. THE VOYAGE.--LIVERPOOL.--CHESTER.--LONDON.--EPSOM

II. EPSOM.--LONDON.--WINDSOR

III. LONDON.--ISLE OF WIGHT.--CAMBRIDGE.--OXFORD.--YORK.--EDINBURGH

IV. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.--GREAT MALVERN.--TEWKESBURY.--BATH.--SALISBURY.
--STONEHENGE

V. STONEHENGE.--SALISBURY.--OLD SARUM.--BEMERTON.--BRIGHTON

VI. LONDON

VII. BOULOGNE.--PARIS.--LONDON.--LIVERPOOL.--THE HOMEWARD PASSAGE

VIII. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.--MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W.
Whitman

ROBERT BROWNING

MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE

INTRODUCTORY.

A PROSPECTIVE VISIT.

After an interval of more than fifty years, I propose taking a second
look at some parts of Europe. It is a Rip Van Winkle experiment which I
am promising myself. The changes wrought by half a century in the
countries I visited amount almost to a transformation. I left the
England of William the Fourth, of the Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert
Peel; the France of Louis Philippe, of Marshal Soult, of Thiers, of
Guizot. I went from Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, the
only one I saw in Europe. I looked upon England from the box of a
stage-coach, upon France from the coupe of a diligence, upon Italy from
the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still
boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in
Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as
I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting
scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed
by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for
the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Dr. Schliemann's
Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which
instead of Finis is constantly ending with What next?

With regard to the changes in the general conditions of society and the
advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have
done! I have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past
to our Saturday Club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our
guests. Suppose there sat by me, I will not say Sir Isaac Newton, for he
has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom Professor
Tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along
the line of master minds