MEMOIR OF DANIEL TKEADWELL. 431 



permission to pay their respects to liim. He returned a polite answer, and thej say he was much 

 pleased with their attention and homage. "Wordsworth asked them about American historians, 

 tlicy mentioned amongst others Mr. Prescott ; Wordsworth said lie had heard of him, and had 

 some thoughts of getting his books to look over them. Shall we say that AVordsworth is igno- 

 rant, or Prescott obscure ?] From Penrith to Carlisle and Glasgow, then to Edinburgh, Jfclrose, 

 Durham, and York. This with days at other places consumed four weeks from Liverpool to 

 London. The journey had all the externals to make it delightful ; but tliat word I find docs not 

 match well with the color of fifty-five (almost six), and 1 must be content to say all went well. 



An idea got possession of mo at York, that that place is the point where the two coexisting 

 ■worlds most completely meet and mingle with each other. I do not mean the material and 

 spiritual worlds, as you Swedenborgians have it, but the old world and the new world. We 

 go to that old cathedral, with its leaning and crumbling magnificence, and are shown by a 

 tottering old verger into an old carved oak seat. An old canon gets up and reads about 

 " Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego " to an audience of half a dozen old men and women. All 

 seems like the last venerable remnant of an age which has gone, — the shadow of a body which 

 is no longer seen. AVe pass from the minster to the railway station (only half a mile), and 

 all is life and exertion, — the strength of the young world in its prime, bent upon advancement, 

 progress, and reform, and regardless of its venerable father, repeating his prayers almost within 

 ear-shot of the scene of its labors. All this seemed to me as the nearest jjossible approach to 

 bringing Rome and Florence to the side of New York and Boston. 



AVe have hardly begun our London sight-seeings, but 1 have been al)out enough to see that 

 London has advanced greatly since I was here twelve years ago. I am particularly struck with 

 the appearance of everything here being finer than we see them in the provincial towns. Shops, 

 horses, carriages, men, women, cliildren, all seem of a more perfect sort than we see them else- 

 where. I do not believe that two millions of people can be found together, or in one continuous 

 country in the world, to match the population of London. Perhaps the way in which the popula- 

 tion is kept up from the country is something in practice like picking ; i. c. that those who come 

 here are above the average standard of excellence. 



You wish me to write to you what Mrs. Grundy is saying of us Americans. The Mrs. Grundy 

 tliat I have as yet seen in the country is not acquainted with us. She does not know enough 

 of us even to talk good scandal of us. But I shall probably soon hear the old lady in London, 

 who knows us better, and I will make report of her to you. I find I have several drops of 

 American blood. I discovered it in Liverjtool, where a gentleman asked me about the Mexican 

 war, and whether the American people could approve it. I told him no. Tliat tiiey thought it 

 entirely wicked, and not to be defended, — as bad even as the English war upon China. . . . 



A'ery sincerely yours, 



D. TUEADWELL. 



To Mk. Francis C. Lowell. 



LONUON', OctiililT I, It?47. 



Dear Sir, — In my former letter, by the steamer of the 4th of September, I informed you 

 that I saw no reason to change from the course intended, when in Boston, to be pursued on 

 arriving here, — which was to send my ])amphlets to many of the men of authority and influence 

 here, and wait the result. To find who were the individuals most likely to take the business up, 

 I supposed tiiat Colonel A. would assist me. I found him of no use, however, and was obliged 

 to do without help. I therefore wrote letters to the Secretary of the Admiralty, and to the 



