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tiquity in every structure and stone. The streets are channelled out of the freestone foundation

basement story; which is

rock. This makes the

The first story above this street, leaving a planked

mostly used for shops. retreats back from the

sidewalk, of six or eight feet wide, while the second story again comes forward to the line of the street, thus making a covered walk over the whole town. These recesses or piazzas are full, everywhere, of queer-looking little booths, or shops, not bigger than a nutshell. The town itself looks as if it were made for "hide and go seek," or something worse full of corners and crannies, of a most suspicious appearance-full of narrow passages and blind alleys, leading away into darkness and obscurity.

A fine walk on the walls that surround the old town. I went to the tower on the wall, from which it is said that Charles I. beheld the rout of his

army on Rowton Moor. I ascended those steps, which I imagined he went up that day, with eager and anxious hope, and which he came down, doubtless disappointed, dispirited, and foreboding evil; for this was a dark hour in the history of that unhappy monarch's fortunes. But how inconceivable it is, that a man, with his blood not frozen in his veins, could stand upon a wall and see his own

VOL. I.-C

battle fought out, beneath his very eye!-himself an idle spectator!

I am not conversant with antiquities, but there seems to be evidence that Chester was anciently a Roman station. Indeed, I believe the philologists derive the name of Chester from the Latin castra, a camp. It is said that there are remains of a Roman bath to be found in a cellar here; and a Roman altar was discovered near a fountain in this vicinity, in 1821. It now stands in Lord Grosve nor's grounds, at Eaton Hall, raised on a platform of marble, taken from one of the palaces of Tiberius at Capri so far westward did the wing of the Roman eagle stretch. This altar might have been erected to the god Terminus; but it is dedicated to the nymphs and fountains-for thus runs the inscription :

Nymphis

et

Fontibus

Leg. XX.

V. V.

I shall not undertake any minute description of this estate and seat of Lord Grosvenor. But conceive of a sort of township of land fifteen or twenty miles in circumference, under the most perfect cultivation, and laid out in the beautiful style of

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English country-grounds-broad lawns intersected by smooth roads and gravelled walks, with noble clumps and winding belts, and majestic avenues of trees in every direction—the gardens and ornamental grounds alone employing sixty or seventy men the year round; conceive of an immense Gothic building of hammered freestone in the centre of this domain, spreading four hundred and twenty-five feet-about twenty-six rods-in front; enter this building and survey the magnificent apartments, some of them fifty feet long and thirty-five feet in height, with gilded ceilings and painted windows, and filled with gorgeous furniture of every description; visit the chapel, large enough to accommodate a small congregation, and where daily prayers are said, during the residence of the family; go to the stables and outhouses-a little village by themselves; and then pass through the garden, filled with hothouses and conservatories, enriched with rare plants, blooming with flowers, and laden with fruits enough to supply a village; and then take into the account, that this is but one of the seats of its wealthy owner, and you may have some idea of the princely state of Lord Grosvenor.

you set

From the moment that magnificent domain, everything reminds

your

foot on this

you that

you have come within the fairy circle of wealth and taste, elegance and luxury. You enter, by a pretty Gothic lodge, two or three miles from the castle. You are borne on, upon a smooth and winding road, with not one pebble to jar your carriage wheel the edge of it as accurately defined by the bordering, smooth-shaven greensward, as if the thing were done with scissors; a fine belt of trees accompanying it on either side, at the distance of twenty or thirty feet, and only interrupted here and there, to open to you the view of an almost boundless lawn, covered with herds of cattle and deer. When I was going through the garden, the immense quantity of fruit led me to ask the gardener who accompanied me, what was done with it; "for," I said, "you cannot possibly eat it, at the castle; do you sell it, then?" The man drew himself up, and said, "Oh! no, sir, nothing is sold from this garden." "Well, then," I said, "what is done with it?" "It is sent in presents to my lord's tenants," was the reply. A very pleasant way, doubtless, for my lord to make himself agreeable to his tenants! There must be something good and grateful in a relation that leads to acts of kindness like this. And the corresponding deference and gratitude of the tenantry may doubtless, in a certain state of society, have their uses, and proprie

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ties, and beauties. But is there no danger of servility on the one hand or of tyranny on the other? And do not fixed conditions like these of lord and tenant necessarily tend to prevent, in the lower classes, the fair expansion of character? I certainly do not believe in the expediency of such a state of social relations; and yet, when I have seen those in our country-they are not the many -whom fee simple and freedom have taught to respect nothing, but their own importance, I have thought it had been better for them to have been tenants of an English landlord. If men will not reverence anything higher, then let them reverence a Lord Grosvenor !

BANGOR, JULY 3, 1833. On the road to Bangor are Holywell and St. Asaphs, not remarkable except as all these Welsh towns seem to me remarkable for ugliness; built without any order; the streets narrow; scarcely any sidewalks; the houses mostly small, dingy, brick buildings; and yet, every now and then, is seen some singular, picturesque-looking house, with its walls covered with ivy or vines, and with shrubs, roses, &c., about the door and in the windows-redeeming features in the scene, and indications of that diversity of provisions for the gratification of taste, which is so much more striking in the Old World

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