ce a-day, morning and afternoon, afford a series
of picturesque groups quite different to those of any other town, which
should be kept in mind when visiting Manchester.

But perhaps the pleasantest thing in Liverpool is a promenade on one of the
piers, or rather quays (for they run along and do not project into the river)
when the tide is coming in, the wind fair for the Mersey, and fleets of
merchantmen are driving up with full-bellied sails to take their anchorage
ground before going into dock. An examination of the Docks, with the curious
Dock arrangements of the Railway Companies, and the Sailor's Home, of which
Prince Albert laid the first stone in 1846, will take a day. The Cheshire
side of the Mersey forms a suburb of Liverpool, to which steamers are plying
every ten minutes from the villages of Rock Ferry, Tranmere, Birkenhead,
Monk's Ferry, Seacombe, Liskeard, Egremont, and New Brighton. The best idea
of the extent of the Liverpool Docks may be obtained from the Seacombe Hotel,
an old-fashioned tavern, with a bowling green, where turtle soup, cold punch,
and claret are to be had of good quality at moderate charges.

In fine weather a seat after dinner at the window of this tavern is not a bad
place for considering the origin, rise, progress, and prospects of the
commerce of Liverpool. There is the river, with its rapidly-flowing muddy
waters before you, ploughed in all directions by boats, by ships, by
steamers, by river barges and flats; on the opposite side five miles of
Docks, wherein rise forest after forest of masts, fluttering, if it be a gala
day, with the flags of every nation--Russian, Sardinian, Greek, Turkish,
French, Austrian, but chiefly, after our own, with the stripes and stars of
the Great Republic.

No better text for such a contemplation can be found than the following
inscription, copied from the model, contributed by Liverpool to the Great
Exhibition of Industry:--

PROGRESS OF THE COMMERCE OF LIVERPOOL.
Under Queen Elizabeth, | Queen Anne, | Queen Victoria,
A.D.1570. | A.D.1710. | A.D.1850.
| |
Population. 800 | 8,168 | About 400,000
| |
Tonnage {151} 268 | 12,636 | 3,336,337
| |
Number of