Passages from the English Notebooks, Volume 2.

July 3d.--Last night seemed to close in clear, and even at midnight it was still light enough to read; but this morning rose on us misty and chill, with spattering showers of ra...

We were now in Rob Roy's country, and at the distance of a mile or so, along the shore of the lake, is Rob Roy's cave, where he and his followers are supposed to have made their...

There were a few watery blinks of sunshine out of doors, and whenever these came through the old painted windows, some of the more vivid colors were faintly thrown upon the pave...

I do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up out of the centre of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full proportions, relieved and insula...

April 4th, 1856.--On Tuesday I went to No. 14 Ludgate Hill, to dine with Bennoch at the Milton Club; a club recently founded for dissenters, nonconformists, and people whose ide...

The omnibus now drove up, and one of the old men at the gate came hobbling up to open the door, and was rewarded with a sixpence, and we drove down to the King's Head. . . . We...

August 16th.--I went again to the Exhibition day before yesterday, and looked much at both the modern and ancient pictures, as also at the water-colors. I am making some progres...

It has a very beautiful and rich outside, however, and a lofty tower, very large and ponderous, but so finished off, and adorned with pinnacles, and all manner of architectural...

three miles distant. It was a cold though rather bright morning, with a most shrewd and bitter wind, which blew directly in my face as I sat beside the driver. An English wind i...

Marlborough House was the residence of the Great Duke, and is to be that of the Prince of Wales, when another place is found for the pictures. It adjoins St. James's Palace. In...

The thieves were brought down from Liverpool on Tuesday, and examined in the Town Hall. I had been notified to be present, but, as a matter of courtesy, the police-officers refr...

about which, as I have already recorded a visit to it, I need say little here. But I was again impressed with the stately grandeur of Wolsey's great Hall, with its great window...

has one advantage over the others which I have seen, there being no organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and nave; so that we saw its entire length, nearly...

At ten o'clock the next day [after the Lord Mayor's dinner] I went to lunch with Bennoch, and afterwards accompanied him to one of the government offices in Downing Street. He w...

July 28th.--Day before yesterday I paid a second visit to the Exhibition, and devoted the day mainly to seeing the works of British painters, which fill a very large space,--two...

The services of Easter Sunday comprehend more than the ordinary quantity of singing and chanting; at all events, nearly an hour and a half were thus employed, with some intermix...

The morning after our arrival we took a walk, and, following the sound of a church-bell, entered what appeared to be a park, and, passing along a road at the base of a line of c...

Our first visit was to the castle, which we reached by going across the causeway that bridges the valley, and has some edifices of Grecian architecture on it, contrasting strang...

I may as well give up Peterborough here, though I hate to leave it undescribed even to the tufts of yellow flowers, which grow on the projections high out of reach, where the wi...

Beyond all doubt, I have written quite as good a description of the castle and Carse of Stirling in a former portion of my journal as I can now write. We passed through the oute...

July 1st.--Immediately after our arrival yesterday, we went out and inquired our way to the cathedral, which we reached through a good deal of Scotch dirt, and a rabble of Scotc...

At two o'clock we sat down to the banquet, which hardly justified that name, being only a cold collation, though sufficiently splendid in its way. In truth, it would have been i...

In a side aisle of the choir, we saw a tomb, said to be that of the Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, though on very indistinct authority. This is an oblong tomb, carved, and, on on...

Our final visit to-day was to the National Gallery, where I came to the conclusion that Murillo's St. John was the most lovely picture I have ever seen, and that there never was...

These gardens of New College are indescribably beautiful,--not gardens in an American sense, but lawns of the richest green and softest velvet grass, shadowed over by ancient tr...

When the ladies had not long withdrawn, and after the wine had once gone round, I asked Mr. Heywood to make my apologies to Mrs. Heywood, and took leave; all London lying betwix...

December 6th.--All these days, since my last date, have been marked by nothing very well worthy of detail and description. I have walked the streets a great deal in the dull Nov...

I went to Marlborough House to look at the English pictures, which I care more about seeing, here in England, than those of foreign artists, because the latter will be found mor...