London to John O 1 Groat's. 79 



American. As one looks upon the living face of some 

 distinguished celebrity for the first time, after having 

 had his portrait hung up in the parlor for twenty years, 

 so an American looks, for the first time, at that great 

 and picturesque speciality among human institutions, 

 the village inn of Old England. The like of it he never 

 saw in his own country and never will. In fact, he 

 would not like to see it there, plucked up out of its 

 ancient histories and associations. In the ever-green 

 foliage of these it stands inwoven, as with its own net- 

 work of ivy. Other countries, even older than England, 

 have had their taverns from time immemorial ; but they 

 are all kept in the back ground of human life. They 

 do not come out in cotemporaneous history with any 

 definiteness ; not even accidentally. If a king is mur- 

 dered in one of them, or if it is the theatre of the most 

 thrilling romance of love, you do not know whether it 

 is a building of stone, brick or wood ; whether it is one, 

 two or three stories in height. No outlines nor aspects 

 are given you to help to fill up a rational picture of it. 

 Neither the landlord nor the landlady is drawn as a 

 representative man or woman. Either might be mis- 

 taken for a guest in their own house, if seen in hat or 

 bonnet by a stranger. 



But not so of the English Country Inn. It comes 

 out into the foreground of a thousand interesting his- 



