My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

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СКАЧАТЬ examination at the Custom House is conducted with a politeness and despatch worthy of imitation among the officials of our Uncle Samuel. The party of passengers disperses itself about in various hotels, without any circumstance to hinder their progress except falling in with an exhibition of Punch and Judy, which makes the company prolific in quotations from the sayings of Messrs. Codlin and Short, and at last the family which never had its harmonious unity disturbed by any thing, is broken up forever.

      Liverpool wears its old thriving commercial look – perhaps it is a few shades darker with smoke. The posters are on a more magnificent scale, both as regards size and colour, than ever before, and tell not only of the night's amusements, but promise the acquisition of wealth outrunning the dreams of avarice in lands beyond the farthest Thule. Melbourne and Port Philip vie in the most gorgeous colours with San Francisco; and the United States seem to have spread wide their capacious arms to welcome the down-trodden Irishman. Liverpool seems to be the gate to all the rest of the world. I almost fear to walk about lest I should find myself starting off, in a moment of temporary insanity, for Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand.

      LONDON

      Dull must he be of soul who could make the journey from Liverpool to the metropolis in the month of June, and not be lifted above himself by the surpassing loveliness of dear mother Nature. Even if he were chained to a ledger and cash book – if he never had a thought or wish beyond the broker's board, and his entire reading were the prices current – he must forget them all, and feel for the time what a miserable sham his life is – or he does not deserve the gift of sight. It is Thackeray, I think, who speaks somewhere of the "charming friendly English landscape that seems to shake hands with you as you pass along" – and any body who has seen it in June will say that this is hardly a figurative expression. I used to think that it was my enthusiastic love for the land of the great Alfred which made it seem so beautiful to me when I was younger; but I find that it wears too well to be a mere fancy of my own brain. People may complain of the humid climate of England, and curse the umbrella which must accompany them whenever they walk out; but when the sun does shine, it shines upon a scene of beautiful fertility unequalled elsewhere in the world, and which the moist climate produces and preserves. And then, too, it seems doubly grateful to the eyes of one just come from sea. The bright freshness of the whole landscape, the varied tints of green, the trim hedges, the luxuriant foliage which springs from the very trunks of the trees, and the high state of cultivation which makes the whole country look as if it had been swept and dusted that morning, – all these things strike an American, for he cannot help contrasting them with the parched fields of his own land in summer, surrounded by their rough fences and hastily piled-up stone walls. The solidity of the houses and cottages, which look as if they were built, not for an age, but for all time, makes him think of the country houses of America, which seem to have grown up in a night, like our friend Aladdin's, and whose frailty is so apparent that you cannot sneeze in one of them without apprehending a serious calamity. Then the embankments of the railways present not only a pleasant sight to the eye of the traveller, but a pretty little hay crop to the corporation; and at every station, and bridge, and crossing, wherever there is a switch to be tended, you see the neat cottages of the keepers, and the gardens thereof – the railway companies having learned that the expenditure of a few hundred pounds in this way saves an expenditure of many thousands in surgeons' bills and damages, and is far more satisfactory to all concerned.

      What a charming sight is a cow – what a look of contentment she has – ambitious of nothing beyond the field of daily duty, and never looking happier than when she comes at night to yield a plenteousness of that fluid without which custards were an impossibility! Wordsworth says that "heaven lies about us in our infancy" – surely he must mean that portion of the heavens called by astronomers the Milky Way. It is pleasant to see a cow by the side of a railway – provided she is fenced from danger – to see her lift her head slowly as the train goes whizzing by, and gaze with those mild, tranquil eyes upon the noisy, smoke-puffing monster, – just as the saintly hermits of olden times might have looked from their serene heights of contemplation upon the dusty, bustling world. The taste of the English farmers for fine cattle is attested by a glance at any of their pastures. On every side you see the representatives of Alderney's bovine aristocracy; and scores of cattle crop the juicy grass, rivalling in their snowy whiteness any that ever reclined upon Clitumno's "mild declivity of hill," or admired their graceful horns in its clear waters. Until I saw them, I never comprehended what farmers meant when they spoke of "neat cattle."

      What an eloquent preacher is an old church-tower! Moss-crowned and ivy-robed, it lifts its head, unshaken by the tempests of centuries, as it did in the days when King John granted the Great Charter or the holy Edward ruled the realm, and tells of the ages when England was one in faith, and not a poor-house existed throughout the land. Like a faithful sentinel, it stands guard over the humbler edifices around it, and warns their inhabitants alike of their dangers and their duties by the music of its bells. Erect in silent dignity, it receives the first beams of the morning, and when twilight has begun to shroud every thing in its neighbourhood, the flash of sunset lingers on its gray summit. It looks down with sublime indifference upon the changing scene below, as if it would reproach the actors there with their forgetfulness of the transitoriness of human pursuits, and remind them, by its unchangeableness, of the eternal years.

      At last we draw near London. A gentleman, whose age I would not attempt to guess, – for he was very carefully made up, and boasted a deportment which would have excited the envy of Mr. Turveydrop, senior, – so far forgot his dignity as to lean forward and inform me that the place we were passing was "'Arrow on the 'Ill," which made me forget for the moment both his appearance and his uncalled-for "exasperation of the haitches." Not long after, I found myself issuing from the magnificent terminus of the North Western Railway, in Euston Square, in a cab marked V. R. 10,276. The cab and omnibus drivers of London are a distinct race of beings. Who can write their natural history? Who is competent to such a task? The researches of a Pritchard, a Pickering, a Smyth, would seem to cover the whole subject of the history of the human species from the anthropophagi and bosjesmen to the drinkers of train oil in the polar regions; but the cabmen are not included. They would require a master mind. The subject would demand the patient investigation of a Humboldt, the eloquence of a Macaulay, and the humour of a Dickens – and even then would fall short, I fear, of giving an adequate idea of them. Your London cab driver has no idea of distance; as, for instance, I ask one the simple question, —

      "How far is it to the Angel in Islington?"

      "Wot, sir?"

      I repeat my interrogatory.

      "Oh, the Hangel, sir! Four shillings."

      "No, no. I mean what distance."

      "Well, say three, then, sir."

      "But I mean – what distance? How many miles?"

      "O, come, sir, jump in – don't be 'ard on a fellow – I 'aven't 'ad a fare to-day. Call it 'arf a crown, sir."

      Leigh Hunt says somewhere that if there were such a thing as metamorphosis, Dr. Johnson would desire to be transformed into an omnibus, that he might go rolling along the streets whose very pavements were the objects of his ardent affection. And he was about right. What better place is there in this world to study human nature than an omnibus? All classes meet there; in the same coach you may see them all – from the poor workwoman to the genteelly dressed lady, who looks as if she disapproved of such conveyances, but must ride nevertheless – from the young sprig, who is constantly anxious lest some profane foot should dim the polish of his boots, to the urbane old gentleman, who regrets his corpulence, and would take less room if he could. And then the top of the omnibus, which usually carries four or more passengers, what a place is that to see the tide of life which flows unceasingly through the streets of London! I know of nothing which can furnish more food for thought than a ride on an omnibus from Brompton to the Bank on a fine day. It is a pageant, in which all the wealth, pomp, power, and prosperity of this world pass before you; and for СКАЧАТЬ