the multitude of brooks and torrents by which they are fed, and which circulate through them, they are justly entitled to the appellation of "LACUS VIVI." Their waters are of crystalline purity-and I can safely aver, that in no lake, even of fair Italy, have I seen fairy landscape, of "banks, trees, and skies," so beautifully and faithfully reflected as in the little lake of Grassmere. As we rode along the margin of the watery mirror, the following lines of the late wizard of the North, the poet of Nature-recurred to my mind:: "The lake return'd, in chasten'd gleam, The purple cloud, the golden beam :- Headland and bank lay fair and cool ;- A world, than earthly world more fair." The climate, too, is more favourable for tourists, and especially for invalids, than that of either Ireland or Scotland. Although much more rain falls here than in most other parts of England, there are not so many days of drizzling wet, as the southern, western, or northern portions of the island present, to "blot out the face of things." The rain here comes down heartily, and is soon succeeded by clear skies. Then every brook is vocal-every torrent sonorous-yet never muddy, even in the harvest floods. Days of unsettled weather, with partial showers, are very frequent; but the showers, darkening or brightening as they fly from hill to hill, are not less grateful to the eye than finely interwoven passages of gay and sad music are touching to the car. Vapours exhaling from the lakes and meadows after sunrise, in a hot season, or, in moist weather, brooding upon the heights, or descending towards the valleys with inaudible motion, give a visionary character to every thing around them; and are in themselves so beautiful, as to dispose us to enter into the feelings of those simple nations (such as the Laplanders of this day) by whom they are taken for guardian deities of the mountains; or to sympathise with others who have fancied these delicate apparitions to be the spirits of their departed ancestors. Akin to these are fleecy clouds resting upon the hill-tops; they are not easily managed in picture, with their accompaniments of blue sky; but how glorious are they in nature! how pregnant with imagination for the poet! and the height of the Cumbrian mountains is sufficient to exhibit daily and hourly instances of those mysterious attachments. Such clouds, cleaving to their stations, or lifting up suddenly their glittering heads from behind rocky barriers, or hurrying out of sight with speed of the eagle-will often tempt an inhabitant to congratulate himself on belonging to a country of mists and clouds and storms, and make him think of the blank sky of Egypt, and of the cerulean vacancy of Italy, as an unanimated and even a sad spectacle*.' The Lakes have long been the favourite seats of the poets-though few of that genus have been remarkable for water drinking. As Lucus is said to be derived from "Non Lucendo," so the poets may consider LACUS as figurative of "Non bibendo." Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Wilson, and de Quincy, figure among the principal lake poets, of recent times; and their productions savour much more of the “ mountain-dew," or brown stout, than of Adam's ale, the watery element of the lakes! Wordsworth's " Wordsworth's "Excursion," by the way, is a desperate tough job. The ascent of Skiddaw, Helvellyn, or Scawfell, is child's play, compared with the Excursion! If de Quincy had not commenced his mal-habit of opium-eating, for the tooth-ache, in Oxford-street, he might have enjoyed a less injurious sedative in an "excursion" among the Cumbrian mountains. But I must hasten from these fairy scenes, dragged by a tyrant spell, towards the southern vortex ! To those who have, and to those who have not visited the lakes and mountains of Switzerland, Italy, Cambria, and Caledonia, I would recommend an excursion to those of England. The former class of visiters will not be disappointed; and the latter will be delighted. A tour through the Highlands will be no drawback to one through Westmoreland and Cumberland. The lakes and mountains of both countries are like the various members of one large family. On approaching this great emporium of commerce, from the pure and exhilarating breezes of the English lakes and mountains, and while passing along Dale-street, to the hotel, our olfactories were saluted with a compound of strange odours, such as I had never experienced in any other part of the world. As cholera was rife, some of the party became *Wordsworth. P alarmed, lest we should be inhaling the mephitic effluvia of the "black death." But, on reconnoitring the locality, I became convinced that the source of the strange perfume had little to do with the epidemic. The dense mass of shipping that seemed an impenetrable forest between a broad river and a magnificent city-and the long line of stupendous warehouses, in close proximity with the docks, containing immense depôts of every article of commerce which the four quarters of the globe could furnish, afforded a clue to the complication of smells that impregnated the atmosphere. Here we have exhalations from Mocha coffee and Virginian tobacco-from the cloves of Banda and the cod-fish of Newfoundland-from the cinnamon of Ceylon and the whiskey of Scotland-from the rum-puncheons of Jamaica and the tar-barrels of Norway-from the St. Michael orange and St. Petersburgh hempfrom the olives of Lucca, and the onions of the Azores-from the tea chests of Canton and the pitch-casks of Pomerania-from the brimstone of Solfaterra and the barilla of the Hebrides-from the opium of Bengal and the herrings of Loch Fine-from the nutmegs of the Celebes and the turpentine of the Canadas--from the tamarinds of the Antilles and the train-oil of Greenland-from the hops of Kent and the juniper of Holland-from the log-wood of Honduras and the pine-planks of Sweden-from the pepper of Sumatra and the cotton-bales of Bombay— in short, from every species of odorous and mal-odorous materials that load the ships, line the quays, and crowd the warehouses of one of the greatest emporiums of commerce in the world. The Englishman who can traverse the almost interminable series of docks—or rather of harbours-hewn, literally as well as virtually, out of the solid rock, without experiencing strong emotions of surprise as well as pride, is insensible to the works of art and the wonders of wealth, from ignorance of what exists in other countries. The stranger can appreciate these stupendous constructions, any one of which would contain, without inconvenience, the united commerce of ancient Venice or ancient Genoa !-docks, which daily cause the Frenchman to stare, the Dutchman to weep, the Spaniard to sigh, and the Yankee to murmur. Liverpool seems disposed to distinguish itself on its eastern as well as on its western bound:-by a magnificent cemetery for its citizens' bones on one side-by stupendous docks for its merchants' shipping on the other. The latter are more useful, if not more ornamental than the former. The almost universal desire to honour the dead, by the preservation of their bodies, or by monuments erected to their memory, must have some strong foundation in human nature. In some countries, it was no doubt, connected with a religious principle-in others, and I apprehend in most, with feelings of a less dignified nature-with ties of love, affection, veneration, or esteem-perhaps even with selfishness and vanity! In Christian countries, it has little countenance from our religious faith. Few can believe that the same body will be raised incorruptible which was buried in corruption :-and still fewer, that the frail tenement of clay can be preserved, by any human means, till the awful day of resurrection. What need is there of such preservation? The same miracle-the same power which calls us up into a new state of existence, requires not the aid of man to furnish materials for a new fabric. If the present rage for "pleasure-grounds," ornamental cemeteries, and Elysian fields for the DEAD, continues, a time must come when there will be little room for the LIVING! Everybody knows the complaint of Cicero, that the Campagna of Rome was so taken up, in his time, with tombs, that there was no longer space for the construction of villas. There is room enough now! The monuments of the dead have mouldered away-and the mansions of the living are not likely to replace them. Desolation, the emblem and the offspring of death, reigns there unmolested and uncontrolled. Whether the cheerful PERE-LA-CHAISE, with its gay parterres, its verdant bowers, its flowery walks, its storied urns and animated buststhe delicious " green retreat" of our departed friends, on the Harrow road-or the "painted sepulchre," sculptured and scooped out of the solid rock, at Liverpool, shall familiarize us with death, and cause us to fall in love with the grave, is more than I can tell. Neither dare I prognosticate what may be the ultimate effects, religious or moral, resulting from an extension of these elegant establishments for the defunct, throughout the kingdom. All I shall say is this, that it will be a great measure of REFORM-if not in the Church itself, at least in certain lands thereunto belonging-the CHURCH-YARDS. Some thousands of years hence, when what appears to us a grave revolution shall itself be buried in the mouldering annals of mortality, many passages in Gray's Elegy will require the comments of learned antiquarians, before their meaning can be deciphered. When the post mortem mansions of posterity shall have rivalled our modern villas, many a reader will be puzzled by the following verse of the poet : "Yet ev❜n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculptures! Why, we shall have half an epic poem inscribed on each marble sarcophagus, and a Belvidere Apollo, or Medicean Venus sculptured on every tombstone! But I must not leave Liverpool, without paying to its enterprising spirit, its commercial wealth, and its distinguished intelligence, the homage of a stranger, who has visited many a city and site of com merce, 66 A Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangem;" but never an equal to this-if I except the metropolis of the British isles. Nature seems to have determined, many thousand years ago, that Liverpool should not be a commercial port :—and to effect her design, she placed, at the mouth of its river, a congregation of shifting sands and dangerous channels, that might deter mankind, for ever, from attempting the navigation of such frightful Syrtes. But he has conquered the dread, if not entirely the danger, of these quicksands; and the Transatlantic sailor approaches them with as much confidence as he would sail up the inland ocean of the Chesapeake ! STEAM-CARRIAGE-RAIL-ROADS. Of all the wonders that steam has worked, this is the most wonderful. Without rudder or rein-without tug or tow-rope-without chart or compass-without impulse from man, or traction from beast, this maximum of power in minimum of space-this magic AUTOMATON, darts forward, on iron pinions, swift as an arrow from a bow; unerring, undeviating from its destined course! Devised by science, but devoted to industry-unwearied as rapid, in its toils and movements-harmless as the dove, if unopposed, but fatal as the thunderbolt, if encountered in its career, this astonishing offspring of human genius, gigantic in strength as dwarfish in stature, drags along, and apparently without effort, whole cargoes of commerce-merchants and their merchandize-artizans and their arts-travellers and their traffic-tourists and their tours (some of them heavy enough!)—in short, every thing, living or dead, that can be chained to the train of this Herculean velocipede! Mounted on the shoulders of this docile but all-powerful AUTOMATON, we scour the blasted heath," more fleetly than the Weird Sisters, when despatched on deeds of death-dive through the solid rock, which greets the passing stranger with a hollow and growling salute-spring forward into the cheerful day-and wave our sable banners in the air. The steam-carriage will probably effect more revolutions in military operations, than the steam-boat in naval warfare. A steam-carriage |