in a contest with the legislature of Virginia concerning the delivery of fugitive slaves.

I approached the city of New York by the Hudson. The whole course of that river from Albany, as seen from the decks of the countless steamers that ply along it, is singularly beautiful, especially where it forces a passage through the barriers of the Highlands, which, however, afford no features of rugged grandeur like our friends in Scotland; but though the forms are steep and welldefined, their rich green outlines of waving wood, inclosing, in smooth many-curved reaches, the sail-covered bosom of the stately river, present nothing but soft and smiling images. I then took up my winter quarters at New York. I thought this, the commercial and fashionable, though not the political, capital of the Union, a very brilliant city. To give the best idea of it, I should describe it as something of a fusion between Liverpool and Paris -crowded quays, long perspectives of vessels and masts, bustling streets, gay shops, tall white houses, and a clear brilliant sky overhead. There is an absence of solidity in the general appearance, but in some of the new buildings they are successfully availing themselves of their ample resources in white marble and granite. At the point of the Battery, where the long thoroughfare of Broadway, extending some miles, pushes its green fringe into the wide harbour, with its glancing waters and graceful shipping, and the limber, long raking masts, which look so different from our own, and the soft swelling outline of the receding shores, New York has a special character and beauty of its own. I spent about a month here very pleasantly; the society appeared to me on the whole to have a less solid and really refined character than that of Boston, but there is more of animation, gaiety, and sparkle in the daily life. In point of hospitality, neither could outdo the other.

Keeping to my rule of only mentioning names which already belong to fame, I may thus distinguish the late Chancellor Kent, whose commentaries are well known to professional readers: he had been obliged, by what I think the very unwise law of the State of New York, to retire from his high legal office at the premature age of sixty, and there I found him at seventy-eight, full of animation and racy vigour, which, combined with great simplicity, made his conversation most agreeable.-Washington Irving, a well-known name both to American and English ears, whose nature appears as gentle and genial as his works—I cannot well give higher praise:

-Mr. Bryant, in high repute as a poet, and others. I had the pleasure of making acquaintance with many of the families of those who had been the foremost men in their country, Hamiltons, Jays, Livingstones. I lodged at the Astor House, a large hotel conducted upon a splendid scale; and I cannot refrain from one, I fear rather sensual, allusion to the oyster cellars of New York; in no part of the world have I ever seen places of refreshment as attractive — every one seems to eat oysters all day long. What signifies more, the public institutions and schools are extremely well conducted. The churches of the different denominations

are very numerous and well filled. It is my wish to touch very lightly upon any point which among us, among even some of us now here, may be matter of controversy; I, however, honestly think that the experience of the United States does not as yet enable them to decide on either side the argument between the Established and Voluntary systems in religion: take the towns by themselves, and I think the voluntary principle appears fully adequate to satisfy all religious exigencies; then it must be remembered that the class which makes the main difficulty elsewhere, scarcely if at all exists in America; it is the blessed privilege of the United States, and it is one which goes very far to counterbalance any drawbacks at which I may have to hint, that they really have not, as a class, any poor among them. A real beggar is what you never see. On the other hand, over their immense tracts of territory, the voluntary system has not sufficed to produce sufficient religious accommodation; it may, however, be truly questioned, whether any establishment would be equal to that function. This is, however, one among the many questions which the republican experience of America has not yet solved. As matters stand at present, indifference to religion cannot be fairly laid to her charge; probably religious extremes are pushed farther than elsewhere; there certainly is a breadth and universality of religious liberty which I do not regard without some degree of envy.

Upon my progress southward, I made a comparatively short halt at Philadelphia. This fair city has not the animation of New York, but it is eminently well built, neat, and clean beyond parallel. The streets are all at right angles with each other, and bear the names of the different trees of the country; the houses are of red brick, and mostly have white marble steps and silver knockers, all looking bright and shining under the effect of copious

and perpetual washing. It still looks like a town constructed by Quakers, who were its original founders; but by Quakers who had become rather dandified. The waterworks established here are deservedly celebrated; each house can have as much water as it likes, within and without, at every moment, for about 18s. a year. I hope our towns will be emulous of this great advantage. I think it right to say that in our general arrangements for health and cleanliness we appear to me very much to excel the Americans, and our people look infinitely healthier, stouter, rosier, jollier; the greater proportion of Americans with whom you converse would be apt to tell you they were dyspeptic, whether principally from the dry quality of their atmosphere, the comparatively little exercise which they take, or the rapidity with which they accomplish their meals, I will not take upon myself to pronounce. There is one point of advantage which they turn to account, especially in all their new towns, which is, that their immense command of space enables them to isolate almost every house, and thus secure an ambient atmosphere for ventilation. In my first walk through Philadelphia I passed the glittering white marble portico of the United States Bank, which, after the recent crash it had sustained, made me think of whited sepulchres. Near it was a pile, with a respectable old English appearance, of far nobler association; this was the State House, where the Declaration of American Independence was signed, -one of the most pregnant acts of which history bears record. It contains a picture of William Penn and a statue of Washington. While I was there, a sailor from the State of Maine, with a very frank and jaunty air, burst into the room, and in a glow of ardent patriotism inquired, "Is this the room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed?" When he found that I was an Englishman, he seemed, with real good breeding, to be afraid that he had grated on my feelings, and told me that in the year 1814 our flag had waved over the two greatest capitals of the world, Washington and Paris. I looked with much interest at the great Model Prison of the separate system. I was favourably impressed with all that met the eye, but I refrain from entering upon the vexed question of comparison between this and the silent and other systems, as I feel how much the solution must depend upon ever recurring experience. The poor-house, like that at New York, is built and administered on a very costly scale, and also has a great proportion

of foreigners as inmates, and of the foreigners a great proportion Irish. This seems to enhance the munificence of the provision for destitution; at the same time, it is not to be forgotten that the foreign labour is an article of nearly essential necessity to the progress of the country. On the only Sunday which I sent in Philadelphia, I went to a church which was not wanting in associations; the communion plate had been given by Queen Anne, and I sat in the pew of General Washington. I was told by some one that his distinguished cotemporary, Chief Justice Marshall, said of him, that, in contradiction to what was often thought, he was a man of decided genius, but he was such a personification of wisdom, that he never put anything forward which the occasion did not absolutely require. It seemed to me that there was at Philadelphia a greater separation and exclusiveness in society, more resemblance to what would be called a fashionable class in European cities, than I had found in America elsewhere.

My next brief pause was at Baltimore. At a halt on the railroad on the way thither, I heard a conductor or guard say to a negro, "I cannot let you go, for you are a SLAVE." This was my first intimation that I had crossed the border which divides Freedom from Slavery. I quote from the entry which I made upon noting these words that evening: "Declaration of Independence which I read yesterday - pillar of Washington which I have looked on to-day- what are ye?"

I must now give myself some little vent. It was a subject which I felt during my whole sojourn in America, as I feel it still, to be paramount in interest to every other. It was one on which I intended and endeavoured to observe a sound discretion; we have not ourselves long enough washed off the stain to give us the right to rail at those whom we had originally inoculated with the pest; and a stranger abundantly experiencing hospitality could not with any propriety interfere wantonly upon the most delicate and difficult point of another nation's policy. I could not, however, fail often and deeply to feel, in the progress of my intercourse with many in that country. "Come not, my soul, into their secret; to their counsel, my honour, be not thou united." At the same time, I wished never to make any compromise of my opinion. I made it a point to pay special respect to the leading Abolitionists - those who had laboured or suffered in the cause when I came within reach of them; at Boston, I committed the more overt act

of attending the annual anti-slavery fair, by which I believe some thought I unduly committed myself. I was much struck in the distinguished and agreeable companies which I had the good fortune to frequent, with a few honourable exceptions, at the tone of disparagement, contempt, and anger, with which the Abolitionists were mentioned; just as any patrician company, in this country, would talk of a Socialist, or a Red Republican. I am, of course, now speaking of the free Northern States; in the South an Abolitionist could not be known to exist. My impression is, that in the interval since my visit, the dislike, the anger, has remained, and may, probably, have been heightened, but that the feeling of slight, of ignoring (to use a current phrase) their very existence, must have been sensibly checked. There were some who told me that they made it the business of their lives to superintend the passage of the runaway slaves through the free States; they reckoned, at that time, that about one thousand yearly escaped into Canada. I doubt whether the enactment and operation of the Fugitive Slave Bill will damp the ardour of their exertions. It may be easy to speak discreetly and plausibly about the paramount duty of not contravening the law; but how would you feel, my countrymen, if a fugitive was at your feet and the man-hunter at the door? I admit that the majesty of the law is on one side; but the long, deep misery of a whole human life is on the other. What you ought to feel is fervent gratitude to the Power which has averted from your shores and hearths this fearful trial, and, let me add, a heartfelt sympathy with those who are sustaining it.

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At Baltimore I thought there was a more picturesque disposition of ground than in any other city of the Union it is built on swelling eminences, commanding views of the widening Chesapeake, a noble arm of the sea. There are an unusual number of public monuments for an American town, and hence it has been christened the Monumental City. I found the same hospitality which had greeted me everywhere, and the good living seemed to me carried to its greatest height; they have in perfection the terrapin, a kind of land tortoise, and the canvass-back duck, a most unrivalled bird in any country. With reference to the topic I have lately touched upon, a Slave-holders' Convention was being held at the time of my visit for the State of Maryland. They had been led to adopt this step by their apprehensions both of the increase of the free coloured population, and what they termed their