secures to all the greatest amount of happiness. Show me a very learned man in England, and as a contrast, I will show some thousands around him who cannot read the Bible nor write their names: a rich man, and I will show you a thousand beggars; a polished and beautiful woman, who seems to have only enough of the earthly mingled in her constitution to say that she is mortal; one who, in her grace and loveliness, would almost make you believe she had sprung, like the fabled Muses, from heaven; and hard by, yea, following her carriage, I will show one created as beautiful and as good as she, who is driven to sell her virtue for a bit of bread; who hunts the very kennel for a morsel of cast-away food; and who, in default of that, is gathering with her naked hands the vilest refuse of the streets to sell, that she may, for her labour, get a crust or a bone before she dies!

Blessed be God, such sights are not to be found in our own land! Diffuse the wealth, the learning the cultivation of the few in

England over the mass of society, and it would be poverty, ignorance, and ill-breeding, in comparison of the United States. Should an Englishman, ever glance over this letter, ten to one he will say it is not so; for this is the way an Englishman generally disposes of unpalatable truths. But I am quite inclined to think the old adage true : 66 Facts are stubborn things."

Most truly yours,

Liverpool,-, 1840.

DEAR

TO-DAY I have whiled away a few hours in St. James's Cemetery. It is a quiet, green burial-ground in the upper part of the town; a difficult place to describe, and yet I want you to have some idea of it.

The Cemetery is enclosed by a massive stone wall, surmounted by a handsome iron railing, and has four entrances. It is on the site of an

old quarry, from which immense quantities of stone have been excavated for the public buildings and docks of the town. These excavations have left a wild, beautiful glen, fifty feet deep, ninety yards wide, and one fourth of a mile in extent-nearly in the form of a

crescent.

The eastern side presents a wall of masonry almost perpendicular, in which one hundred and five catacombs have been excavated. The western side and the two extremities are

bordered by sloping banks, planted by the smaller classes of forest-trees; and the level winding plain below is tastefully disposed in shrubberies, serpentine walks, and plots of grass bordered with flowers.

There is always a pleasure mingled with the sadness we feel in wandering among the resting-places of the dead, when we see flowers and shades planted around them. Half the melancholy is forgotten as we associate the memory of the departed with the delicate and beautiful works of nature. We love to forget the decay and dishonours of the tomb, and among the emblems of hope and life think only of immortality.

And there is something very delightful, too, in wandering through such a holy and tranquil spot in the midst of a large town. It seems like a triumph of poetry, and the sublime. interests of the soul over the restless spirit of gain and business. The progress of wealth and commerce has been onward, but one spot has been spared. It is true, as Irving says, "Few pageants can be more stately and frigid

than an English funeral in town. It is made up of show and gloomy parade; mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes, and hireling mourners, who make a mockery of grief." I have witnessed to-day such a scene in this Cemetery; but there was a peaceful, rural calm spread over it when the pageant had disappeared.

Many visiters, particularly at evening, resort here. The natural effect of this must be to refine and elevate the mind. We cannot turn away from the ceaseless whirl and excitement of the world, and wander among the solemn homes of the dead, without being made better.

The oratory, where the funeral service is performed, stands on the brink of a perpendicular rock, overlooking the green Cemetery below. It is a classic gem of Doric architecture, and a perfect specimen of a Greek Hypaethral temple.

As I was strolling about the Cemetery, a funeral procession came in; and I followed it to the new-made grave. The utter heart