240 AUDUBON 



covered with dark ivy, fissured by time and menacing its 

 neighborhood with an appearance of all tumbling down at 

 no remote period. I turned east and came to a pretty 

 little stream called the Ouse, over which I threw several 

 pebbles by way of exercise. On the west bank I found a 

 fine walk, planted with the only trees of size I have seen in 

 this country ; it extended about half a mile. Looking up 

 the stream a bridge of fine stone is seen, and on the 

 opposite shores many steam mills were in operation. I 

 followed down this mighty stream till the road gave out, 

 and, the grass being very wet and the rain falling heavily, 

 1 returned to my rooms. York is much cleaner than 

 Newcastle, and I remarked more Quakers ; but alas ! how 

 far both these towns are below fair Edinburgh. The 

 houses here are low, covered with tiles, and sombre-look- 

 ing. No birds have I seen except Jackdaws and Rooks. 

 To my surprise my host waited upon me at supper ; when 

 he enters my room I think of Scroggins' ghost. I have 

 spent my evening reading " Blackwood's Magazine." 



April ^If- How doleful has this day been to me ! It 

 pleased to rain, and to snow, and to blow cold all day. 

 I called on Mr. Phillips, the curator of the Museum, and 

 he assured me that the society was too poor to purchase 

 my work. I spent the evening by invitation at the Rev. 

 Wm. Turner's in company with four other gentlemen. 

 Politics and emancipation were the chief topics of conver- 

 sation. How much more good would the English do by 

 revising their own intricate laws, and improving the con- 

 dition of their poor, than by troubling themselves and their 

 distant friends with what does not concern them. I feel 

 nearly determined to push off to-morrow, and yet it would 

 not do ; I may be wrong, and to-morrow may be fairer to 

 me in every way ; but this " hope deferred " is a very 

 fatiguing science to study. I could never make up my 

 mind to live and die in England whilst the sweet-scented 

 jessamine and the magnolias flourish so purely in my 



