appearance, who, to my disappointment,
read the service. He did it in the most detestable manner, with much
grimace, and with the addition of a supernumerary syllable after almost
every word ending with a consonant. The clerk delivered the responses in
such a mumbling tone, and with so much of the Lancashire dialect, as to
be almost unintelligible. The other clergyman looked, I thought, as if,
like myself, he was sorry to hear the beautiful funeral service of his
church so profaned.

In a drive which we took into the country, we had occasion to admire the
much talked of verdure and ornamental cultivation of England. Green
hedges, rich fields of grass sprinkled with flowers, beautiful residences,
were on every side, and the wheels of our carriage rolled over the
smoothest roads in the world. The lawns before the houses are kept
smoothly shaven, and carefully leveled by the roller. At one of these
English houses, to which I was admitted by the hospitality of its opulent
owner, I admired the variety of shrubs in full flower, which here grow in
the open air, rhododendrons of various species, flushed with bloom,
azaleas of different hues, one of which I recognized as American, and
others of various families and names. In a neighboring field stood a plot
of rye-grass two feet in height, notwithstanding the season was yet so
early; and a part of it had been already mown for the food of cattle. Yet
the people here complain of their climate. "You must get thick shoes and
wrap yourself in flannel," said one of them to me. "The English climate
makes us subject to frequent and severe colds, and here in Lancashire you
have the worst climate of England, perpetually damp, with strong and
chilly winds."

It is true that I have found the climate miserably chilly since I landed,
but I am told the season is a late one. The apple-trees are just in bloom,
though there are but few of them to be seen, and the blossoms of the
hawthorn are only just beginning to open. The foliage of some of the
trees, rich as it is, bears the appearance in some places of having felt
the late frosts, and certain kinds of trees are not yet in leaf.

Among the ornaments of Liverpool is the new park called Prince's Park,
which a wealthy individual, Mr. Robert Yates, has purchased and laid out
with a view of making it a place for private residences. It has a pretty
little lake, plantations of trees and shrubs which have just began to
strike root, pleasant nooks a