An American Four-in-Hand in Britain

Produced by Charlene Taylor, Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=.

Page 51: "_Aa_leck not El-eck" might have a diacritical mark over the a. Page 63: "I've 'earn tell" possibly should be "I've 'eard tell". Page 261: The frontispiece cited was not included in this printing. Page 318: "caller" possibly should be "calmer". Page 326: "Frith" possibly should be "Firth".

An American Four-In-Hand In Britain

By Andrew Carnegie

New York Charles Scribner'S Sons 1899.

Copyright, 1883, 1886, By Charles Scribner'S Sons.

Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York

I DEDICATE THESE PAGES TO MY FAVORITE HEROINE, My Mother.

_Preface._

_The publication of this book renders necessary a few words of explanation. It was originally printed for private circulation among a few dear friends--those who were not as well as those who were of the coaching party--to be treasured as a souvenir of happy days. The house which has undertaken the responsibility of giving it a wider circulation believed that its publication might give pleasure to some who would not otherwise see it. It is not difficult to persuade one that his work which has met with the approval of his immediate circle may be worthy of a larger audience; and the author was the more easily induced to consent to its reprint because, the first edition being exhausted, he was no longer able to fill many requests for copies._

_The original intent of the book must be the excuse for the highly personal nature of the narrative, which could scarcely be changed without an entire remodelling, a task for which the writer had neither time nor inclination; so, with the exception of a few suppressions and some additions which seemed necessary under its new conditions, its character has not been materially altered. Trusting that his readers may derive from a perusal of its pages a tithe of the pleasure which the Gay Charioteers experienced in performing the journey, and wishing that all may live to see their "ships come home" and then enjoy a similar excursion for themselves, he subscribes himself,_

_Very Sincerely,_ _THE AUTHOR_ _New York, May 1, 1883._

An American Four-In-Hand In Britain.

Long enough ago to permit us to sing, "For we are boys, merry, merry boys, Merry, merry boys together," and the world lay all before us where to choose, Dod, Vandy, Harry, and I walked through Southern England with knapsacks on our backs. What pranks we played! Those were the happy days when we heard the chimes at midnight and laughed Sir Prudence out of countenance. "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Nay, verily, Sir Gray Beard, and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too! Then indeed

"The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye."

It was during this pedestrian excursion that I announced that some day, when my "ships came home," I should drive a party of my dearest friends from Brighton to Inverness. Black's "Adventures of a Phaeton" came not long after this to prove that another Scot had divined how idyllic the journey could be made. It was something of an air-castle--of a dream--those far-off days, but see how it has come to pass!

[Sidenote: _Air-Castles._]

The world, in my opinion, is all wrong on the subject of air-castles. People are forever complaining that their chateaux en Espagne are never realized. But the trouble is with them--they fail to recognize them when they come. "To-day," says Carlyle, "is a king in disguise," and most people are in possession of their air-castles, but lack the trick to see 't.

Look around you! see Vandy, for instance. When we were thus doing Merrie England on foot, he with a very modest letter of credit stowed away in a belt round his sacred person--for Vandy it was who always carried the bag (and a faithful treasurer and a careful one too--good boy, Vandy!); he was a poor student then, and you should have heard him philosophize and lord it over us two, who had been somewhat fortunate in rolling mills, and were devoted to business. "Great Caesar! boys, if I ever get fifteen hundred dollars a year income!" (This was the fortune I was vaguely figured up to be worth under ordinary conditions.) "Great Caesar! boys"--and here the fist would come down on the hard deal table, spilling a few drops of beer--"fifteen hundred dollars a year! Catch me working any more like a slave, as you and Harry do!" Well, well, Vandy's air-castle was fifteen hundred dollars a year; yet see him now when thousands roll in upon him every month. Hard at it still--and see the goddess laughing in her sleeve at the good joke on Vandy. He has his air-castle, but doesn't recognize the structure.

There is Miss Fashion. How fascinating she was when she descanted on her air-castle--then a pretty cottage with white and red roses clustering beside the door and twining over it in a true-lover's knot, symbolizing the lover's ideal of mutual help and dependence--the white upon the red. No large establishment for her, nor many servants! One horse (I admit it was always to be a big one), and an elegant little vehicle; plenty of garden and enough of pin money. On this point there was never to be the slightest doubt, so that she could really get the best magazines and one new book every month--any one she chose. A young hard-working husband, without too much income, so that she might experience the pleasure of planning to make their little go far. Behold her now! her husband a millionaire, a brown-stone front, half a dozen horses, a country place, and a box at the opera! But, bless your heart! she is as unconscious of the arrival of her castle as she is that years creep upon her apace.

The Goddess Fortune, my friends, rarely fails to give to mortals all they pray for and more; but how she must stand amazed at the blindness of her idolators, who continue to offer up their prayers at her shrine, wholly unconscious that their first requests have been granted! It takes Fortune a little time to prepare the gifts for so many supplicants--the toys each one specially wants; and lo and behold! before they can be delivered (though she works with speed betimes) the unreasonable mortals have lost conceit of their prizes, and their coming is a mockery; they are crying for something else. If the Fates be malignant, as old religions teach, how they must enjoy the folly of man!

Imagine a good spirit taking Fortune to task for the misery and discontent of mortals, as she gazes with piteous eyes upon our disappointments, our troubles, and, saddest of all, our regrets, charging her with producing such unhappiness. "Why have you done this?" would be the inquiry. Listen to the sardonic chuckle of the Fate: "Hush! I've only given them what they asked (chuckle--chuckle--chuckle)! Not my fault! See that unhappy wretch, sleeplessly and feverishly tossing on his pillow, and in his waking hours absorbing all his lofty faculties in gambling at the Stock Exchange--wife, children, home, music, art, culture, all forgotten. He was once a bright, promising, ingenuous youth. He was born among trees and green fields, spent the morn of life in the country, sensitive and responsive to all nature's whisperings; lay in cool, leafy shades, wandered in forest glades, and paddled in the 'complaining brooks which make the meadow green.' Nay, not many years ago he returned at intervals to these scenes, and found their charm had still power over him--felt the truth of the poet's words, that

"'To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.'

"He asked for enough to live honorably upon among his fellows," continues the Fate, "and to keep his parents comfortable in their old age--a matter of a few hundreds a year--and I gave him this and thousands more. Ha, ha, ha! Silence! Look at him; he doesn't see the joke. Oh yes, you may try to tell it to him, if you like. He has no time to listen, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to see; no, nor soul to understand your language. He's 'short' on New Jersey Central or 'long' on Reading, and, bless you! he must strain every fibre if he would save himself from ruin.

"He could commune with you in your youth, you say; he had your language then. No doubt! no doubt! so did he then know his Latin and whisper his prayers at his mother's knee. The Latin has gone; his praying continues--nay has increased, for his fears and selfish wants have multiplied since he was an innocent, ignorant child, and he has much more to ask from God for his own ends, now that he is a wise man and is supposed to know much (chuckle--chuckle--chuckle).

"There is another mortal," we hear the Fate saying to the Good Fairy. "Look at her, decked out in all the vagaries of changeable Fashion; note her fixed-up look, her conventional air, her nervous, unmeaning, simpering smile--the same to-day, yesterday, and forever--something to all men, much to none. See her at home in her chamber! Why mopes she, looking so haggard, with features expressionless and inane? What worm gnaws at her heart and makes her life so petty? She, too, came into the world a bright and happy thing, and grew up fond of music and of birds, and with a passion for flowers and all of Nature's sweets; so careful, too, of mother and of father, the very embodiment of love to all around her. You should have seen her in her teens, a glorious ray from heaven--'making a sunshine in a shady place'--so natural, so hearty, with a carolling laugh like the falling of waters. In her most secret prayers she asked only for a kind lover with a fair competence, that they might live modestly, without ostentation. She was a good girl and I granted her wish and more," says Fate. "Her air-castle was small, but I sent her a magnificent one. She is courted, flattered, has every gift in my power to bestow; yet she pines in the midst of them. The fruits of her rare gardens have no flavor for her--Dead Sea fruits indeed, which fall to ashes on her lips. She has entered for the race of Fashion, and her soul is absorbed in its jealousies and disappointments. You may speak to her as of old; tell her there is something noble in that domain of human life where duties grow--something not only beyond but different from Fashion, higher than dress or show. She understands you not.

"Hand her a bunch of violets. Does she learn their lesson with their odor (which her dog scents as well as she)? Comes there to her the inner meaning, the scent of the new-mown hay that speaks of past hours of purity, of the fresh breeze that fanned her cheek in childhood's halcyon days, the love of all things of the green earth and the sense of the goodness of God which his flowers ever hold within their petals for those who know their language? 'They will decorate me to-night for the ball!' That is the be-all and the end-all of her ladyship's love for flowers.

"Show her a picture with more of heaven than earth in it, and glimpses of the light that never shone on sea or shore. If the artist be in fashion she will call it 'pretty,' when it is grand. Give her music. Is it the opera? Oh yes, she will attend. It is the fashion. But place within her reach the soul-moving oratorio (with more religion in it than in twenty sermons) or the suggestive symphony. No, a previous engagement prevents. Why, just think of it--_one can't talk there!_ Yet this woman could once play with feeling and sing with expression, delighting her young companions. Of her one could truly say,

"'Oh! to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest-- For her looks sing too--she modulates her gestures on the tune; And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are finest, 'Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light, and seem to swell them on.'

And now she has fallen to this!"

"Has she children?" inquires the Good Spirit.

"No," says Fate, "we are not altogether relentless. How could we give such a woman children and look you in the face? It is sometimes thought necessary even to go as far as this, but in such cases we commend the poor infants to the special care of the great Father, for mother they have none. But look! there is a man now who did so pray for a son and heir that we gave him one, and yonder goes the result. God in heaven! why are men so rash in their blindness as to pray for anything! Surely 'Thy will be done' were best."

I am as bad as Sterne in his "Sentimental Journey," and will never get on at this rate. I started to argue that the Fates were too kind instead of not kind enough; at least, my air-castles have ever been mere toys compared with the realities, for never did I dream, in my wildest days, that the intended drive through Britain would assume the princely proportions of a four-in-hand, crowded with a dozen of my dearest friends. A modest phaeton or wagonette with a pair of horses was the extent of my dream, but the Fairy sent me four, you see, and two friends for every one I had pleased myself with imagining as sure to take the journey with me.

[Sidenote: _Embarkation._]

But now to a sober beginning of the story of the coach. It was in the leafy month of June--the very first day thereof, however--in the year of our Lord 1881, that the good ship Bothnia (Cunard Line, of course), Captain McMicken (a true Scot and bold British sailor), steamed from the future Metropolis of the World for the shores of Merrie England. She had many passengers, but among them were eleven who outranked all others, if their respective opinions of each other were to be accepted as the true standard of judgment. I had received for many months before the sweetest pleasure imaginable in startling first one and then another with requests to report at headquarters, Windsor Hotel, New York, May 31st, prepared to embark. It was on St. Valentine's Day that the Prima Donna received a missive which caused her young heart to flutter. What a pretty reply came! Here is a short extract:

"Three months to dream of it; three months to live in it; and my whole lifetime afterward to think it over. I am the happiest girl alive, only sometimes I can't believe it's all going to happen."

To Davenport, Iowa, went another invitation. In due time came a return missive from the proud City of the River:

"Will I go to Paradise for three months on a coach? Agent of Providence, I will!"

Isn't it glorious to make one's friends so happy?

* * * * *

HARBOR OF NEW YORK, June 1, 1881.} On board Steamer Bothnia. }

Call the roll.

Queen Dowager, Head of the Clan (no Salic Law in our family); Miss J. J. (Prima Donna); Miss A. F. (Stewardess); Mr. and Mrs. McC. (Dainty Davie); Mr. and Mrs. K. (Paisley Troubadours); Mr. B. F. V. (Vandy); Mr. H. P., Jr. (Our Pard); Mr. G. F. McC. (General Manager); ten in all, making, together with the scribe, the All-coaching Eleven.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling! The tears are shed, the kisses ta'en. The helpless hulk breathes the breath of life. The pulsations of its mighty heart are felt, the last rope that binds us to land cast off; and now see the hundreds of handkerchiefs waving from the pier fading and fading away. But note among the wavers one slight graceful figure; Miss C. of our party, present in spirit if bodily absent on duty, much to the regret of us all. The wavings from deck to shore tell our friends

"how slow our souls sailed on, How fast our ship."

[Sidenote: _On the Bothnia._]

The Bothnia turned her face to the east, and out upon old ocean's gray and melancholy waste sailed the Gay Charioteers. As we steamed down the bay three steamers crowded with the most enterprising of Europe's people passed us, emigrants coming to find in the bounteous bosom of the Great Republic the blessings of equality, the just reward of honest labor. Ah, favored land! the best of the Old World seek your shores to swell to still grander proportions your assured greatness. That all come only for the material benefits you confer, I do not believe. Crowning these material considerations, I insist that the more intelligent of these people feel the spirit of true manhood stirring within them, and glory in the thought that they are to become part of a powerful people, of a government founded upon the born equality of man, free from military despotism and class distinctions. There is a trace of the serf in the man who lives contentedly in a land with ranks above him. One hundred and seventeen thousand came last month, and the cry is still they come! O ye self-constituted rulers of men in Europe, know you not that the knell of dynasties and of rank is sounding? Are you so deaf that you do not hear the thunders, so blind that you do not see the lightnings which now and then give warning of the storm that is to precede the reign of the people?

There is everything in the way one takes things. "Whatever is, is right," is a good maxim for travellers to adopt, but the Charioteers improved on that. The first resolution they passed was, "Whatever is, is lovely; all that does happen and all that doesn't shall be altogether lovely." We shall quarrel with nothing, admire everything and everybody. A surly beggar shall afford us sport, if any one can be surly under our smiles; and stale bread and poor fare shall only serve to remind us that we have banqueted at the Windsor. Even no dinner at all shall pass for a good joke. Rain shall be hailed as good for the growing corn; a cold day pass as invigorating, a warm one welcomed as suggestive of summer at home, and even a Scotch mist serve to remind us of the mysterious ways of Providence. In this mood the start was made. Could any one suggest a better for our purpose?

Now comes a splendid place to skip--the ocean voyage. Everybody writes that up upon the first trip, and every family knows all about it from the long descriptive letters of the absent one doing Europe.

When one has crossed the Atlantic twenty odd times there seems just about as much sense in boring one's readers with an account of the trip as if the journey were by rail from New York to Chicago. We had a fine, smooth run, and though some of us were a trifle distrait, most of us were supremely happy. A sea voyage compared with land travel is a good deal like matrimony compared with single blessedness, I take it: either decidedly better or decidedly worse. To him who finds himself comfortable at sea, the ocean is the grandest of treats. He never fails to feel himself a boy again while on the waves. There is an exultation about it. "He walks the monarch of the peopled deck," glories in the storm, rises with and revels in it. Heroic song comes to him. The ship becomes a live thing, and if the monster rears and plunges it is akin to bounding on his thoroughbred who knows its rider. Many men feel thus, and I am happily of them, but the ladies who are at their best at sea are few.

The travellers, however, bore the journey well, though one or two proved indifferent sailors. One morning I had to make several calls upon members below and administer my favorite remedy; but pale and dejected as the patients were, not one failed to smile a ghastly smile, and repeat after a fashion the cabalistic words--"Altogether lovely."

[Sidenote: _The Atlantic._]

He who has never ridden out a hurricane on the Atlantic is to be pitied. It seems almost ridiculous to talk of storms when on such a monster as the Servia. Neptune now may "his dread trident shake" and only give us pleasure, for in these days we laugh at his pretensions. Even he is fast going the way of all kings, his wildest roar being about on a par with the last Bull of the Pope, to which we listen with wonder but without fear.

In no branch of human progress has greater advance been made within the past twenty years than in ocean navigation by steam; not so much in the matter of speed as in cost of transport. The Persia, once the best ship of the Cunard Line, required an expenditure of thirty-five dollars as against her successors' one dollar. The Servia will carry thirty-five tons across the ocean for what one ton cost in the Persia. A revolution indeed! and one which brings the products of American soil close to the British shores. Quite recently flour has been carried from Chicago to Liverpool for forty-eight cents (2_s._) per barrel. The farmer of Illinois is as near the principal markets of Britain as the farmer in England who grows his crops one hundred miles from his market and transports by rail; and, in return for this, the pig-iron manufacturer of Britain is as near the New York market as is his competitor on the Hudson.

Some of the good people of Britain who are interested in land believe that the competition of America has reached its height. Deluded souls, it has only begun!

One cannot be a day at sea without meeting the American who regrets that the Stars and Stripes have been commercially driven from the ocean. This always reminds me of a fable of the lion and the turtle. The lion was proudly walking along the shore, the real king of his domain, the land. The turtle mocked him, saying, Oh, that's nothing, any one can walk on land. Let's see you try it in the water. The lion tried. Result: the turtle fed upon him for many days. America can only render herself ridiculous by entering the water. That is England's domain.

"Her home is on the mountain wave, Her march is o'er the deep."

[Sidenote: _The American Navy._]

We are talking just now about building some ships for a proposed American Navy, which is equivalent to saying that we are going to furnish ships to the enemy, if we are ever foolish enough to have one--for it takes two fools to wage war. Unless America resolves to change her whole policy as a republic, teaching mankind the victories of peace, far more renowned than those of war, and goes back to the ideas of monarchical governments, she should build no ships of war; but if she will leave her unique position among the nations, and step down to the level of quarrellers, let her beat the navies of Britain and France, for the ships of a weak naval power are the certain prey of the stronger in time of war. In peace they are useless.

In thinking of the real glories of America, my mind goes first to this--that she has no army worthy of the name, and scarcely a war ship of whose complete inefficiency in case of active service we are not permitted to indulge the most sanguine anticipations.

What has America to do following in the wake of brutal, pugilistic nations still under the influence of feudal institutions, who exhaust their revenues training men how best to butcher their fellows, and in building up huge ships for purposes of destruction! No, no, let monarchies play this game as long as the people tolerate it, but for the Republic "all her paths are peace," or the bright hopes which the masses of Europe repose in her are destined to a sad eclipse.

Travellers know the character and abilities of the men in charge of a Cunard ship, but have they ever considered for what pittances such men are obtained? Captain, $3,250 per annum; first officer, $1,000; second, third, and fourth officers, $600. For what sum, think you, can be had a man capable of controlling the ponderous machinery of the Servia? Chief engineer, $1,250. You have seen the firemen at work down below, perhaps. Do you know any work so hard as this? Price $30 per month. The first cost of a steel ship--and it is scarcely worth while in these days to think of any other kind--is about one-half on the Clyde what it is on the Delaware. Steel can be made, and is made, in Britain for about one half its cost here. Not in our day will it be wise for America to leave the land. It is a very fair division, as matters stand--the land for America, the sea for England.

* * * * *

FRIDAY, June 10, 1881.

[Sidenote: _Ireland._]

Land ahoy! There it was, the long dark low-lying cloud, which was no cloud, but the outline of one of the most unfortunate of lands--unhappy Ireland, cursed by the well-meaning attempt of England to grow Englishmen there. England's experience north of the Tweed should have taught her better.

Conquerors cannot rule as conquerors a people who have parliamentary institutions and publish newspapers; and neither of these can ever be taken away from Ireland. They always come to stay. You may succeed in keeping down slaves for a while, but then you must govern them as slaves, and the Irish people have advanced beyond this. Just in proportion as they do grow less like serfs and more like men, the impossibility of England's governing Ireland must grow likewise. I hear some Americans reproaching the Irish people for rioting and fighting so much; the real trouble is they don't fight half enough. Take my own heroic Scotland; let even Mr. Gladstone, one of ourselves and our best beloved, send an Englishman as Lord Advocate to Scotland, and let him dare pass a measure for Scotland in Parliament against the wishes of the Scotch members, and all the uprisings in Ireland would seem like farces to the thorough work Scotland would make of English interference. She would not stand it a minute. Neither should Ireland. If she has the elements of a great people within her borders, she will never submit. In less than a generation Ireland can be made as loyal a member of the British confederacy as Scotland is; and all that is necessary to produce this is that she should be dealt with as England has to deal with Scotland. Let the Emerald Isle, then, fight against the attempted dominion of England, as Scotland fought against it, and may the result be the same--that Ireland shall govern herself, as Scotland does, through her own representatives duly elected by the people. "To this complexion must it come at last," and the sooner the better for all parties concerned.

We reached Liverpool Saturday morning. How pleasant it is to step on shore in a strange land and be greeted by kind friends on the quay! Their welcome to England counted for so much.

Mr. and Mrs. P. had been fellow passengers. A special car was waiting to take them to London, but they decided not to go, and Mr. P. very kindly placed it at the disposal of Mr. J. and family (who were, fortunately for us, also fellow-passengers) and our party, so that we began our travelling upon the other side under unexpectedly favorable conditions.

To such of the party as were getting their first glimpse of the beautiful isle, the journey to London seemed an awakening from happy dreams. They had dreamed that England looked thus and thus, and now their dreams had come true. The scenery of the Midland route is very fine, much more attractive than that of the other line.

The party spent from Saturday until Thursday at the Westminster Hotel, in monster London, every one being free to do what most interested him or her. Groups of three or four were formed for this purpose by the law of natural selection, but the roll was called for breakfasts and dinners, so that we all met daily and were fully advised of each other's movements.

[Sidenote: _House of Commons._]

The House of Commons claimed the first place with our party, all being anxious to see the Mother of Parliaments. It is not so easy a matter to do this as to see our Congress in session; but thanks to our friend Mr. R. C. and to others, we were fortunate in being able to do so frequently. Our ladies had the pleasure of being taken into the Ladies' Gallery by one of the rising statesmen of England, Sir Charles Dilke, a Cabinet Minister, and one who has had the boldness, and as I think the rare sagacity, to say that he prefers the republican to the monarchical system of government. The world is to hear of Sir Charles Dilke, if he live and health be granted him, and above all, if he remain steadfast to his honest opinions. So many public men in England "stoop to conquer," forgetting that whatever else they may conquer thereafter they never can conquer that _stoop_; that "drags down their life"!

We really heard John Bright speak--the one of all men living whom our party wished most to see and to hear. I had not forgotten hearing him speak in Dunfermline, when I was seven years of age, and well do I remember that when I got home I told mother he made one mistake; for when speaking of Mr. Smith (the Liberal candidate) he called him a _men_, instead of a _maan_. When introduced to Mr. Bright I was delighted to find that he had not forgotten Dunfermline, nor the acquaintances he had made there.

[Sidenote: _Temperance._]

A grand character, that of the sturdy Quaker; once the best hated man in Britain, but one to whom both continents are now glad to confess their gratitude. He has been wiser than his generation, but has lived to see it grow up to him. Certainly no American can look down from the gallery upon that white head without beseeching heaven to shower its choicest blessings upon it. He spoke calmly upon the Permissive Liquor Bill, and gave the ministerial statement in regard to it. All he said was good common sense; we could do something by regulating the traffic and confining it to reasonable hours, but after all the great cure must come from the better education of the masses, who must be brought to feel that it is unworthy of their manhood to brutalize themselves with liquor. England has set herself at last to the most important of all work--the thorough education of her people; and we may confidently expect to see a great improvement in their habits in the next generation. My plan for mastering the monster evil of intemperance is that our temperance societies, instead of pledging men never to taste alcoholic beverages, should be really temperance agencies and require their members to use them only at meals--never to drink wines or spirits without eating. The man who takes _one_ glass of wine, or beer, or spirits at dinner is clearly none the worse for it. I judge that if the medical fraternity were polled, a large majority would say he was the better for it, at least after a certain age. Why can't we recognize the fact that all races indulge in stimulants and will continue to do so? It is the regulation, not the eradication, of this appetite that is practical. The coming man is to consider it low to walk up to a bar and gulp down liquor. The race will come to this platform generations before they will accept that of Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his total abstinence ideas.

This was written before the Church of England movement in this direction was known to me. Much good must come of its efforts; but I confess I should like to see that church show that it is in earnest by removing the deep reproach cast upon it by recent statements, which pass uncontradicted. Listen to this startling announcement: This holy Church of England, mark you, is the largest owner of gin palaces in the world. The head of the church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in passing from his palace at Lambeth to his abbey at Westminster, sees more than one hundred (I believe I understate the case) gin palaces which his church owns and has rented for such purposes; nay, it is shown that the church has always raised the rents of these houses, with which licenses go, as the sales of liquor have increased; so that her interest lies in extending the use of liquors as a beverage secretly upon one hand, while she poses before the world as laboring to restrict the curse with the other. Her right hand knows only too well what her left hand doeth. It does seem that the mere announcement of such a fact would work its own remedy--perhaps it will when its holy fathers are done with the vastly more important business of determining the size and shape of vestures, or the number of candles, or the posture of the priest most pleasing to God--but before the church can figure as much of an agency in the cause of temperance reform, it will have to wash its hands of its hundred gin palaces.

The article in _Harper's Magazine_ upon Bedford Square, giving glowing accounts of this Arcadian colony, with its aesthetic homes, its Tabard Inn, and its club, made us all desire to visit it. We did so one afternoon, and received a very cordial welcome from Mrs. C. in the absence of her husband. She kindly showed us the grounds and explained all to us. Truth compels me to say we were sadly disappointed, but for this we had probably only ourselves to blame. It is so natural to imagine that exquisite wood-cuts and pretty illustrations set forth grander things than exist. The houses were much inferior to our preconceived ideas, and many had soft woods painted, and most of the cheap shams of ordinary structures. The absence of grand trees, shady dells, and ornamental grounds, and the exceedingly cheap and cheap-looking houses made all seem like a new settlement in the Far West rather than the latest development of culture. From this criticism Mr. C.'s own pretty little home is wholly exempt, and no doubt there are many other homes there equally admirable. I speak only of the general impression made upon our party by a very hasty visit. Bedford Park is no doubt an excellent idea, and destined to do much good, only it is different from what we had expected.

[Sidenote: _Stafford House._]

Extremes meet. It was from houses such as I have spoken of that we went direct to Stafford House, to meet the Marquis of Stafford by appointment, and to be shown over that palace by him. What a change! If the former were not up to our expectations, this exceeded them. I don't suppose any one ever has expected to see such a staircase as enchants him upon entering Stafford House. This is the most magnificent residence any of us has ever seen. I will not trust myself to speak of its beauties, nor of the treasures it contains. One begins to understand to what the Marquis of Stafford is born. The Sutherland family have a million two hundred thousand acres of land in Britain; no other family in the world compares with them as landowners. It is positively startling to think of it. Almost the entire County of Sutherland is theirs. Stafford House is their London residence. They have Trentham Hall and Lillieshall in Mid-England, and glorious Dunrobin Castle in Scotland.

The Marquis sits in the House of Commons as member for Sutherland County; and what do you think! he is a painstaking director of the London and North-Western Railway, and I am informed pays strict attention to its affairs. The Duke of Devonshire is Chairman of the Barrow Steel Company. Lord Granville has iron works, and Earl Dudley is one of the principal iron manufacturers of England. It is all right, you see, my friends, to be a steel-rail manufacturer or an iron-master. How fortunate! But the line must be drawn somewhere, and we draw it at trade. The A. T. Stewarts and the Morrisons have no standing in society in England. They are in vulgar trade. Now if they brewed beer, for instance, they would be somebodies, and might confidently look forward to a baronetcy at least; for a great deal of beer a peerage is not beyond reach.

We heard a performance of the "Messiah" in Albert Hall, which the Prima Donna agreed with me was better in two important particulars than any similar performance we had heard in America. First in vigor of attack by the chorus; this was superb; from the first instant the full volume and quality of sound were perfect. The other point was that all-important one of enunciation. We have no chorus in New York which rivals what we heard, though we have an orchestra which is equal to any. The words were, of course, familiar, and we could scarcely judge whether we were correct in our impression, but we believed that even had they been strange to us we could nevertheless have understood every word. Since my return to New York I have heard this oratorio given by the Oratorio Society, and am delighted to note that Dr. Damrosch has greatly improved his chorus in this respect; but the English do pronounce perfectly in singing. This opinion was confirmed by the music subsequently heard in various places throughout our travels. In public as well as in private singing the purity of enunciation struck us as remarkable. If I ever set up for a music teacher I shall bequeath to my favorite pupil as the secret of success but one word, "_enunciation_."

[Sidenote: _Parliament._]

Some of us went almost every day to Westminster, but dancing attendance upon Parliament is much like doing so upon Congress. The interesting debates are few and far between. The daily routine is uninteresting, and one sees how rapidly all houses of legislation are losing their hold upon public attention. A debate upon the propriety of allowing Manchester to dispose of her sewage to please herself, or of permitting Dunfermline to bring in a supply of water, seems such a waste of time. The Imperial Parliament of Great Britain is much in want of something to do when it condescends to occupy its time with trifling questions which the community interested can best settle; but even in matters of national importance debates are no longer what they were. The questions have already been threshed out in the Reviews--those coming forums of discussion--and all that can be said already said by writers upon both sides of the question who know its bearings much better than the leaders of party. When the _Fortnightly_ or the _Nineteenth Century_ gets through with a subject the Prime Minister only rises to sum up the result at which the Morleys and Rogerses, the Spencers and Huxleys, the Giffens and Howards have previously arrived.

The English are prone to contrast the men of America and England who are in political life, and the balance is no doubt greatly in their favor. But the reason lies upon the surface: America has solved the fundamental questions of government, and no changes are desired of sufficient moment to engage the minds of her ablest men. During the civil war, when new issues arose and had to be met, the men who stepped forward to guide the nation were of an entirely different class from those prominent in politics either before or since. Contrast the men of Buchanan's administration with those the war called to the front--Lincoln, Seward, Stanton, Sumner, Edmunds, Morton, or the generals of that time, with Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock. All of these men I have known well, except one or two of the least prominent. I have met some of the best known politicians in England. Compared morally or intellectually, I do not think there is much, if any, difference between them; while for original creative power I believe the Americans superior. That a band of men so remarkable as to cause surprise to other nations will promptly arise whenever there is real work to do, no one who knows the American people can doubt; but no man of real ability is going to spend his energies endeavoring to control appointments to the New York Custom House, any more than he will continue very long to waste his time discussing Manchester sewage. Much as my English friends dislike to believe it, I tell them that when there is really no great work to be done, when the conflict between feudal and democratic ideas ends, as it is fast coming to an end, and there is no vestige of privilege left from throne to knighthood, only vain, weak men will seek election to Parliament, and such will stand ready to do the bidding of the constituencies as our agents in Congress do. But this need not alarm our English friends; there will then be much less bribery before election and much less succumbing to social court influences after it. The brains of a country will be found where the real work is to do. The House of Lords registers the decrees of the House of Commons. The House of Commons is soon to register the decrees of the monthlies. Both these things may be pronounced good. In the next generation the debates of Parliament will affect the political currents of the age as little as the fulminations of the pulpit affect religious thought at present; and then a man who feels he has real power within him will think of entering Parliament about as soon as he would think of entering the House of Lords or the American Congress.

"The parliament of man, the federation of the world,"

comes on apace; but its form is to be largely impersonal. The press is the universal parliament. The leaders in that forum make your "statesman" dance as they pipe.

The same law is robbing the pulpit of real power. Who cares what the Reverend Mr. Froth preaches nowadays, when he ventures beyond the homilies? Three pages by Professor Robertson Smith in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" destroy more theology in an hour than all the preachers in the land can build up in a lifetime. If any man wants _bona fide_ substantial power and influence in this world, he must handle the pen--that's flat. Truly, it is a nobler weapon than the sword, and a much nobler one than the tongue, both of which have nearly had their day.

We had a happy luncheon with our good friends the C.'s, one of our London days; and some of our party who had heard that there was not a great variety of edibles in England saw reason to revise their ideas. Another day we had a notable procession for miles through London streets and suburbs to the residence of our friend, Mr. B. Five hansoms in line driven pell-mell reminded me of our Tokio experiences with gin-rikshaws, two Bettos tandem in each.

[Sidenote: _The Stars and Stripes._]

It was a pretty, graceful courtesy, my friend, to display from the upper window the "Stars and Stripes," in honor of the arrival of your American guests, and prettier still to have across your hall as a portiere, under which all must bow as they entered, that flag which tells of a government founded upon the born equality of man. Thanks! Such things touch the heart as well as the patriotic chord which vibrates in the breast of every one so fortunate as to claim that glorious standard as the emblem of the land he fondly calls his own. Colonel Robert Ingersoll, that wonderful orator, says that when abroad, after a long interval, he saw in one of the seaports the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the breeze, "he felt the air had blossomed into joy." It was he too who told the South long ago that "there wasn't air enough upon the American continent to float two flags." Right there, Colonel!

Do you know why the American worships the starry banner with a more intense passion than even the Briton does his flag? I will tell you. It is because it is not the flag of a government which discriminates between her children, decreeing privilege to one and denying it to another, but the flag of the people which gives the same rights to all. The British flag was born too soon to be close to the masses. It came before their time, when they had little or no power. They were not consulted about it. Some conclave made it, as a pope is made, and handed it down to the nation. But the American flag bears in every fibre the warrant, "_We the People_ in Congress assembled." It is their own child, and how supremely it is beloved!

It is a significant fact that in no riot or local outbreak have soldiers of the United States, bearing the national flag, ever been assaulted. Militia troops have sometimes been stoned, but United States troops never. During the worst riot ever known in America, that in our own good city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, twenty-eight United States soldiers, all there were in the barracks, marched through the thousands of excited men unmolested. I really believe that had any man in the crowd dared to touch that flag, General Dix's famous order would have been promptly enforced by his companions. Major-General Hancock recently told me that he had never known United States soldiers to be attacked by citizens. He was in command of the troops during the riots in the coal regions in Pennsylvania some years ago, and whenever a body of his regulars appeared they were respected and peace reigned.

General Dix's order was, "If any man attempts to pull down the flag shoot him on the spot." So say we all of us. And it will be the same in Britain some day, ay and in Ireland too, when an end has been made of privilege and there is not a government and a people, but only a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. The day is not so far off either as some of you think, mark me.

But good-bye, London, and all the thoughts which crowd upon one when in your mighty whirl. You monster London, we are all glad to escape you! But ere we "gang awa'" shall we not note our visit to one we are proud to call our friend, and of whom Scotland is proud, Dr. Samuel Smiles, a writer of books indeed--books which influence his own generation much, and the younger generation more. Burns's wish was that he,

"For poor auld Scotland's sake, Some useful plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least."

Well, the Doctor has made several books that are books, and I have heard him sing a song, too, for the days of Auld Lang Syne. May he live long, and long may his devoted wife be spared to watch over him!

* * * * *

THURSDAY MORNING, June 16, 1881.

[Sidenote: _Brighton._]

We are off for Brighton. Mr. and Miss B. accompany us. Mr. and Mrs. K. have run up to Paisley with the children, and Mr. and Mrs. G. have joined us in their place. The coach, horses, and servants went down during the night.

We had time to visit the unequalled aquarium and to do the parade before dinner. Miss F. and I stole off to make a much more interesting visit; we called upon William Black, whose acquaintance I had been fortunate enough to make in Rome, and whom I had told that I should some day imitate his "Adventures of a Phaeton." A week before we sailed from New York, I had dined with President Garfield at Secretary Blaine's in Washington. After dinner, conversation turned upon my proposed journey, and the President became much interested. "It is the 'Adventures of a Phaeton' on a grand scale," he remarked. "By the way, has Black ever written any other story quite so good as that? I do not think he has." In this there was a general concurrence. He then said: "But I am provoked with Black just now. A man who writes to entertain has no right to end a story as miserably as he has done that of 'MacLeod of Dare.' Fiction should give us the bright side of existence. _Real life has tragedies enough of its own._"

A few weeks more and we were to have in his own case the most terrible proof of the words he had spoken so solemnly. I can never forget the sad, careworn expression of his face as he uttered them.

"But come it soon or come it fast, It is but death that comes at last."

One might almost be willing to die if, as in Garfield's case, there should flash from his grave, at the touch of a mutual sorrow, to both divisions of the great English-speaking race, the knowledge that they are brothers. This discovery will bear good fruit in time.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it."

Garfield's life was not in vain. It tells its own story--this poor boy toiling upward to the proudest position on earth, the elected of fifty millions of freemen; a position compared with which that of king or kaiser is as nothing. Let other nations ask themselves where are _our_ Lincolns and Garfields? Ah, they grow not except where all men are born equal! The cold shade of aristocracy nips them in the bud.

[Sidenote: _William Black._]

Mr. Black came to see us off, but arrived at our starting-place a few minutes too late. A thousand pities! Had we only known that he intended to do us this honor, until high noon, ay, and till dewy eve, would we have waited. Just think of our start being graced by the author of "The Adventures of a Phaeton," and we privileged to give him three rousing cheers as our horn sounded! Though grieved to miss him, it was a consolation to know that he had come, and we felt that his spirit was with us and dwelt with us during the entire journey. Many a time the incidents of his charming story came back to us, but I am sorry to record, as a faithful chronicler, that we young people missed one of its most absorbing features--we had no lovers. At least, I am not apprized that any engagements were made upon the journey, although, for my part, I couldn't help falling in love just a tiny bit with the charming young ladies who delighted us with their company.

* * * * *

BRIGHTON, Friday Morning, June 17.

[Sidenote: _The Supreme Moment._]

Let us call the roll once more at the door of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, that our history may be complete: Mr. and Mrs. B., London; Mr. and Mrs. T. G., Wolverhampton; Miss M. L., Dunfermline; Miss E. F., Liverpool; Mr. and Mrs. McC., Miss J. J., Miss A. F., Mr. B. F. V., Mr. H. P., Jr., Mr. G. F. McC., the Queen Dowager and the Scribe. These be the names of the new and delectable order of the Gay Charioteers, who mounted their coach at Brighton and began the long journey to the North Countrie on the day and date aforesaid. And here, O my good friends, let me say that until a man has stood at the door and seen his own four-in-hand drive up before him, the horses--four noble bays--champing the bits, their harness buckles glistening in the sun; the coach spick and span new and as glossy as a mirror, with the coachman on the box and the footman behind; and then, enchanted, has called to his friends, "Come, look, there it is, just as I had pictured it!" and has then seen them mount to their places with beaming faces--until, as I say, he has had that experience, don't tell me that he has known the most exquisite sensation in life, for I know he hasn't. It was Izaak Walton, I believe, who when asked what he considered the most thrilling sensation in life, answered that he supposed it was the tug of a thirty-pound salmon. Well, that was not a bad guess. I have taken the largest trout of the season on bonnie Loch Leven, have been drawn over Spirit Lake in Iowa in my skiff for half an hour by a monster pickerel, and have played with the speckled beauties in Dead River. It is glorious; making a hundred thousand is nothing to it; but there's a thrill beyond that, my dear old quaint Izaak. I remember in one of my sweet strolls "ayont the wood mill braes" with a great man, my Uncle Bailie M.--and I treasure the memory of these strolls as among the chief of my inheritance--this very question came up. I asked him what he thought the most thrilling thing in life. He mused awhile, as was the Bailie's wont, and I said, "I think I can tell you, Uncle." "What is it then, Andrea?" (Not And_rew_ for the world.) "Well, Uncle, I think that when, in making a speech, one feels himself lifted, as it were, by some divine power into regions beyond himself, in which he seems to soar without effort, and swept by enthusiasm into the expression of some burning truth, which has lain brooding in his soul, throwing policy and prudence to the winds, he feels words whose eloquence surprises himself, burning hot, hissing through him like molten lava coursing the veins, he throws it forth, and panting for breath hears the quick, sharp, explosive roar of his fellow-men in thunder of assent, the precious moment which tells him that the audience is his own, but one soul in it and that his; I think this the supreme moment of life." "Go! Andrea, ye've hit it!" cried the Bailie, and didn't the dark eye sparkle! He had felt this often, had the Bailie; his nephew had only now and then been near enough to imagine the rest.

The happiness of giving happiness is far sweeter than the pleasure direct, and I recall no moments of my life in which the rarer pleasure seemed to suffuse my whole heart as when I stood at Brighton and saw my friends take their places that memorable morning. In this variable, fantastic climate of Britain the weather is ever a source of solicitude. What must it have been to me, when a good start was all important! I remember I awoke early in the morning and wondered whether it was sunny or rainy. If a clear day could have been purchased, it would have been obtained at almost any outlay. I could easily tell our fate by raising the window-blind, but I philosophically decided that it was best to lie still and take what heaven might choose to send us. I should know soon enough. If rain it was, I could not help it; if fair, it was glorious. But let me give one suggestion to those who in England are impious enough to ask heaven to change its plans: don't ask for dry weather; always resort to that last extremity when it is "a drizzle-drozzle" you wish. Your supplications are so much more likely to be answered, you know.

There never was a lovelier morning in England than that which greeted me when I pulled up the heavy Venetian blind and gazed on the rippling sea before me, with its hundreds of pretty little sails. I repeated to myself these favorite lines as I stood entranced:

"The Bridegroom Sea is toying with the shore, His wedded bride; and in the fulness of his marriage joy He decorates her tawny brow with shells, Retires a space to see how fair she looks, Then proud runs up to kiss her."

That is what old ocean was doing that happy morning. I saw him at it, and I felt that if all created beings had one mouth I should like to kiss them too.

[Sidenote: _The Start._]

All seated! The Queen Dowager next the coachman, and I at her side. The horn sounds, the crowd cheers, and we are off. A mile or two are traversed and there is a unanimous verdict upon one point--this suits us! Finer than we had dreamt! As we pass the pretty villas embossed in flowers and vines and all that makes England the home of happy homes, there comes the sound of increasing exclamations. How pretty! Oh, how beautiful! See, see, the roses! Oh the roses! Look at that lawn! How lovely! Enchanting! entrancing! superb! exquisite! Oh, I never saw anything like this in all my life! And then the hum of song--La-_la_-LA-LA, Ra-da-_da_-DUM! Yes, it is all true, all we dreamt or imagined, and beyond it. And so on we go through Brighton and up the hills to the famous Weald of Sussex.

While we make our first stop to water the horses at the wayside inn, and some of the men as well, for a glass of beer asserts its attractions, let me introduce you to two worthies whose names will occupy important places in our narrative, and dwell in our memories forever; men to whom we are indebted in a large measure for the success of the coaching experiment.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Perry, Perry our coachman; and what he doesn't know about horses and how to handle them you needn't overtask yourselves trying to learn. And this is Joe--Joey, my lad--footman and coach manager. A good head and an eloquent tongue has Joe. Yes, and a kind heart. There is nothing he can do or think of doing for any of us--and he can do much--that he is not off and doing ere we ask him. "Skid, Joe!" "Right, Perry!" these talismanic words of our order we heard to-day for the first time. It will be many a long day before they cease to recall to the Charioteers some of the happiest recollections of life. Even as I write I am in English meadows far away and hear them tingling in my ears.

It was soon discovered that no mode of travel could be compared with coaching. By all other modes the views are obstructed by the hedges and walls; upon the top of the coach the eye wanders far and wide,

"O'er deep waving fields and pastures green, With gentle slopes and groves between."

Everything of rural England is seen, and how exquisitely beautiful it all is, this quiet, peaceful, orderly land!

"The ground's most gentle dimplement (As if God's finger touched, but did not press, In making England)--such an up and down Of verdure; nothing too much up and down, A ripple of land, such little hills the sky Can stoop to tenderly and the wheat-fields climb; Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises, Fed full of noises by invisible streams, I thought my father's land was worthy too of being Shakespeare's."

[Sidenote: _Rural England._]

I think this extract from Mr. Winter's charming volume expresses the feelings one has amid such scenes better than anything I know of:

"If the beauty of England were merely superficial, it would produce a merely superficial effect. It would cause a passing pleasure, and would be forgotten. It certainly would not--as now in fact it does--inspire a deep, joyous, serene and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The conquering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression, but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British Islands with the natural advantages of position, climate, soil, and products, nature has wrought out their development and adornment as a necessary consequence of the spirit of their inhabitants. The picturesque variety and pastoral repose of the English landscape spring, in a considerable measure, from the imaginative taste and the affectionate gentleness of the English people. The state of the country, like its social constitution, flows from principles within (which are constantly suggested), and it steadily comforts and nourishes the mind with a sense of kindly feeling, moral rectitude, solidity, and permanence. Thus, in the peculiar beauty of England the ideal is made the actual, is expressed in things more than in words, and in things by which words are transcended. Milton's 'L'Allegro,' fine as it is, is not so fine as the scenery--the crystallized, embodied poetry--out of which it arose. All the delicious rural verse that has been written in England is only the excess and superflux of her own poetic opulence; it has rippled from the hearts of her poets just as the fragrance floats away from her hawthorn hedges. At every step of his progress the pilgrim through English scenes is impressed with this sovereign excellence of the accomplished fact, as contrasted with any words that can be said in its celebration."

[Sidenote: _The Scribe as a Singer._]

The roads are a theme of continual wonder to those who have not before seen England. To say that from end to end of our journey they equalled those of New York Central Park would be to understate the fact. They are equal to the park roads on days when these are at their best, and are neither wet nor dusty. We bowl over them as balls do over billiard-tables. It is a glide rather than a roll, with no sensation of jolting. You could write or read on the coach almost as well as at home. I mean you could if there was any time to waste doing either, and you were not afraid of missing some beautiful picture which would dwell in your memory for years, or Aleck's last joke, or the Prima Donna's sweet song, Andrew's never-to-be-forgotten lilt, or the Queen Dowager's Scotch ballad pertaining to the district; or what might be even still more likely, if you didn't want to tell a story yourself, or even join in the roaring chorus as we roll along, for truly the exhilarating effect of the triumphant progress is such as to embolden one to do anything. I always liked Artemus Ward, perhaps because I found a point of similarity between him and myself. It was not he but his friend who "was saddest when he sang," as the old song has it. I noticed that my friends were strangely touched when I burst into song. I do not recall an instance when I was encored; but the apparent slight arose probably from a suspicion that if recalled I would have essayed the same song. This is unjust! I have another in reserve for such an occasion, if it ever happen. The words are different, although the tune may be somewhat similar. When I like a tune I stick to it, more or less, and when there are fine touches in several tunes I have been credited with an eclectic disposition. However this may be, there was never time upon our coach for anything which called our eyes and our attention from the rapid succession of pretty cottages, fine flowers, the birds and lowing herds, the grand lights and grander shadows of that uncertain fleecy sky, the luxuriance of the verdure, flowery dells and dewy meads, and the hundred surprising beauties that make England England.

These bind us captive and drive from the mind every thought of anything but the full and intense enjoyment of the present hour; and this comes without thought. Forgetful of the past, regardless of the future, from morn till night, it is one uninterrupted season of pure and unalloyed joyousness. Never were the words of the old Scotch song as timely as now:

"The present moment is our ain, The neist we never see."

Having got the party fairly started, let me tell you something of our general arrangements for the campaign. The coach, horses, and servants are engaged at a stipulated sum per week, which includes their travelling expenses. We have nothing to do with their bills or arrangements, neither are we in any wise responsible for accidents to the property. Every one of the party is allowed a small hand-bag and a strap package; the former contains necessary articles for daily use, the latter waterproofs, shawls, shoes, etc. The Gay Charioteers march with supplies for one week. The trunks are forwarded every week to the point where we are to spend the succeeding Sunday, so that every Saturday evening we replenish our wardrobe, and at the Sunday dinner appear in full dress, making a difference between that and other days. This we found well worth observing, for our Sunday evenings were thereby made somewhat unusual affairs. In no case did any failure of this plan occur, nor were we ever put to the slightest inconvenience about clothing. Our hotel accommodations were secured by telegraph. The General Manager had engaged these for our first week's stage, previous to our start.

[Sidenote: _Luncheon._]

The question of luncheon soon came to the front, for should we be favored with fine weather, much of the poetry and romance of the journey was sure to cluster round the midday halt. It was by a process of natural selection that she who had proved her genius for making salads on many occasions during the voyage should be unanimously appointed to fill the important position of stewardess, and given full and unlimited control of the hampers. Our stewardess only lived up to a well-deserved reputation by surprising us day after day with luncheons far excelling any dinner. Two coaching hampers, very complete affairs, were obtained in London. These the stewardess saw filled at the inn every morning with the best the country could afford, under her personal supervision, a labor of love. Our Pard's sweet tooth led him to many early excursions before breakfast in quest of sweets and flowers for us. Aleck was butler, and upon him we placed implicit reliance, and with excellent reason too, for the essential corkscrew and the use thereof--which may be rated as of prime necessity upon such a tour--and Aleck never failed us as superintendent of the bottles.

It was in obedience to the strictest tenets of our civil service reform association that the most important appointment of all was made with a unanimity which must ever be flattering to the distinguished gentleman who received the highly responsible appointment of General Manager. Just here let me say, for the peace of mind of any gentleman who may be tempted to try the coaching experiment upon a large scale, and for an extended tour: _Don't_, unless you have a dear friend with a clear head, an angelic disposition, a great big heart, and the tact essential for governing, who for your sake is willing to relieve you from the cares incident to such a tour--that is, if you expect to enjoy it as a recreation, and have something that will linger forever after in the memory as an adventure in wonderland. Should you however be one of those rare men who have a real liking for details, and so conceited as to think that you never get things done so well as when your own genius superintends them, being in this respect the antipode of a modest man like myself--who never does by any chance find any one who can so completely bungle matters as himself--it may of course be different. As for me, the very first inquiry I shall make of myself when I am about to take the road again--as pray heaven I may some day, and that ere long--will be this: Now who can I get for Prime Minister, one who will like to govern and allow me to laugh and frolic with the party without a care? The position of a king in a constitutional monarchy is the very ideal for a chief to emulate. It is delightful to feel so very certain that one "can do no wrong," even if infallibility be obtained, as Queen Victoria's is, because she is no longer allowed to do anything. Such was the case with the Scribe during the Coaching Tour. Happy man!

[Sidenote: _Grouping._]

There must always be a tendency toward grouping in a large party: groups of four or five, and in extreme cases a group of two; and especially is this so when married people, cousins or dear friends, are of the company. To prevent anything like this, and insure our being one united party, I asked the gentlemen not to occupy the same seat twice in succession--a rule which gave the ladies a different companion at each meal, and a change upon the coach several times each day. This was understood to apply in a general way to our strolls, although in this case the General Manager, with rare discretion, winked at many infringements, which insured him grateful constituents of both sexes. Young people should never be held too strictly to such rules, and a chaperon's duties, as we all know, are often most successfully performed by a wise and salutary neglect. Our General Manager and even the Queen Dowager were considerate.

We generally started about half-past nine in the morning, half an hour earlier or later as the day's journey was to be long or short; and here let me record, to the credit of all, that not in any instance had we ever to wait for any of the party beyond the five minutes allowed upon all well managed lines for "variation of watches." The horn sounded, and we were off through the crowds which were usually around the hotel door awaiting the start. Nor even at meals were we less punctual or less mindful of the comfort of others. I had indeed a model party in every way, and in none more praiseworthy than in this, that the Charioteers were always "on time." The Prima Donna's explanation may have reason in it: "Who wouldn't be ready and waiting to mount the coach! I'd as soon be late, and a good deal sooner, maybe, for my wedding: and as for meals, there was even a better reason why we were always ready then: we couldn't wait." We did indeed eat like hawks, especially at luncheon--a real boy's hunger--the ravenous gnawing after a day at the sea gathering whilks. I thought this had left me, but that with many another characteristic of glorious youth came once more to make daft callants of us. O those days! those happy, happy days! Can they be brought back once more? Will a second coaching trip do it? I would be off next summer. But one hesitates to put his luck to the test a second time, lest the perfect image of the first be marred. We shall see.

During the evening we had learned the next day's stage--where we were to stay over night, and, what is almost as important, in what pretty nook we were to rest at midday; on the banks of what classic stream or wimpling burn, or in what shady, moss-covered dell. Several people of note in the neighborhood dropped into the inn, as a rule, to see the American coaching party, whose arrival in the village had made as great a stir as if it were the advance show-wagon of Barnum's menagerie. From these the best route and objects of interest to be seen could readily be obtained. The ordnance maps which we carried kept us from trouble about the right roads; not only this, they gave us the name of every estate we passed, and of its owner.

[Sidenote: _Aristocratic Gypsies._]

The horses have to be considered in selecting a luncheon-place, which should be near an inn, where they can be baited. This was rarely inconvenient; but upon a few occasions, when the choice spot was in some glen or secluded place, we took oats along, and our horses were none the worse off for nibbling the road-side grass and drinking from the brook. Nor did the party look less like the aristocratic Gypsies they felt themselves to be from having their coach standing on the moor or in the glen, and the horses picketed near by, as if we were just the true-born Gypsies. And was there ever a band of Gypsies happier than we, or freer from care? Didn't we often dash off in a roar:

"See! the smoking bowl before us, Mark our jovial ragged ring! Round and round take up the chorus, And in raptures let us sing. A fig for those by law protected! Liberty's a glorious feast! Courts for cowards were erected, Churches built to please the priest."

Halt! Ho for luncheon! Steps, Joe. Yes, sir! The committee of two dismount and select the choicest little bit of sward for the table. It is not too warm, still we will not refuse the shade of a noble chestnut or fragrant birk, or the side of a tall hedge, on which lie, in one magnificent bed, masses of honeysuckle, over which nod, upon graceful sprays, hundreds of the prettiest wild roses, and at whose foot grow the foxglove and wandering willie.

It is no easy matter to decide which piece of the velvety lawn is finest; but here come Joe and Perry with armfuls of rugs to the chosen spot. The rugs are spread two lengthwise a few feet apart, and one across at the top and bottom, leaving for the table in the centre the fine clovered turf with buttercups and daisies pied. The ladies have gathered such handfuls of wild flowers! How fresh, how unaffected, and how far beyond the more pretentious bouquets which grace our city dinners! These are Nature's own dear children, fresh from her lap, besprinkled with the dews of heaven, unconscious of their charms. How touchingly beautiful are the wild flowers! real friends are they, close to our hearts, while those of the conservatory stand outside, fashionable acquaintances only.

[Sidenote: _Wild Flowers._]

Give us the wild flowers, and take your prize varieties; for does not even Tennyson (a good deal of a cultivated flower himself) sing thus of the harshest of them all, though to a Scotsman sacred beyond all other vegetation:

... "the stubborn thistle bursting Into glossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden roses."

And in that wonder of our generation, the "Light of Asia," it is no garden beauties who are addressed:

"Oh, flowers of the field! Siddartha said, Who turn your tender faces to the sun-- Glad of the light, and grateful with sweet breath Of fragrance and these robes of reverence donned, Silver and gold and purple--none of ye Miss perfect living, none of ye despoil Your happy beauty.... What secret know ye that ye grow content, From time of tender shoot to time of fruit, Murmuring such sun-songs from your feathered crowns?"

You may be sure that while in Scotland old Scotia's dear emblem, and that most graceful of all flowers, the Scottish bluebell, towered over our bouquets, and that round them clustered the others less known to fame.

It was an easy matter to tie the flowers round sticks and press these into the soft lawn, and then there was a table for you--equal it who can! Round this the travellers range themselves upon the rugs, sometimes finding in back to back an excellent support, for they sat long at table; and see at the head--for it's the head wherever she sits--the Queen Dowager is comfortably seated upon the smaller of the two hampers. The larger placed on end before her gives her a private table: she has an excellent seat, befitting her dignity. Joe and Perry have put the horses up at the inn, and are back with mugs of foaming ale, bottles of Devonshire cider, lemonade, and pitchers of fresh creamy milk, that all tastes may be suited. The stewardess and her assistants have set table, and now luncheon is ready. No formal grace is necessary, for our hearts have been overflowing with gratitude all the day long for the blessed happiness showered upon us. We owe no man a grudge, harbor no evil, have forgiven all our enemies, if we have any--for we doubt the existence of enemies, being ourselves the enemy of none. Our hearts open to embrace all things, both great and small; we are only sorry that so much is given to us, so little to many of our more deserving fellow-creatures. Truly, the best grace this, before meat or after!

"He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."

In these days we feel for the Deevil himself, and wish with Burns that he would take a thought and mend; and, as Howells says, "if we had the naming of creation we wouldn't call snakes snakes" if the christening took place while we were coaching.

[Sidenote: _Good Appetites._]

No one would believe what fearful appetites driving in this climate gives one. Shall we ever feel such tigerish hunger again! but, what is just as important, shall we ever again have such luncheons! "Give me a sixpence," said the beggar to the duke, "for I have nothing." "You lie, you beggar; I'd give a thousand pounds for such an appetite as you've got." Well, ours would have been cheap to you, my lord duke, at double the money. What a roar it caused one day when one of the young ladies was discovered quietly taking the third slice of cold ham. "Well, girls, you must remember I was on the front seat, and had to stand the _brunt_ of the weather this morning." Capital! I had been there at her side, and got my extra allowance on the same ground; and those who bore the _brunt_ of the weather claimed a great many second and even third allowances during the journey.

Aleck (_Aa_leck, not El-eck, remember), set the table in a roar so often with his funny sayings and doings that it would fill the record were I to recount them, but one comes to mind as I write which was a great hit.

A temperance--no, a total abstinence lady rebuked him once for taking a second or third glass of something, telling him that he should try to conquer his liking for it, and assuring him that if he would only resist the Devil he would flee from him. "I know," said the wag (and with such a comical, good-natured expression), "that is what the good book says, Mrs. ----, but I have generally found that I was the fellow who had _to get_." You couldn't corner Aaleck.

Although we were coaching, it must not be thought that we neglected the pleasures of walking. No, indeed, we had our daily strolls. Sometimes the pedestrians started in advance of the coach from the inn or the luncheon ground, and walked until overtaken, and at other times we would dismount some miles before we reached the end of the day's journey, and walk into the village. This was a favorite plan, as we found by arriving later than the main body our rooms were ready and all the friends in our general sitting-room standing to welcome us.

Hills upon the route were always hailed as giving us an opportunity for a walk or a stroll, and all the sport derivable from a happy party in country lanes. It was early June, quite near enough to

"The flowery May who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose,"

and the hundreds of England's wild beauties with

"quaint enamell'd eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers."

[Sidenote: _Pleasures of Walking._]

Many a time was Perry instructed to wait for us at the foot of the hill, or a mile or two in advance, while we spent the happy intervals in examining still closer than it was possible to do while driving the beauties which captivated us at every turn. The pleasures of walking set against those of coaching might well furnish matter for an evening's debate. Combined, as they were with us, the result was perfection, for they are indeed upon such a tour the complement of each other. If ever weary of the coach--which we never were--nothing like a walk along the hedge-rows as a substitute, with many a run into out-of-the-way paths, which tempted us by their loveliness, and many a minute stolen to explore the windings of the brooks we passed. I often felt that one of the prettiest pictures I had ever seen was that of our own party scattered about some bosky dell in the way I have described, while the towering coach-and-four stood out clear against the sky upon the hilltop, waiting for us to tear ourselves away from scenes among which we would linger till the daylight had passed. Let no one fail while coaching to work this mine of pure happiness to the full.

We carried perpetual flowering summer with us as we travelled from south to north, plucking the wild roses and the honeysuckles from the hedges near Brighton, never missing their sweet influences, and finding them ready to welcome us at Inverness, seven weeks later, as if they had waited till our approach to burst forth in their beauty in kindly greeting of their kinsmen from over the sea. A dancing, laughing welcome did the wild flowers of my native land give to us, God bless them!

On our arrival at the inn for the night, the General Manager examined the rooms and assigned them; Joe and Perry handed over the bags to the servants; the party went direct to their general sitting-room, and in a few minutes were taken to their rooms, where all was ready for them. The two American flags were placed upon the mantel of the sitting-room, in which there was always a piano, and we sat down to dinner a happy band.

The long twilight and the gloaming in Scotland gave us two hours after dinner to see the place; and after our return an hour of musical entertainment was generally enjoyed, and we were off to bed to sleep the sound, refreshing sleep of childhood's innocent days. The duties of the General Manager, however, required his attendance down stairs; he had to-morrow's route to learn and the landlord or landlady, as the case might be, to see. Some of the male members of the party were not loath to assist in this business, and I have heard many a story of the pranks played by them--for several of my friends are not unlike the piper, "Rory Murphy,"

"Who had of good auld sangs the wale To please the wives that brewed good ale; He charmed the swats frae cog and pail As he cam through Dumbarton."

[Sidenote: _Coaching Weather._]

No doubt the landlord's laugh was ready chorus, and the Gay Charioteers of this department, I make bold to say, tasted most of the "far ben" barrels of every landlord or landlady in their way northward. The question of the weather occurs to every one. "If you have a dry season, it may be done; if a wet one, I doubt it," was the opinion of one of my wisest friends in Britain. We were surprisingly fortunate in this respect. Only one day did we suffer seriously from rain. A gentle shower fell now and then to cool the air and lay the dust, or rather to prevent the dust, and seemingly to recreate vegetation. Who wouldn't bear a shower, if properly supplied with waterproofs and umbrellas, for the fresh glory revealed thereafter. Only a continual downpour for days could have dampened the ardor of the Gay Charioteers. Good coaching weather may be expected in June and July, if one may indulge any weather anticipations in England. After we left the deluge came; nothing but rain during August and September, at least such was the report--but the conveniences of living are so great and the discomforts so few in England that I incline to the opinion, especially when I take into consideration the well-known tendency of the islanders to grumble, that far too much is made out of the so-called bad weather. We had a curious illustration of this. One day we heard some rumbling sounds which would scarcely pass with us for thunder, and we were amused next morning to read in the newspapers of the terrific thunder-storm which had passed over the district. All things are gentle and well behaved in this sober, steady-going, conservative land. Even Jove himself "roars you as mildly as a sucking dove." Pluvius, too, is less terrible than he is painted, though the green, green grass, the smiling hedgerows, the luxuriant vegetation everywhere tells of a moist nature and a disposition to weep at short intervals; but the rain comes gently down as if all the while begging your pardon and explaining that it couldn't possibly help it, the sky being unable to keep it any longer in its overburdened bosom. Strong, thick shoes, one pair in reserve, and overshoes for the ladies, heavy woollen clothing--under and over--a waterproof, an umbrella, and a felt hat that won't spoil--these rendered us almost independent of the weather and prepared us to encounter the worst ever predicted of the British climate; and this is saying a great deal, for the natives do grumble inordinately about it. As I have said, however, our travelling was never put to a severe test. England and Scotland smiled upon the coaching party, and compelled us all to fall deeply in love with their unrivalled charms. We thought that even in tears this blessed isle must still be enchanting.

The same horses (with one exception) took us through from Brighton to Inverness. This has surprised some horsemen here, but little do they know of the roads and climate, or of Perry's care. Our average distance, omitting days when we rested, was thirty-two miles, and horses will actually improve on such a journey, as ours did, if not pushed too fast and not forced to pull beyond their strength up steep hills. The continual desire of most of our party to dismount and enjoy a walk gave our horses a light coach where the road was such as to bring them to a walk, and they were actually in better condition after the journey than when we started.

[Sidenote: _Wayside Inns._]

For luncheon, "good my liege, all place a temple and all seasons summer," but for lodgings and entertainment for man and beast, how did we manage these? Shall we not take our ease in our inn? and shall not mine host of The Garter, ay and mine hostess too, prove the most obliging of people? I do not suppose that it would be possible to find in any other country such delightful inns at every stage of such a journey. Among many pretty objects upon which memory lovingly rests, these little wayside inns stand prominently forward. The very names carry one back to quaint days of old: "The Lamb and Lark," "The Wheat Sheaf," "The Barley Mow." Oh, you fat wight! your inn was in Eastcheap, but in your march through Coventry, when you wouldn't go with your scarecrows, it was to some wayside inn you went, you rogue, with its trailing vines, thatched roof, and pretty garden flower-pots in the windows; and upon such excursions it was, too, that you acquired that love of nature which enabled the master with six words to cover most that was un-unsavory in your character, and hand you down to generations unborn, shrived and absolved. Dear old boy--whom one would like to have known--for after all you were right, Jack: "If Adam fell in an age of innocency, what was poor Jack Falstaff to do in an age of villainy!" There was something pure and good at bottom of one who left us after life's vanities were o'er playing with flowers and "babbling o' green fields." These country hostelries are redolent of the green fields. It is in such we would take our ease in our inn. The host, hostess, and servants assembled at the door upon our arrival, and welcomed us to their home, as they also do when we leave to bid us God-speed. We mount and drive off with smiles, bows, and wavings of the hands from them; and surely the smiles and good wishes of those who have done so much to promote our comfort over night are no bad salute for us as we blow our horn and start on the fresh dewy mornings upon our day's journey.

[Sidenote: _British Honesty._]

The scrupulous care bestowed upon us and our belongings by the innkeepers excited remark. Not one article was lost of the fifty packages, great and small, required by fifteen persons. It was not even practicable to get rid of any trifling article which had served its purpose; old gloves, or discarded brushes quietly stowed away in some drawer or other would be handed to us at the next stage, having been sent by express by these careful, honest people. It was a great and interesting occasion, as the reporters say, when the stowed-away pair of old slippers which she had purposely left, were delivered to one of our ladies with a set speech after dinner one evening. Little did she suspect what was contained in the nice package which had been forwarded. Our cast-off things were veritable devil's ducats which would return to plague us. To the grandest feature of the Briton's character, the love of truth, let one more cardinal virtue be added--his downright honesty. More Englishmen of all ranks, high and low, in proportion to population, will escape conviction upon two counts of the general indictment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," and "Thou shalt not steal," than those of any other nationality; but upon a collateral count a larger proportion of Englishmen of position will have difficulty in clearing themselves than of any other race of which I have knowledge; for while the true Briton will tell the truth, if he has to speak at all, he will conceal his honest convictions upon social and political subjects to such an extent in public as to seem to you almost hypocritical when compared with what he will say freely in private. The M.P. of the smoking room of the House of Commons and the same man on the floor of the House, for instance, are two distinct personages, for it is understood that whatever is said below is to be above as if unsaid. I have often wondered how they merge the one character into the other when the day's words and acts come under review ere the eyes close in sleep--there is such a miserable fear in the breast of the free-born Briton that he will in an unguarded moment say something which he feels to be true, but which society will not think "good form." The great difference between a Radical and a Liberal in England is, it seems to me, that the one holds the same opinions in public and in private, while the other has two sets of opinions, the one for public, the other for private use. The maintenance of old forms, from which the life has passed out, is no doubt the real cause of this phase of English political life, apparently so inconsistent with the Saxon love of truth; one sham requires many shams for its support.

We all have our special weaknesses as to the articles we leave behind at hotels. Mine is well known; but I smile as I write at the cleverness shown in preventing my lapses during the excursion from coming before the congregation. It was a wary eye which was kept upon forwarded parcels, mark you, and not once was I presented with a left article. The eleventh commandment is, not to be found out.

[Sidenote: _Wild Flowers._]

With these general observations we shall not "leave the subject with you," but, retracing our steps to the hills overlooking Brighton, we shall mount the coach waiting there for us at the King's Cross Inn; for you remember we dismounted there while the horses were watered for the first time. Ten miles of bewildering pleasure had brought us here; some of us pushed forward and had our first stroll, but we scattered in a minute, for who could resist the flowers which tempted us at every step! The roses were just in season; the honeysuckle, ragged robin, meadow sweet, wandering willie, and who can tell how many others whose familiar names are household words. What bouquets we gathered, what exclamations of delight were heard as one mass of beauty after another burst upon our sight! We began to realize that Paradise lay before us, began to know that we had discovered the rarest plan upon earth for pleasure; as for duty that was not within our horizon. We scarcely knew there was work to do. An echo of a moan from the weary world we had cast behind was not heard. Divinest melancholy was out of favor; Il Penseroso was discarded for the time, and L'Allegro, the happier goddess, crowned, bringing in her train--

"Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides; Come and trip it as you go, On the light, fantastic toe."

That does not quite express it, for there was time for momentary pauses now and then, when the heart swelled with gratitude. We were so grateful for being so blessed. It was during this stroll that Emma came quietly to my side, slipped her arm in mine, and said in that rich, velvety English voice which we all envy her: "Oh, Andrew, when I am to go home you will have to tell me plainly, for indeed I shall never be able to leave this of my own accord. I haven't been as happy since I was a young girl." "Do you really think you could go all the way to Inverness?" "Oh, I could go on this way forever." "All right, my lady, 'check your baggage through,' as we say in Yankeedom;" and never did that woman lose sight of the coach till it was torn away from her at Inverness.

Some of us dismounted before reaching Horsham, and went in pursuit of adventure. In an old tan-yard by the wayside, where men were making leather in the crude, old-fashioned way, with horses instead of a steam engine for the motive power, we had our first conversation with the British rural workman, whose weekly earnings do not exceed $3.50. Now, this was not more than thirty miles from London, and only twenty-one from the sea at Brighton, and yet the oldest man of the party, who was the most talkative, had never seen the sea. He had been in London once, during the great Exhibition in 1851, having been treated to the journey by his employer; but his brother, who lived only a few miles beyond, had never been in a railway carriage. Their old master had died recently and had left a pound ($5) to every workman who had been with him for a certain number of years--I think ten. Good old master! The owners had new-fangled notions, he said, and were spending "heaps o' money" in building a steam engine which was not yet ready, but which he invited us to go and see. This was to do the work much faster; but (with a shake of the head) "I've 'earn tell by some as knows it's na sae gid for the leather."

[Sidenote: _Rip Van Winkles._]

Could we really be within an hour's ride of the capital of the world, and yet in the midst of a Sleepy Hollow like this, peopled by Rip van Winkles! This incident gives a just idea of the tenacity with which the English hold to what their fathers did before them. This man's father could not have seen the sea at Brighton, nor have visited London short of spending a week's earnings. His successor goes along as his father did--what was good enough for his father is good enough for him,

"Chained to one spot, They draw nutrition, propagate and rot."

But the next generation is to see all this changed, for even southern England is under the compulsory education act, and the rural population is to have the political franchise and a voice in the election of county boards.

At Horsham we lunched at the King's Arms, walked about its principal square, and were off again for Guildford. As we leave the sea the soil becomes richer, and ere we reach Horsham we say, yes, this is England indeed; but I forgot we passed through the Weald of Sussex before reaching Horsham. The cloudy sky cast deep shadows with the sunbeams over the rich, wooded landscape, as no clear blue sky has power to do, and brought to my mind Mrs. Browning's lines:

... "my woods in Sussex have some purple shades at gloaming, Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth.

* * * * *

Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still around me, With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind!"

And many a stately home did we see, fit for her "who spake such good thoughts natural."

Mrs. Browning is said to have written Lady Geraldine in a few hours, lying upon a sofa. This is one of the proofs cited that genius does its work as if by inspiration, without great effort. What nonsense! The Agave Americana bursts into flower in a day; but, look you, a hundred years of quiet, unceasing growth, which stopped not night nor day, was the period of labor preceding the miracle--a hundred years, during all of which it drank of the sunshine and the dews. Scott wrote some of his best works in a few weeks, but for a lifetime he never flagged in his work of gathering the fruits of song and story. Burns dashed off "A man's a man for a' that" in a jiffy. Yes, but for how many years were his very heartstrings tingling and his blood boiling at the injustice of hereditary rank! His life is in that song, not a few hours of it.

* * * * *

GUILDFORD, June 17.

[Sidenote: _A Generous Squire._]

The approach to Guildford gives us our first real perfect English lane--so narrow and so bound in by towering hedgerows worthy the name. Had we met a vehicle at some of the prettiest turns there would have been trouble, for, although the lane is not quite as narrow as the pathway of the auld brig, where two wheelbarrows trembled as they met, yet a four-in-hand upon an English lane requires a clear track. Vegetation near Guildford is luxuriant enough to meet our expectations of England. It was at the White Lion we halted, and here came our first experience of quarters for the night. The first dinner en route was a decided success in our fine sitting-room, the American flags, brought into requisition for the first time to decorate the mantel, bringing to all sweet memories of home. During our stroll to-day we stopped at a small village inn before which pretty roses grew, hanging in clusters upon its sides. It was a very small and humble inn indeed, the tile floors sanded, and the furniture of the tap-room only plain wood--there were no chairs, only benches around the table where the hinds sit at night, drinking home-brewed beer, smoking their clay pipes, and discussing not the political affairs of the nation, but the affairs of their little world, bounded by the hall at one end of the estate, and the parsonage at the other. The merits of the gray mare, or the qualities of the last breed of sheep at the home farm, or the new-fangled plough which the squire has been rash enough to order. The landlady told us that she had recently moved from one of the midland towns to this village to secure purer air for the children, who had not been thriving well. Her husband was a gardener and worked for the squire. Two pretty little girls were brought in for us to see, true Saxons, with blue eyes and light colored hair, but with less color in their sweet innocent faces than usual--the result of dirty, crowded Leeds, no doubt--but soon to be changed by the country air. The eldest girl could not have been more than six or seven years old, but when she was given a few pence she went to the next room and brought a sheet of paper upon which were pasted some penny postage stamps. She was going at once to the post office to buy more stamps with her pennies. On inquiring we learned that the Post Office Department receives deposits of a shilling in stamps and allows two and a half per cent. interest I think, upon them, and "the squire" God bless him! had promised all the children upon his estates, which I trust vast, that whenever they saved eleven stamps he would give the last one to complete the shilling. In this way he hopes to instil into the young the importance of beginning early to save something for a rainy day. The still younger girl had also her stamp paper. The English are an improvident race, not given to denying themselves to-day that they may feast later on. "Do not put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day" is generally construed to mean, that the cake may as well be eaten at once, so that upon the whole we were not displeased to see these children trained to accumulate; but nevertheless it did seem pitiful that the dear little lambs, instead of sporting without a care, should have so early to learn that life is to the mass mainly a struggle for subsistence. Civilization is a failure till all this be changed. What a pity the name and address of that squire are mislaid. He evidently feels that property has its duties as well as its rights. The village and the inn and all the surroundings showed that the Hall was, in this instance, as it is in so many others, the centre and source of good influences. "He has a good wife and earnest thinking and working daughters," said one of the party. Surely he has and they do their part or he could not succeed. It was quite safe to infer this, was the verdict. Man is a poor agency for such work, left to himself. It needs woman's patience and glowing sympathy to work improvement in the manners and customs of the rural population. Man may supply the money, which corresponds only to barren faith among the virtues; it is to woman we must look for the harvest--good works.

When we remounted the coach, one regret found loud expression, and as the Scribe writes to-day, he wishes the omission could be remedied. Why did not we give these children a shilling each, with strict injunctions to gorge themselves with taffy and gingerbread, not a penny of it to be saved. A regular spree regardless of consequences! "Oh! it would have made them ill," said one. Well, suppose it did, just think of the legacy left them, a dream for years that they had been brought to death's door by too much taffy! Why, the sweet taste would have lingered in the pretty little mouths till womanhood, and they would have thought about their illness as Conn in the Shaughraun did about his month in jail for taking the squire's horse for a run with the hounds: "Begorra! it was worth it!"

[Sidenote: _Franklin's Proverb._]

It might have given them a taste for dissipation, and they would have ceased to gather stamps, and turned out badly, was the next suggestion. This was seemingly agreed to by the majority, but there was one who wished he had secretly conveyed to the cherubs, at least a six-pence each to be entirely devoted to gormandizing. "Take care of your pence and the pounds will take care of themselves," the Queen Dowager remarked, is one of Ben Franklin's wisest proverbs. There was one at least of her children who had good reason to remember that favorite axiom. During his temporary absence from school, good Mr. Martin had instituted a rule that each one in the class should repeat a proverb before the lessons began. Her offspring was at the foot of the class, from absence it is to be hoped, and as each boy and girl spoke his proverb (they were taught together in those days, much to the advantage of both sexes, for who wanted to be a dunce before pretty and clever A. R.) they had an unfamiliar sound, but when his turn came he innocently gave them his mother's favorite from Franklin. It was like introducing a strange dog into a crowded church. After the uproar had subsided, the teacher said that while it was no doubt a very good proverb, it was not just in place among the sacred proverbs of Solomon. Another story was related of one of the Charioteers who, when told that he ought to sing when the others did in church, struck up, at the top of his shrill piping voice, "Come under my plaidie, the night's going to fa';" when the congregation began the Psalm. His uncle was so convulsed that, notwithstanding the angry glances of many near him, he could not stop the performance in time to prevent an unseemly interruption.

We had done our first day's coaching, and a long day at that, and looking back it is amusing to remember how anxiously we awaited the reports of the ladies of our party; for it was not without grave apprehension that some must fall by the wayside, as it were, as we journeyed on. One who had tried coaching upon this side had informed us that few ladies could stand it; but it was very evident that the spirits and appetites of ours were entirely satisfactory, and they all laughed at the idea that they could not go on forever. The Queen Dowager was quite as fresh as any. It was a shame that general orders consigned to bed at an early hour two of the ladies thought least robust, while the others walked about the suburbs of Guildford until late. We stood in the thickening twilight in front of an ivy-clad residence for some time, and asked each other if anything so exquisite had ever been seen, so full of rest, of home. The next morning all were fresh and happy, without a trace of fatigue--full of yesterday, and quite sure that no other day could equal it. But this was often said: many and many a day was voted the finest yet, only to be eclipsed in its turn by a later, till at last an effort to name our best day led to twenty selections, and ended in the general conclusion that it was impossible to say which had crowded within its hours the rarest treat, for none had all the finest, neither did any lack something of the best. But there is one point upon which a unanimous verdict can always be had from the Gay Charioteers, that to such days in the mass none but themselves can be their parallel.

We ran into a book-shop in the morning and obtained a local guide-book, that we might cull for you the proper quotations therefrom. It consists of 148 pages, mostly given up to notices of the titled people who visited the old town long ago; but who cares about them? Here, however, is something of more interest than all those nobodies. Cobbett says of Guildford, in his "Rural Rides:"

[Sidenote: _Cobbett's Opinion._]

"I, who have seen so many towns, think this the prettiest and most happy looking I ever saw in my life." There's praise for you! But, then, he had never seen Dunfermline. Here is a characteristic touch of that rare, horse-sense kind of a man. He is enraptured over the vale of Chilworth.

"Here, in this tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard earlier and later in the year than in any other part of England, where the first budding of the trees is seen in the spring, where no rigor of seasons can ever be felt, where everything seems framed for precluding the very thought of wickedness--this has the devil fixed on as one of his seats of his grand manufactory, and perverse and even ungrateful man not only lends his aid, but lends it cheerfully."

Since those days, friend Cobbett, the devil has much enlarged his business in gunpowder and bank notes, of which you complain. He was only making a start when you wrote. The development of manufactures in America (under a judicious tariff, be it reverently spoken), amazing as it has been, and carried on as a rule by the saints, is slow work compared with what his satanic majesty has been doing in these two departments. We must bestir ourselves betimes.

You remember Artemus Ward's encounter with the colporteur. After a long, dusty day's journey, arriving at the hotel, he applied to the barkeeper for a mint-julep, and just as Artemus was raising the tempting draught to his lips, a hand was laid upon his arm and the operation arrested. The missionary in embryo said in a kind of sepulchral tone, for he was only a beginner and had not yet reached that true professional voice which comes only after years of exhortation: "My friend, look not upon the wine when it is red. It stingeth like a serpent and it biteth as an adder." "Guess not, stranger," replied Artemus, "not if you put sugar in it."

It is just so with bank-notes, friend Cobbett. They don't bite worth a cent, neither do they sting, if you have government bonds behind them. But this was not understood in your day. The Republic had not then shown to the world the model system of banking. The objection made to it by others, viz., that founded as it is upon the obligations of the nation, its discredit involves the fall of private credit, counts for little to a republican. We would not give much for the man who is not willing to stake "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" upon the solvency of the Republic. Pitiable is the man who could think of his petty private means when his country was in peril. When the Republic falls, let us also fall.

There is a funny thing in this guide-book. "There also resides Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper, the author of 'Proverbial Philosophy,' etc. He has eulogized the scene around as follows." Then come two pages of Tupper. I naturally looked to see the name of the author of the book, but none was given. Such modesty! But the case is a clear one, for who but Tupper would quote Tupper! "Sir," said Johnson to Bossy, "Sir, I never did the man an injury in my life, and yet he would persist in reading his tragedy to me." Here's the concluding quotation from the guide-book of Guildford, and the Scribe promises not to quote much more from any similar source. Cobbett says that in Albury Park he saw some plants of the "American cranberry, which not only grow here, but bear fruit, and therefore it is clear that they may be cultivated with great ease in this country."

[Sidenote: _American Blessings._]

Potatoes, tomatoes, and cranberries--look at the great blessings America has bestowed upon the "author of her being;" and what won't grow in the rain and fog of the old home, doesn't she grow for her and send over by every steamer, from canvas-back ducks to Newtown pippins! Thackeray was right in saying one night, when some friends were disposed to criticise America, "Ah! well, gentlemen, much can be pardoned to a country which produces the canvas-back duck." At dinner-tables in England, nowadays, to the usual grace, "O Lord! for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful," should be added, "and render us truly grateful to our big son Jonathan, God bless him!"

One could settle down at the White Lion in Guildford, and spend a month, at least, visiting every day fresh objects of interest, and I have no doubt becoming day by day more charmed with the life he was leading. In every direction historical scenes, crowded full of instructive stories of the past, invite us: and yet to-morrow morning the horn will sound, and we shall be off, reluctantly saying to ourselves, we must return some day when we have leisure, and wander in and around, absorb and moralize. This rapid survey is only to show us what we can do hereafter. A summer to each county would not be too much, and here are eight hundred miles from sea to firth to be rushed over in seven weeks. Guildford, farewell!--on "to fresh woods and pastures new."

* * * * *

SATURDAY, June 18.

After a delightful breakfast we mount the coach and are off through the crowd of lookers-on for our second day's journey. During this stage we learned the valuable lesson that we should not attempt to coach through England without having the ordnance survey maps, and paying close attention to them. In this part of the country, so near to monster London, the roads and lanes are innumerable, and run here, there, and everywhere. You can reach any point by many different roads. Guide-posts have a dozen names upon them. We did some sailing out of our course to-day, and found many charming spots not down in the chart, which the straight line would have caused us to miss; it was late ere Windsor's towers made their appearance. The day was not long enough for us, long as it was, but the fifty miles we are said to have traversed were quite enough for the horses. But next day would be Sunday, we said, and they had a long rest to look forward to at Windsor.

* * * * *

WINDSOR, June 18-20.

[Sidenote: _The Scribe as a Whip._]

Upon reaching the forest, the General Manager insisted that the Scribe should take the reins and drive his party through the royal domain. This was his first trial as the whip of a four-in-hand, and not a very successful one either. It's easy enough to handle the ribbons, but how to do this and spare a hand for the whip troubles one. As Josh Billings remarks in the case of religion, "It's easy enough to get religion, but to hold on to it is what bothers a fellow. A good grip is here worth more than rubies." The Scribe had not the grip for the whip, but it did give him a rare pleasure when he got a moment or two now and then (when Perry held the whip), to think that he was privileged to drive his friends in style up to Her Majesty's very door at Windsor. Only to the door, for that good woman was not at home, but in bonnie Scotland, sensible lady! As we were en route ourselves, we were quite in the fashion; some of her republican subjects, however, were quite disappointed at not getting a glimpse of her during the tour.

The drive through the grounds gave to some of our party the first sight of an English park, and it is certain that the impression it made upon them will never be effaced.

Windsor at last, a late dinner and a stroll through the quaint town, the castle towering over all in the cloudy night, and we were off to bed, but not before we had enjoyed an hour of the wildest frolic, though tired and sleepy after the long drive. We laughed until our sides ached, but how vain to attempt to describe the fun! To detail the trifles light as air which kept us in a roar during our excursion is like offering you stale champagne. No, no, gone forever are those rare nothings which were so delicious when fresh; but, for the benefit of the members of the Circle, I'll just say "Poole." It was a happy thought to put the General Manager's suit of new clothes in Davie's package and await results. We had ordered travelling suits in London, and when they arrived we all began to try them on at once. Davie's disappointment at getting an odd-looking suit fancied by the General Manager was so genuine! But such a perfect fit, though a mistake, maybe, as to material; and then, when he tried his own suit, what a misfit it was! The climax: "David, if you are going to"--but this is too much! The tears are rolling down my cheeks once more as I picture that wild scene.

[Sidenote: _Gladstone._]

We heard the chimes at midnight, and then to bed. Windsor is nothing unless royal. It is all over royal, although Her Majesty was absent. But the Prince of Wales was there, and a greater than he--Mr. Gladstone--had run down from muggy London to refresh his faded energies by communing with nature. It is said that his friends are alarmed at his haggard appearance toward the close of each week; but he spends Saturday and Sunday in the country, and returns on Monday to surprise them at the change. Ah! he has found the kindest, truest nurse, for he knows--

... "that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings."

Mr. Gladstone's fresh appearance Monday mornings gratifies his friends, and pleases even his opponents, for such a man can have no ill-wishers, surely. When Confucius had determined to behead the emperor's corrupt brother, his counsellors endeavored to dissuade him, from a just fear that the criminal's friends would rise and avenge his death. "Friends!" said the sage, "such a character may have adherents, but friends never." The result proved his wisdom. No revolt came, though Confucius stood by to see justice done, refusing to listen to the petition of the emperor for his own brother's life. In like manner, Mr. Gladstone may have opponents--enemies never. All Englishmen must in their hearts honor the man who is a credit to the race. By the way, he's Scotch, let me note, and never fails to bear in mind and to mention this special cause for thankfulness. I suspect that this fact has not a little to do with the intense enthusiasm of Scotland for him. We are a queer lot, up in the North Countrie, and he is our ain bairn. Blood is thicker than water everywhere, but in no part of this world is it so _very much thicker_ as beyond the Tweed.

We attended church at Windsor and saw the great man and the Prince come to the door together. There the former stopped and the other walked up the aisle, causing a flutter in the congregation. Mr. Gladstone followed at a respectful distance, and took his seat several pews behind. How absurd you are, my young lady republican! Can you not understand? One is only the leading man in the empire--a man who, in a fifty years' tussle with the foremost statesmen of the age, has won the crown both for attainments and character; but the other, bless your ignorant little head!--he is a prince.

[Sidenote: _Kings and Princes._]

Well, if he is, he has never done anything, you say. True, but what are kings and princes for? The people of England, my dear, not so very long ago, used to have it beaten into them that "the king can do no wrong." As this is historically the true doctrine and has antiquity on its side, it would have been very un-English to reject it; so they quietly accepted the dogma and made it true by arranging that the king should never be allowed to do anything--it's a way these islanders have--the form may be what it likes, the substance must be as they wish. They never revolutionize in England--they transform. What you complain of then, my red republican miss, is really the best proof that the prince will make that modern article called a Constitutional Monarch, and spend his days as the English man-milliner Worth--setting the fashions, laying foundation stones, and opening fancy bazars. Oh! you would not be such a prince or such a king. The Bruce at Bannockburn, at the head of his countrymen striking for the independence of Scotland, and King Edward leading his hosts, these were _real_ kings, you say? The kings of to-day are shadows. I am not going to dispute that with you, Miss; times have changed and kings with them; but were I Prince of Wales, I would be in Ireland to-day investigating the causes of discontent and devising a remedy; and above all showing my deep and abiding sympathy with that portion of my people. This would be better than leading men to murder their fellows--as your heroes did. Oh yes, indeed, says my young lady politician, I should like to be the Prince of Wales just to do that. What a hero it would make him! Why, he would rank with Alfred the Good, or George Washington. Why doesn't Mr. Gladstone suggest this to him? I believe the Prince would just jump at the chance. Well, my dear girl, drop a postal card to the grand old man, and you will get his views upon the subject by return mail. The conversation ended by a toss of the head, and "Well, I would if I were a man. I should like a chance 'to talk it up' to the Prince." As the Prince is an admirer of pretty American young ladies, our friend might get a hearing and astonish him.

In the afternoon we attended St. George's Chapel. In one of the stalls we saw again that sadly noble lion-face--no one ever mistakes Gladstone. He sat wrapped in the deepest meditation. He is very pale, haggard, and careworn--the weight of empire upon him!

"I tell thee, scorner of these whitening hairs, When this snow melteth there shall come a flood."

I could not help applying to him Milton's lines:

... "with grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of state: deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone, Majestic though in ruin."

He has work to do yet. If he were only fifty instead of seventy odd! Well, God bless him for what he has done; may he rule England long!

[Sidenote: _The Queen Dowager._]

A memorable event occurred at Windsor, Sunday, June 19th--the Queen Dowager reached her seventy-first year. At breakfast Mr. B. rose, and addressing himself to her, made one of the sweetest, prettiest speeches ever heard. He presented to her an exquisite silver cup, ornamented with birds and flowers, and inscribed: "Presented to Mrs. M. C. at Windsor, by the members of the coaching-party, upon her seventy-first birthday." Mr. B.'s reference to her intense love of nature in all its glorious forms, from the tiny gowan to the extended landscape, was most appropriate.

We were completely surprised; and when the speaker concluded, the Scribe was about to rise and respond, but a slight motion from Her Majesty apprized him that she preferred to reply in person. She acquitted herself grandly. Her speech was a gem (Mem.--it was so short). After thanking her dear friends, she said:

"I can only wish that you may all have as good health, as complete command of all your faculties, and enjoy flowers and birds and all things of nature as much as I do at seventy-one." Here the voice trembled. There were not many dry eyes. The quiver ran through the party, and without another word the Queen sat slowly down. I was very, very proud of that seventy-year old (I am often that), and deeply moved, as she was, by this touching evidence of the regard of the coaching-party for her.

This incident led to some funny stories about presentation speeches. Upon a recent occasion, not far from Paisley, Aggie told us, a worthy deacon had been selected to present a robe to the minister. The church was crowded, and the recipient stood expectantly at the foot of the pulpit, surrounded by the members of his family. Amid breathless silence the committee entered and marched up the aisle, headed by the deacon bearing the gift in his extended arms. On reaching the pulpit a stand was made, but never a word came from the deacon, down whose brow the perspiration rolled in great drops. He was in a daze, but a touch from one of the committee brought him back to something like a realizing sense of his position, and he stammered out, as he handed the robe to the minister:

"Mr. Broon, Here's the goon."

You need not laugh. It is not likely that you could make as good a speech, which, I'll wager, is far better than the one over which he had spent sleepless nights, but which providentially left him at the critical moment.

Windsor, seen from any direction at a distance, is _par excellence_ the castle--a truly royal residence; but, seen closely, it loses the grand and sinks into something of prettiness. It is no longer commanding, and is insignificant in comparison with the true castles of the North, the surroundings of which are in keeping with the idea of a stronghold, and take you at once to the times of the chieftain and his armed men. There is nothing of this at Windsor, and the glamour disappears when you begin to analyze. Royalty's famous abode should be looked at, as royalty itself should be--at a safe distance.

[Sidenote: _St. George's Chapel._]

Service at St. George's Chapel will not soon be forgotten by our party. The stalls of the Knights of the Garter, over the canopies of which hang their swords and mantles surmounted by their crests and armorial bearings, carry one far back into the days of chivalry. One stall arrested and held my attention--that of the Earl of Beaconsfield. When I was not gazing at Gladstone's face, I was moralizing upon the last Knight of the Garter, whose flag still floats above the stall. Disraeli won the blue ribbon about as worthily as most men, and by much the same means--he flattered the monarch. But there is this to be said of him: he had brains and made himself.

What a commentary upon pride of birth, the flag of the poor literary adventurer floating beside that of my lord duke's! It pleased me much to see it. How that man must have chuckled as he bowed his way among his dupes, from Her Majesty to Salisbury, and passed the radical extension of the suffrage that doomed hereditary privilege to speedy extinction. But where will imperialism get such another leader, after all? It has not found him yet.

"What is that up there?" asked one of our party. "The royal box, miss." Were we really at the opera, then? A royal box in a church for the worship of God! Did you ever hear anything like that! There is a royal staircase, too. Why not? You would not have royalty on an equality with us, would you, even if we are all alike miserable sinners and engaged in the worship of that God who is no respecter of persons.

"Well, I think this is awful," said one of the party. "I don't believe the good Queen would go to church in this way, if she only thought of it. Our President and family have their pew just like the rest of us." Our English members were equally surprised that the American should see anything shocking in the practice, and the ladies fought out the matter between themselves; the Americans insisting that the Queen should attend worship as other poor sinners do, since all are equal in God's eyes; and the English saying little, but evidently harboring the idea that even in heaven special accommodations would probably be found reserved for royalty, with maybe a special staircase to ascend by. Early education and inherited tendencies account for much.

[Sidenote: _Royal Etiquette._]

The staircase question led to the story that the Marquis of Lorne was not allowed to enter some performance by the same stair with his wife. The American was up at this. "If I had a husband, and he couldn't come with me, I wouldn't go." This made an end of the discussion, for the English young lady's eyes told plainly of her secret vow that wherever she went ---- must go too. All were agreed on this point; but on the general question it was a drawn battle, the one side declaring that if they were men they would not have a princess for a wife under any circumstances, and the other insisting that, if they were princesses, they would not have anybody but a prince for a husband.

We were honored while here by the presence of Mr. Sidney G. Thomas and his sister, who came down from London and spent the day with us. Mr. Thomas is the young chemist, who, in conjunction with his cousin Mr. Gilchrist, would not accept the dictum of the authorities that phosphorus, that fiend of steel manufacturers, cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high temperature. They set to work over a small toy pot, which deserves to rank with Watt's tea-kettle, to see whether the scientific world had not blundered. Let me premise that the presence of phosphorus in pig iron to the extent of more than about one tenth of one per cent. is fatal to the production of good steel by the Bessemer or open hearth processes. Do what you will, this troublesome substance persists in remaining with the iron. If there be phosphorus in the iron-stone you smelt, every atom of it will be found in the resulting iron; and if there be any in the limestone, or the coke or coal used, every atom of it also will find its way into the iron.

It is essential, therefore, that iron-stone should be found practically free from phosphorus; but unfortunately such ore is scarce, and therefore expensive. The great iron-stone deposits of England are full of the enemy; so are those of America; hence, both countries depend largely upon ores which have to be transported from Spain and other countries. One authority estimates that if all the high phosphorus ores in Britain could be made as valuable as those free from the objectionable ingredient, the saving per annum would go far to pay the interest upon the national debt. Many have been the attempts to devise some tempting bait to coax this fiend to forego his strange affinity for iron, and unite with some other element; but no, his satanic majesty would cling to the metal.

Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist, in studying some highly creditable experiments made by my friend Lothian Bell, Esq. (for he was upon the right track), discovered an oversight which seemed to qualify the results which he reached, and to render his experiments inconclusive. It was possible, they thought, that his failure might have resulted from the fiend not being _kept_ out when he _was_ out. So they went quietly to work with their toy pot, and Eureka! Their charm had not only exorcised the fiend, but they had discovered how to lead him away from the molten metal into the refuse and shut the door on him there. Here was a triumph indeed! I fancy they neither ate nor slept till repeated experiments proved that the true charm had been found at last.

[Sidenote: _Iron and Phosphorus._]

Mr. E. Windsor Richards, the broad manager of the largest manufactory of iron and steel in the world, was soon acquainted by them with the discovery. He tried it upon a large scale, and announced the end of the reign of King Phosphorus; but he dies hard. This was some years ago, for I read the good news a few minutes after I had landed at Naples from the East, on my way round the world in the year 1879. Many obstacles had yet to be surmounted, but now every ton of steel manufactured at Mr. Richards's great works is made from iron stone which a few years ago was counted worthless for steel. Enough iron stone can be had for three dollars to make a ton of pig iron suitable for steel rails. The same amount of low phosphorus stone at Pittsburgh cost last year sixteen dollars, and yet there are intelligent people who do not understand why we cannot make rails as cheap as the English.

I wonder if I could explain to the general reader how Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist succeeded. It always seems to me like a fairy tale--I will try. In making steel, ten tons of molten pig iron is run into a big pot called a converter, and hundreds of jets of air are blown up through the mass to burn out the silica and carbon, and finally to make it steel. Now, phosphorus has a greater affinity for lime than for iron when it reaches a certain temperature, and when the air blast brings the mass to the required heat, the million particles of phosphorus, like so many tiny ants disturbed, run hither and thither, quite ready to leave the iron for the lime. These clever young men first put a lot of lime in the bottom of the pot as a bait, and into this fly the ants, perfectly delighted with their new home. The lime and slag float to the top and are drawn off--but mark you, let the temperature fall and the new home gets too cold to suit these salamanders, although the temperature may be over 2,000 degrees, hot enough to melt a bar of steel in a moment if thrown into the pot. No, they must have 2,500 degrees in the lime or they will rush back to the metal.

But here lay a difficulty: 2,500 degrees is so very hot that no ordinary pot lining will stand it, and of course the iron pot itself will not last a moment. If ganister or fire brick is used it just crumbles away, and besides this, the plaguey particles of phosphorus will rush into it and tear it all to pieces. The great point is to get a basic lining, that is, one free from silica. This has at last been accomplished, and now the basic process is destined to revolutionize the manufacture of steel, for out of the poorest ores, and even out of puddle cinder, steel or iron much purer than any now made for rails or bridges can be obtained, and the two young chemists, patentees of the Thomas-Gilchrist process, take their rank in the domain of metallurgy with Cort, Nelson, Bessemer and Siemens. These young men have done more for England's greatness than all her kings and queens and aristocracy put together.

[Sidenote: _A Modern Moses._]

It was this pale Gladstonian-looking youth we had with us for the day and for our Sunday evening dinner at Windsor. He wears no title--he is too sound a Radical, and too sensible a man to change the name his honored father gave him--but nevertheless we felt we had one of the great men of our generation as our guest. If it be true, as it is, that he who causes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before is a benefactor to the race, what is the magician who takes from the bowels of the earth a ton of dross, and transforms it into steel before our eyes--strikes with his enchanted wand a hundred mines of worthless stone and turns it into gold, as the prophet struck the dry rock and called water forth? The age of real miracles is not over, you see, it has only begun, and Thomas is our modern Moses; his miracle seems as much greater than that of his prototype as the nineteenth century is advanced beyond that of the Jewish dispensation.

Monday was another thoroughly English day. The silver Thames, that glistened in the sun, was enlivened by many stately swans. The castle towered in all its majesty, vivified by the meteor flag which fluttered in the breeze. The grounds of Eton were crowded with nice-looking English boys as we passed. Many of us walked down the steep hill and far into the country in advance of the coach, and felt once more that a fine day in the south of England was perfection indeed. The sun here reminds one of the cup that cheers, but does not inebriate: its rays cheer, but never scorch. You could not tell whether, if there were to be any change, you would prefer it to be a shade cooler or a shade warmer.

The swans of Windsor are an institution almost as old as the castle itself, for they are mentioned in records more than five hundred years ago. The swan is indeed a royal bird, and it is said that no subject can own them when at large in a public river except by special grant from the crown. Such a grant is accompanied by a swan-mark for each _game_ of swans--the proper term, mark you, for a collection of the noble birds. You may say a flock of geese but not of swans; a game of swans, please, if you would "speak by the card." The corporation of Windsor has possessed the right of keeping swans in the Thames almost from time immemorial. Formerly the king's swanherd made an annual expedition up the river to mark them. He and his assistants chased the poor frightened birds in boats, caught them roughly with long hooks, with little deference to their beautiful plumage, and marked them by cutting one or more nicks in the upper mandible of their beaks. This expedition, called swan-upping (corrupted into swan-hopping), is still made by the deputies of the Dyers' and Vintners' companies, now the principal swan owners on the Thames, the mark of the former being one nick and of the latter two nicks on the bill.

[Sidenote: _Stoke Pogis._]

Stoke Pogis is a few miles out of our direct road, but who would miss that, even were the detour double what the ordnance survey makes it? Besides, had not a dear friend, a stay-at-home, told us that one of the happiest days of her life was that spent in making a pilgrimage to the shrine of the poet from this very Windsor? Gray's was the first shrine at which we stopped to worship, and the beauty, the stillness, the peace of that low, quaint, ivy-covered church, and its old-fashioned graveyard, sank into our hearts. Surely no one could revive memories more sweetly English than he who gave us the Elegy. Some lines, and even verses of that gem, will endure, it may safely be predicted, as long as anything English does, and that is saying much. We found just such a churchyard as seemed suited to the ode. Gray is fortunate in his resting-place. Earth has no prettier, calmer spot to give her child than this. It is the very ideal God's acre. The little church, too, is perfect. How fine is Gray's inscription upon his mother's tomb! I avoid cemeteries whenever possible, but this seemed more like a place where one revisits those he has once known than that where, alas! we must mourn those lost forever. Gray's voice--the voice of one that is still, even the touch of the vanished hand, these seemed to be found there, for after our visit the poet was closer to me than he had ever been before. It is not thus with such as we have known and loved in the flesh--their graves let us silently avoid. He whom you seek is not here; but the great dead, whom we have known only through their souls, do come closer to us as we stand over their graves. The flesh we have known has become spiritualized; the spirits we have known become in a measure materialized, and I felt I had a firmer hold upon Gray from having stood over his dust.

Here is the inscription he put upon his mother's grave:

"Dorothy Gray.

The careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her."

The touch in the last words, "the misfortune to survive her!"--Carlyle's words upon his wife's tomb recur to me:

"And he feels that the light of his life has gone out."

These were men wailing for women. I cannot believe but that there are many women who would prefer to share the fate of men who die. There is such love on earth. Sujatas are not confined to India. As she says:

"But if Death called Senani, I should mount The pile and lay that dear head in my lap, My daily way, rejoicing when the torch Lit the quick flame and rolled the choking smoke. For it is written, if an Indian wife Die so, her love shall give her husband's soul For every hair upon her head, a crore Of years in Swerza."

I think I know women who would esteem it a mercy to be allowed to pass away with _him_, if the Eternal had not set his "canon 'gainst self-slaughter." This prohibition the Indian wots not of, but mounts the pile believing as thoroughly as Abraham did when he placed Isaac on the altar, that God wills it so. They were equally mistaken; and this suggests that we may all be very much surprised when we come to understand rightly, how very seldom the unknown requires any sacrifice of what is pleasing to us in this present world of his. It seems to me it is not God but men who are disposed to make the path so very thorny.

[Sidenote: _Gray's Tomb._]

Upon Gray's own tomb there is inscribed:

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill. Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came, nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."

One perfect gem outweighs a thousand mediocre performances and makes its creator immortal. The world has not a second Gray's Elegy among all its treasures. Nor is it likely to have. We found you still in your accustomed place.

The manor house of Stoke Pogis, which took its name from a marriage, away back in the 13th century, between a member of the Pogis family and an heiress, Amicia de Stoke, furnished the subject of Gray's "Long Story," a poem known now only to the curious student of English literature. How fortunate for the world that the poet did not let his reputation rest upon it!

[Sidenote: _Chief Justice Coke._]

The old house, built in the time of good Queen Bess on an older foundation, is still more noted as the home of Sir Edward Coke, the famous Lord Chief Justice and the rival of Bacon. In 1601 Coke, who had married three years before a wealthy young widow, Lady Hatton of Hatton House, the daughter of Lord Burleigh, entertained the Virgin Queen at Stoke Pogis in a manner befitting the royal dignity and the length of his own purse. Among other presents which her Majesty graciously deigned to accept at the hands of her subject on the occasion was jewelry valued at L1,000, a large sum in those days.

Coke's marriage did not turn out very happily. He was old enough to be his wife's father, and she always affected for him the utmost contempt, even forbidding him to enter her house in London except by the back door. The poor man bore his hen-pecking in silence for many years, but at last she went one step too far. During his absence in London she packed up and removed from Stoke to one of her own houses his plate and other valuables. The outraged husband forcibly entered her house and reclaimed his property, taking, as she said, some of hers also. This led to legal proceedings, in which she, through the aid of Bacon, got the better of him, and a reconciliation took place.

The next year the broil took another phase. Lady Hatton--she always refused to take Coke's name--had borne him a daughter, who was the heiress of her mother's estates as well as of Coke's wealth. Her hand had been sought by Sir John Villiers, but as he was poor his suit had been rejected. A turn came in the tide. Coke, shorn of most of his honors, was in disgrace, and the Duke of Buckingham, Sir John's brother, was King James's favorite and the dispenser of immense patronage. Coke, with the object of winning back the royal favor and of humbling Bacon, his great enemy, now determined to ally himself with the rising house, and offered his daughter to Villiers. Lady Hatton, who had not been consulted in the matter, refused her consent, ran away with her daughter, and concealed her in the house of a kinsman. But Coke found out her hiding place, and with a dozen stout fellows broke into the house and seized his daughter. Lady Hatton, aided by Bacon, carried her case to the privy council and Coke was proceeded against in the Star Chamber. But with Buckingham behind him the old lawyer proved too strong for Bacon this time, and succeeded in throwing his wife into prison and in forcing her to consent to the match.

The marriage took place at Hampton Court in the presence of the king, the queen, and the most distinguished of the nobility, and Frances became Lady Villiers. Stoke Pogis was settled on the bridegroom, who was shortly raised to the peerage as Viscount Purbeck and Baron Villiers, of Stoke Pogis, and Coke flattered himself that his troubles had at last ended. But the marriage resulted like many another ill-assorted union. Lady Villiers, after driving her husband nearly to the verge of distraction, eloped with Sir Robert Howard, and lived for many years an eventful and scandalous life, which finally brought its reward in her degradation, imprisonment, and death.

If the course of true love never runs smooth, it may be taken for granted that the stream is even more tempestuous when marriage is made a matter of family alliance with no love at all in the matter. Our young ladies were unanimous upon this point, and one and all declared their firm resolve and readiness to trust to "true love" with all its risks. The Queen Dowager, being appealed to by them for support, settled the matter by reciting the lines of an old Scotch song:

"Lassie tak the man ye loe Whate'er ye're minnie say, Though ye sud mak ye're bridal bed Amang pea strae."

So ta-ta all worldly considerations and family alliances, and the rest of it, say the wild romps of the Gay Charioteers.

[Sidenote: _Royal Visits._]

Several years after the death of Coke, Stoke Pogis was for a short time the place of confinement of Charles I., who could see from its windows the towers of Windsor Castle, which he was never again to enter except as a headless corpse. On the death of Viscount Purbeck, who resided in the manor house after Coke's decease, Stoke Pogis passed by purchase into the hands of the Gayer family. When Charles II. came to his own again the then possessor of the mansion was knighted, and became so devoted in his affection for the Stuarts that when in after time King William desired to visit Stoke Pogis to see a place so rich in historical associations, the old knight would not listen to it. In vain did his wife intercede: he declared that the usurper should not cross his threshold, and he kept his word. So it came to be said that Stoke Pogis had sumptuously entertained one sovereign, been the prison of another, and refused admission to a third.

We were told that quite recently Queen Victoria had visited it in person, with a view to its purchase for her daughter, and while walking through its magnificent suite of rooms she expressed the wish that her own Windsor had their equal. She finally decided to purchase Claremont, the price demanded for Stoke, it is said, having been too great to square with her majesty's estimate of value. It is in the market to-day. If any of our bonanza kings want one of the stately homes of England, rich in historical associations and "looking antiquity," here is his chance.

In still later times the old place came into possession of the Penn family, the heirs of our William Penn of Pennsylvania, and it was by one of them, John Penn, that the cenotaph to Gray was erected--for the poet, it will be remembered, was laid in his mother's tomb. This same Penn pulled down much of the old house and rebuilt is as it is to-day.

Our luncheon was to be upon the banks of the Thames to-day, the Old Swan Inn, where the stone bridge crosses the stream, being our base of supplies; but ere this was reached what a lovely picture was ours between Stoke Pogis and the Swan! All that has been sung or written about the valley of the Thames is found to be more than deserved. The silver stream flows gently through the valley, the fertile land rises gradually on both sides, enabling us to get extensive views from the top of the coach. Our road lies over tolerably high ground some distance from the river. Such perfect, quiet, homelike, luxuriant beauty is to be seen nowhere but in England. It is not possible for the elements to be combined to produce a more pleasing picture; and now, after seeing all else between Brighton and Inverness that lay upon our line, we return to the region of Streatley and Maple Durham, and award them the palm as the finest thoroughly English landscape.

We say to the valley of the Thames what the Eastern poet said to the Vale of Cashmere, which is not half so pretty:

"If there be a paradise upon earth, It is here, it is here."

The Old Swan proved to be, both in structure and location, a fit component part of the sylvan scene around. There ran the Thames in limpid purity, a picturesque stone bridge overhanging it, and the road-side inn within a few yards of the grassy bank.

[Sidenote: _Skylarks._]

The rugs were laid under a chestnut tree, and our first picnic luncheon spread on the buttercups and daisies. Swallows skimmed the water, bees hummed above us--but stop! what's that, and where? Our first skylark singing at heaven's gate! All who heard this never-to-be-forgotten song for the first time were up and on their feet in an instant; but the tiny songster which was then filling the azure vault with music was nowhere to be seen. It's worth an Atlantic voyage to hear a skylark for the first time. Even luncheon was neglected a while, hungry as we were, that we might if possible catch a glimpse of the warbler. The flood of song poured forth as we stood wrapt awaiting the descent of the messenger from heaven. At last a small black speck came into sight. He is so little to see--so great to hear!

I know several fine things about the famous songster:

"In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun."

An "unbodied joy!" That's a hit, surely!

Here is Browning on the thrush, which I think should be to the lark:

"He sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture."

The third is just thrown in by the prodigal hand of genius in a poem not to a lark but to a daisy:

"Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, Wi' speckl'd breast, When upward springing, blithe, to greet The purpling east."

How fine is Wordsworth's well known tribute:

"Type of the wise, who soar but never roam, True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!"

And now I remember Shakespeare has his say too about the lark--what is it in England he has not his say about? or in all the world for that matter; and how much and how many things has he rendered it the highest wisdom for men to keep silent about after he has said his say, holding their peace forever.

[Sidenote: _Reading Abbey._]

A row upon the silver Thames after luncheon, and we are off again for Reading, where we are to rest over night at the Queen's. Reading has a pretty, new park and interesting ruins within its boundaries which we visited before dinner. There are but few traces left of the once famous Abbey, founded early in the twelfth century by Henry I. In the height of its prosperity more than two hundred monks fattened at its hospitable board, and its mitred abbot sat as a peer in Parliament. It was noted, too, as a centre of learning, but the jolly brethren must have sadly degenerated in this respect, if we can believe the report of the royal commissioners in temp. Henry VIII., for Hugh Cook, the last abbot, who was hanged and quartered near his own door in 1539, is described as a "stubborn monk, absolutely without learning." But, of course, all who believe that the much-married Henry was a monster of iniquity will put no faith in the reports of his minions, and will continue to believe that Abbot Hugh was a holy man of God, whose shortcomings in the small matters of orthography and syntax were more than made up by his proficiency in vigils, fastings, and prayers. That he was the "right man in the right place" is proven by the inventory of the relics found in his keeping by the aforesaid minions at the time of the suppression of the monastery. Among these sacred objects were "twoo peces of the holye crosse," "Saynt James hande," "a bone of Marye Magdelene," "a pece of Saynt Pancrat' arme," and "a bone of Saynt Edwarde the martyr is arme." Can it be possible that this saintly man, who so zealously guarded such treasures to the last moment of his life, should still be allowed to suffer under the imputation of stubbornness and ignorance! He mightn't just have been "one of those literary fellers," but it is very clear he had a firm grasp of the "fundamentals" of the faith. What is learning compared to a "bone of Saynt Edwarde" as a means of keeping the sheep in the true fold! The old abbot knew his business better than Henry's commissioners. The tooth of Buddha, which I went to see when in Ceylon, draws crowds from all parts of the island, and excites more piety than the tom-tom, or the incantations of the most learned priest. Truly there's nothing like a relic as a means of grace.

A pretty lawn in the rear of our hotel gave us an opportunity for a game of lawn tennis in the twilight after dinner, and in the morning we were off for Oxford. The editorial in the Reading paper that morning upon emigration struck me as going to the root of the matter. Here is the concluding paragraph:

"Already the expanding and prospering industries of the New World are throwing an ominous shadow across the Old World and are affecting some of its habits and practices. But over and above and beyond all these, the free thought, the liberty of action, the calm independence and the sense of the dignity of man as man, and the perfect equality of all before the law and in the eye of the constitution now existing in America, are developing a race of men who, through correspondence with home relations, the intercourse of free travel, the transaction of business, and the free, outspoken language of the press, are gradually disintegrating the yet strong conservative forces of European society, and thus preparing the downfall of the monarchical, aristocratic, military, and ecclesiastic systems which shackle and strangle the people of the Old World. These thoughts seem to me to convey the meaning of the great exodus now going on, and he is a wise statesman who reads the lesson aright."

There's a man after my own heart. He grasps th