better, or more wholesome, than common sewers; but, as we came nearer to the latter city, the country improved much in richness and fertility. We entered the city early in the afternoon, by the great gates which are always closed and barred about nine o'clock in the evening. Utrecht is a city famous for its seiges, its alliances, its power, and its influence in the affairs of Europe. It is a very superior place; the population seem generally opulent and comfortable in their circumstances; and, as they are not far from the frontier, their manners have much of that "suaviter in modo," so much wanted in other parts of Holland.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is the old church, the steeple of which is 406 feet in height. The carvings of the ancient cathedral yet remain; the pillars of the ancient cloisters, the escutcheons, the valuable fragments of mouldered antiquity are still there to tell us of the time, when the liege Lords of Utrecht, changing the crosier for the sword, and the mitre for the helmet, issued from the great gates at the head of their armies, and went forth as kings and princes to engage in the temporal warfare of the surrounding nations. These times are gone in Holland, and at Utrecht remains almost the only relic of their ancient glory. The abbeys are mouldered away, that were reared in such pomp and magnificence; the towers have fallen down, and the proud statues have disappeared; there is now no ringing of cloistered bells, no sound of vespers from the dim silence; those powerful spiritual princes, who once swayed a mighty people, have passed away to be the food of the beetle and the worm, and all their greatness, their wealth, their magnificence, have disappeared as the mists of the morning,

"And like the baseless fabric of a vision

Leave not a wreck behind."

This church is the only one of stone we saw in Holland, the rest being made of the small hard brick, peculiar to the country. The stone must have been conveyed from a considerable distance, probably Luxembourg, as Holland contains no quarries that I am aware of.

Every house in every street, had this day a banner hanging from their windows, in honour of the birth-day of the king; who, in spite of his obstinate foolishness in his imaginary war with the Belgians, still retains in a high degree the affections of his people. On going up one of the streets which was much crowded, we were saluted, for the first time, with indignant cries of "Damn the Anglais"-" a bas l'Anglais"-and many other very unpleasant epithets of execration in Dutch, French, and broken English. Nor need we wonder that the Dutch are indignant at us, for a more unparralleled act of political treachery was never committed by any government, in any nation, than that which dictated an alliance with an old and inveterate enemy against an old and most faithful friend and ally. The deed, however, is done; and as I said before, it would but shew proper wisdom in the Dutch King to acquiesce. Still, every Englishman, of true English feelings, must at his heart deprecate our unholy alliance with those gibbering atheists and frivolous humbugs, half tiger, and half ape, the French, against a sound, moral, industrious, and wellmeaning people like the Dutch, who, I am sure, wish England well.

A DAY IN WORCESTERSHIRE.

Every century has its mania, sometimes South Sea Bubbles, sometimes Mining Speculations, sometimes joint stock banks, sometimes balloons, sometimes aerial machines. In the year 1844-45 the mania of John Bull is Railways. The spare Capital of the British Isles is now invested in parallel pieces of iron, fiery volcanic Steam Engines, tunnels through solid rock, massive or pendulous bridges, Railway stations and Railway termini. And truly they possess their advantages. Barring the noise, the tumult, the confusion, the hissing, whistling, coughing, and all the horrible and hideous sounds and sights that appertain to them: they provide on the whole, commodious and expeditious means of conveyance. True, objects fly past you like clouds in a storm,-true, the pleasant cottages, and homely farm houses, and calm Ancestral halls, with hills, and woods, and groves, and streams, float away in frantic panorama, and no more you see the old-fashioned stage coaches, the fat good-humoured guards and coachmen, the trim road-side houses, with the buxom landlady, and joyous merry-hearted barmaids with their bright sunshiny faces; but then according to the utilita

rians we have facility, steam rapidity, and to use their pet phrase "Railways annihilate space." And so they do. In you go, and they whisk you forthwith a hundred miles before breakfast. Breakfast finished, they whisk you another hundred miles before dinner,-dinner over a third hundred is finished by bed-time, and you have the satisfaction all night of dreaming you are still sweeping along, over Alps and Andes and Appenines, to Cairo, Aleppo or Mexico, till all at once you finish with a blowup and a concussion. It was thus towards the close of the dreary month of November, that we entered into a locomotive at the pleasant town of Stockton, and the same day found us at the Star and Garter (best of Inns) in the stately city of Worcester. We had long panted for a day with the Worcester hounds, and an invitation to Middle Hill, the classic seat of Sir Thomas Phillipps Bart., brought us within the realization of our vision, and we had seen from the local papers, that the hounds threw off in the neighbourhood next day. At five in the morning, of cold, dreary November, we perched ourselves on the top of a stage-coach, (one of the few remaining) and proceeded to Broadway. Through quaint ancient towns and villages, and through a region where barley was still green in the fields, and agriculture seemed in its infancy, we rattled along. Gradually, the morning grew brighter, and the sun rose over the distant hills. Lo, floating by Evesham's walls, within the reflex of those ancient ruins, the lovely Avon, calm, romantic and