bad, or Marienbad, there is unquestionably some difference; but on which side the favouring weight preponderates, all unprejudiced and candid readers will find no difficuly to determine.

The fact is, we never think of what we suffer at home, when by mere circumstances we happen to be in the midst of strangers abroad, where you are expected to conform yourself to their customs and habits.

I have been reminded of these notes, which were taken down from nature at Manchester, by what I again beheld around me in the coffee-room of the New Inn at Derby, whither I arrived after my excursion from Buxton and Matlock. This hotel boasts of being in the close vicinity of the residence of Mr. Strutt, M.P., and of the new and lofty Catholic chapel then just about to be completed after the design of Mr. Pugin. The same routine as at all other houses of entertainment was gone through here, with the same farce of waiter, boots, and chambermaid, and finally with the same bill-at which, however, I had no reason to grumble.

Derby is emerging all at once from an almost sepulchral lethargy, or indeed impending sepulture,-thanks to the intersecting lines of rail-road which will bring hither people from all the quarters of England. The bustle has already began, after years of increasing deathlike stillness, and the consequences of it are immediately visible in the constructions that are every where going on; in the new houses that have started into existence as if by magic; and in the public improvements that have taken and are taking place in many parts of the town.

Professional engagements, which had accumulated during my absence to visit the Northern Spas, now compelled me to return to London; and as good fortune would have it, I found myself at Derby on the first day of the opening of its railway to town-that is, within little more than seven hours of my intended destination. I had ticket No. 1, no passenger having

yet gone by the train, which the men appointed for that purpose did not seem to manage as if familiar with their work or duties. Fearfully and tremblingly therefore did I take my place in the well-stuffed carriage, and committed myself serenely to my fate.

That fate, however, was propitious, as will appear in another part of this volume; and in the afternoon of the same day on which I left the terminus at Derby, a little before noon, I reached London (at the distance of 130 miles) in safety.

The temporary station at Derby is near to that of the Midland Counties Railroad, which as yet performs only to Nottingham, and very regularly. It is also near the intended station now erecting for the North Midland, and will itself, judging from the designs exhibited to me by a director, be one of the most splendid buildings and establishments, if not the very finest, in this country. It is expected, however, that the three will combine, and be under one common roof in the "Old Meadows," an open place contiguous to the old London road, now possessed by the three several companies, where the buildings, and offices, and stations will occupy the area of twenty-five acres, which the Derby and London company have now for their own separate use.

In the mean time one of these railroads has since extended its usefulness as far as Leeds, and consequently to York; and hence the same facility of conveyance which has enabled us all along to reach Liverpool in nine hours, will now transport us to the archiepiscopal See of Yorkshire in the same period of time.

Has it ever occurred to political economists and statistical calculators to consider and reflect on the quantity of bread, or food of some sort or other-the amount in fact of the earth's produce-which the extension of all these unnumbered rail-lines has swept and will sweep away from the agricultural surface of Great Britain? For in most parts (so it happens) the rail-course has been through fair soil, round

about farms, and across corn-fields, annihilating much productive land as it proceeds onwards to form the new line of communication. Every inch of this is robbed from the farmer.

This notion is any thing but ridiculous, as my readers will find if they will take the trouble to cast up the many miles of straight railways already established in England, and square that distance by the average width of any railroad, taken both at the bottom where the rails are placed, and at the top of the two sides of deep cuttings. The amount total will assuredly astound them.

We have heard of opposition made to every new railway started, because it is to pass too near a park, or to cut up a pleasure-ground, or annoy with its clacking noise and sooty emanations a nobleman's seat, or a wealthy citizen's villa. But has it ever been urged as an objection, that the bread, already scanty, will, by the establishment of every new rail-course through the plain, be further diminished?

My engagements once fulfilled in London, I lost no time in resuming my tour through the midland region, in search of mineral springs, that either had enjoyed or deserved to enjoy reputation. Within the last three years one such was discovered in the fens of Lincolnshire, respecting which I had heard various reports, all tending to make me wish to see it. In this desire I was confirmed by the letters I received from one or two physicians in the neighbourhood, who were acquainted with the mineral water in question; and to Lincolnshire therefore did I proceed.

The county-town is, per se, an attractive object to a traveller, were it only for that magnificent specimen of a highly wrought and richly ornamented protestant temple which it possesses, and which justly takes its place amongst the first and most imposing of the ancient cathedrals in this country.

The first burst of the city of Lincoln, towered over to an immense height by that glorious cathedral, which comes suddenly and unexpectedly upon the traveller, as at the end of a

long level drive of many miles he reaches the brow of Cannick-hill, is grand in the extreme. It more resembles the spectacle of some of those foreign cities we meet in Alpine districts, than of an ordinary English town.

A wide hollow, or plain, along which courses the tiny Wytham from west to east, lies at his feet, and separates the cliff on which the traveller has been almost involuntarily arrested, from a similar, yet loftier hill opposite, which, like a screen to keep out the northern blasts, stretches in nearly a straight line parallel to, and not far from the river. The centre of this ridge is crested by the glorious edifice of Gothic craft; and few like it are to be seen in Christendom. Hundreds of red brick houses, with their red tiled roofs, beginning at the margin of the river, spread gently upwards and sideways upon the hill, until they actually creep up to the summit, to encircle the House of God. Here and there a single dwelling, with more pretension to modern fashion, exhibits its white or stone coloured front, contrasting with and diversifying the monotony of the general red mass.

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High above this mass, on the western side of the cathedral, the running wall of the ancient castle appears prominent, bearing aloft its keep and round-tower, but dwarf-like by the side of the gigantic structure of the church.

Beyond the castle wall, a smaller, yet elegant looking building intrudes its quiet Ionic portico and low pediment on our attention, and reminds us of the Lincoln Asylum for lunatics, which has already acquired so much renown, though but young in the career of usefulness. Immediately below it, and in many other parts of the general mass of buildings, patches of green, or some more extensive fields, are seen to spread and stretch right and left, varying the universal tone of the landscape.

The view of the cathedral on this, the south side, is not so picturesque as when the building is seen from an angle-point; it is, however, much more imposing, from the extent of its flank, which occupies nearly one fourth-part of the whole visible area of the great assemblage of dwellings of human beings thus brought at once and unexpectedly under our cognizance.

As the spectator advances, and prepares to descend the long and steep Cannick-hill, the landscape unrolls more and more before him; and whilst on the right the eye reposes still on the green valley of the Wytham, it wanders on the left to remote points over the fertile plains of Lincolnshire as far as the neighbouring county of Nottingham. In respect to position, no other cathedral in England, not even Durham, stands more proudly or advantageously than that of Lincoln. It is a sight worth a long journey to behold.

Enjoying, as I did, for the space of two years, in Paris, under the immediate eye of Esquirol,* and the unfortunate Hebreard,

* I learn, since this was written, that this highly gifted and philosophical physician has been added to the long list of those choice spirits whom death has snatched away in the course of twenty-five years, from the time of my enjoying the benefit of their instructions and friendship.