trusive, but rich and good as the man it shelters. See, he is there, feeble in limb, though in the summer of life, but filled with the energy of eternal hope for the improvement of his fellow creatures. Victoria (God bless her!) will never lay her gentle hand upon a nobler spirit than Sir Benjamin Heywood. There is not a charitable or intellectual institution with which his name is unallied,-political dissension shrinks before him, and children are taught to whisper his name in their prayers.

The little ascent we are now climbing will bring us to a richly wooded prospect. There, look back! is it not glorious! what an expanse of fine green and golden foliage! the hills, in the extreme distance, wed it to the etherial heavens now glowing in the young light of an autumnal morning. But look how this gorgeous foreground, with its silence, is disturbed by that stream of vapour, rushing forth, like a whirlwind spirit. What a roar, 66 as of many voices!" Yes! that is a mighty spirit indeed, whose wings are sailing over the world, and whose outstretched hand is drawing together the scattered tribes, which time and distance have so long kept asunder. Would you believe, I am merely showing you the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, or rather an engine thereupon. It is good to look at such works with loving eyes, and to throw around hard iron and stone attributes of life and power. It gives man a more exalted feeling for his fellow-man, and raises "the faith he has within him ;" it lifts him from the grovelling stand-still principle, and strengthens his energy and hope; and with this we come to another mansion of substantial look and bearing; it is composed of hard stone, and looks over the distant landscape with bold and determined front, despite the storm that may be gathering in the west. Here dwells another of Victoria's knights, Sir Thomas Potter, and a stout old knight he is, and has roughed it through many a day and night of toil and turmoil. He was the first mayor of Manchester, under its newly-granted, but disputed charter, and was reelected, although his opponents, not having the fear of a pun before their eyes, said he was be-nighted, and that he could never weather the storm they had contrived to raise against his government. Nevertheless, he looked at them with his determined eye, like old Charles of Sweden from the canvas, resembling him, even to his bald head and lip of defiance; whilst the warmest of his political opponents acknowledged that his munificent gifts in the cause of the poor, a school containing about 70 children, not only instructed, but even partially clothed, from his private purse, that there may be no excuse for nonattendance, prove him to be a man of true benevolence and enlightened views, however humble his birth or education. He is not above talking over the exploits of his early days, when a cart was the only vehicle he ever hoped to drive.

And now we mount the hill, from the summit of which we are to catch the first glance of the mighty city of "the unwashed." Hundreds of carts laden with coal are pouring into its ever hungry mouth, and, there at last we behold its forest of chimnies dimly looming forth through smoke and vapour, giving this low and gloomy-looking place the appearance of a boiling cauldron. Oh! the sad contrast to a bird'seye peep in France or Italy. The grey tower no longer defines its

sharp outline against an azure sky; the river no longer looks brightly up to heaven; the flowers smile no more in dewy freshness; the foliage is clothed as it were in mourning, or struggles for a feeble existence, like many of the human souls within its precincts. Salford, through which we are passing, a Borough adjoining Manchester, (Joseph Brotherton, being its member in Parliament,) is separated from the latter by the river Irwell. If "Day and Martin" were desirous of extending their business, an establishment near this same river would mightily improve their condition; old Charon himself might rejoice in it as a tributary stream. But from a high ground, called "the Crescent,' where the road, lined with well-built houses, takes its title from its form, we catch a short glimpse of the river's fair face, ere despoiled of its natural beauty, giving, with the valley through which it winds, some faint idea of what the suburbs have been within the period of my recollection. Indeed, even yet, I am acquainted with few towns in England, (and I have been a most persevering tourist) exhibiting more picturesque beauty in their immediate neighbourhood. The little villages of Eccles, Prestwich, Northern, &c. are perfect specimens of the true old English style of landscape and architecture. The woods and dells encircling the second of these, are crowded with poetry and romance, fully justifying the exclamation of a little playful spirit of eight summers, in whose company I was rambling, "what a home for the fairies!" whilst the venerable church on the hill top, overlooking a wide expanse of wood and vale, is a picture we have met with in the dreams of Wordsworth or Burns.

To this churchyard, a few months since, came the remains of that clever artist, Henry Wyatt. No rich man left his counting-house to pay a last tribute of respect to his worth and talent, though he had lived and died among us. Two brother artists stood by his grave-the sun beamed forth over a scene his genius had loved, whilst a lark soared and carolled in heaven, like a spirit of welcome, as the earth rattled on his coffin beneath. Here, too, for thirty years, whenever his professional duties called him to Manchester, came Charles Young, the eminent actor, a pilgrim to the shrine of a beloved wife. "The good die young," they say; no wonder that a mind like his, in such a spot could feel the influence of those early days, like holy messengers, come back again.

But we must return to our ramble; so come along this narrow, busy, bustling street, called Deansgate. Turn your eyes however from those miserable and degraded creatures, crowding in groups round the doors of the gin palaces, or at the corners of the narrow streets we are passing right and left, where you may almost see pestilence sit brooding over her victims; turn from these we must visit them hereafter in detail-a glance however, will satisfy you as to the depth of guilt and misery openly exhibited in this quarter. And now, having cleared the smoke and vapour, and gained this fine, broad, well paved road, let us breathe again for awhile, and look around us. That old chateau to the right, evidently in its last stage of decrepitude, is Hulme Hall, the scene of Mr. Ainsworth's first romance, "Sir John Chiverton." In the days when he and I were young, what a fine old place do I remember it. Approaching it

from the north, and crossing, by an old dilapidated bridge, the river Medlock, which here empties itself into the Irwell, you passed through a fine meadow with a line of tall and noble looking beech trees planted on its margin; then turning by a high hedge-row of blossoming thorn to the left, you came upon an ascending slope of rich greensward, on the extreme brow of which stood the old Hall, with its white front and intersected black beams, its foundation a red sand rock, overhanging the river Irwell, with a narrow footpath only intervening between the latter and the mansion. Down to this part of the stream there was a steep winding path, thickly covered with brushwood, and a sloping ledge, called the Fisherman's rock, about which some terrible stories were told, giving probably to my old schoolfellow, Ainsworth, his first impulse towards romance; an impulse at which I do not wonder, when I turn my thoughts for a moment to the wild impressions made upon myself in those days of youthful wonderment. How often have I played the principal robber in "the forty thieves," making that rock our rendezvous; a ferry-boat in use at that time, adding no little to the picture. Alas! all is gone-green-sward, noble beeches, ferry-boat, fine meadow! Our intelligent and enterprising neighbour, Lord Francis Egerton, by the introduction of a branch, uniting the river with the canal constructed by his great predecessor, the Duke of Bridgewater, has thrown an everlasting veil over the picture of my school-boy days. Leather-aproned stonemasons and paper-capped carpenters, are sad destroyers of antiquity and romance.

Beyond the hall, and across the river, you see a dark clump of tall old beeches that is Ordsall Clough, the locale of another scene by the same author in his recent story of Guy Fawkes, whilst to the left you perceive an old farm house, bearing the title of Ordsall Hall, surrounded by a moat, and altogether in the true style of the olden time. You (with your love of the wonderful and picturesque) can easily imagine what food such scenes must have produced for young imaginations, nor will you be surprised that I frequently played truant, only for the sake of revelling in their bewitching associations. "My name is Norval" and "The Beggar's Petition," have been tasks allotted to me more than once, for such a dereliction of duty, and consequently are lowered in my estimation even to this day. The wise system of associating with punishment those beautiful works of art, which genius has raised for our love and veneration, and which ought to be linked to the mind by every tie of happy recollection, is, however, fast receding from our seminaries, and schoolmasters are beginning to study their own early feelings, with the application of such experience to the little world immediately around them, instead of simply tracing the beaten track of prejudice and ancient custom.

What a beautiful prospect we have now, from this elevated ground above Old Trafford! The mass of building to the right looks dark with the broad black clouds hanging over it like a giant incubus, and we may thank our stars, or a westerly wind, if we escape without a wetting. But, here to the left, and immediately before us, the glowing sun looks out brightly upon a landscape fair, rich, and beautiful. That

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