MELLOW ENGLAND. 



I WILL say at the outset, as I believe some one else 

 has said on a like occasion, that in this narrative I 

 shall probably describe myself more than the objects 

 I look upon. The facts and particulars of the case 

 have already been set down in the guide-books and 

 in innumerable books of travel. I shall only at- 

 tempt to give an account of the pleasure and satisfac- 

 tion I had in coming face to face with things in the 

 mother country, seeing them as I did with kindred 

 and sympathizing eyes. 



The ocean was a dread fascination to me a 

 world whose dominion I had never entered ; but I 

 proved to be such a wretched sailor that I am obliged 

 to confess, Hibernian-fashion, that the happiest mo- 

 ment I spent upon the sea was when I set my foot 

 upon the land. 



It is a wide and fearful gulf that separates the two 

 worlds. The landsman can know little of the wild- 

 ness, savageness, and mercilessness of nature till he 

 has been upon the sea. It is as if he had taken a 

 leap off into the interstellar spaces. In voyaging to 

 Mars or Jupiter he might cross such a desert 



