though he is, needs no instructions as to when he is to touch his hat, when he is to take it off, and when he is to hold it under his arm. It is perhaps well to know, too, that the ranks which prevail in English society are not without a sort of representation, or rather analogy, in the conductors and servitors of an English hotel. It would be very impolitic to affront the waiter by classing him with the Boots, or the Boots by ranking him with the scullion. So, too, upon the other side of the house, Dame Hostess, whom you rarely see, lords it over host, servants and all, and manages the wires as secretly and as adroitly as an eminent statesman of our country is reported to have done those of political manœuvre, though, as it appears, with far more success. The housemaid, in her turn, looks with ineffable disdain upon the slop-girl, who has even sometimes her inferiors in domestic management. It is a happy thing for the stranger that he can contemplate the issues of distinctions of society in this miniature way, and without going out of his own hotel. Sir Benjamin Brodie would probably demand a larger fee for removing a small tumor than the general practitioner, whom you might pick up at every fifth house along Fleet street: so, you would be obliged to pay the head waiter a larger sum for performing a given duty than the boot-black, or one of the errand boys you find loitering in the street. The first requires something to sustain his dignity; the latter executes a duty for barely what it is worth, or oftener, perhaps, for what he can get. For ordinary acts the scale of fees to waiter, housemaid and boots is in the ratio of three, two and one.

Thus far of the larger hotels, to which the man of fashion, and one who, like Gil Blas, imagines himself a merveille du monde, will naturally go. But sinking considerations of personal dignity, and the advices of such friends as like to gratify the traveler's vanity by recommending to him the first places, one will find in the retired, small houses, that rank as second rate, less charges, and ordinarily more comforts.*

But we must not lose sight of the traveler with whom we commenced observations, and whom we left en route. Perhaps, between hotel charges and the

irresistible temptations which are offered in the shop windows of a strange city, he has found it advisable to cash his draft. Perhaps, too, he has paid two and a half per cent. for cashing it, which had never once entered into his calculations. However, once arrived within the beautiful precincts that belong to the station houses of every railway in England, expenses of porterage will be at end; since the servants of the various companies are uniformly and very properly forbidden to receive gratuities. The companies, however, do the stockholders justice, by balancing this moderation in the car house by ample charges at the ticket office. Prices are exorbitant-in the first class carriages, at least quadruple the rates upon the bestconducted railroads of America. Nothing can exceed their arrangements for comfort-cushions upon every side of one, luxuriously soft-windows of heavy plate glass, shaded with silk curtainsand the carriages themselves so small, or so arranged, as to give an individual almost the privacy of his easy chair at home. For our talking and equallyprivileged world, such arrangements would meet with little favor; but for the English, who must sustain rank, where it exists, by keeping alive distinctions, and must keep alive distinctions by exclusion, it is the very thing.

Less care is had in the second class carriages to accommodate individuals so inclined with privacy; and the seats are so rough and uncomfortable as to drive almost all who are traveling for pleasure into the best carriages. An exception ought to be made in favor of the second class carriages upon the Dublin and Drogheda railway-the only ones met with, in traveling upon fifteen of the principal British lines, which were cushioned, or were in other respects comfortable.

Supposing ourselves, then, less some fifteen or twenty dollars, which have paid for a ticket to London, reposing upon the soft, yielding cushions of a first class carriage, that rumbles with a luxurious ease of motion under the arches of that famous tunnel which leads under and out of Liverpool into the green fields of Lancashire. Little can be seen of a country, at the best, out of a carriage window; and a carriage window passing

along at the rate of forty miles in the hour, is made no way better for a look out place by this extraordinary speed. With but one change of carriage, under the magnificent iron roofs of the station house at Birmingham, the traveler arrives, in from six to ten hours after leaving, at the Euston square in London. The old traveler, who is never embarrassed with more luggage than he can carry a short distance himself, winds his way amid the throng, his carpet-bag in one hand, his umbrella in the other, and in five minutes' time is snug in the corner of an omnibus, which for sixpence will take him within a square of his hotel. Your new traveler, on the other hand, is in a fever of excitement. He sees a great many portmanteaus, very like his own, going off one by one, and he is afraid of his luggage, though it was never safer in the world. He sees a great many cabs coming up, taking their fares and driving away, and he is afraid he will be left without one: he never had a more groundless fear in his life. He sees a great many designing-looking men, and is afraid that, one way or another, he will be cheated: he never had a more rational fear in his life. While he remains within limits that are subject to the jurisdiction of the railway, he is safe from all trickery. The company guards against all extortion from travelers on the part of any one but themselves. His luggage is at length come to the hammer of the conductor for an owner, and, if he chooses, is put upon the cab he selects out of the five or six whose places are constantly supplied.

Some seemingly judicious friend has recommended Morley's Hotel, both for its situation and its arrangements. Both are unexceptionable; and if there were no other consideration, no advice could be better. But if the visitor have in view a trip upon the Continent, after a stop at either Morley's, or Mivart's, or the Cla rendon, he will have need to take an early opportunity-whatever his present resources of sending for a new draft upon the Barings. He must be an old traveler who makes expenses at either of the houses named come under ten dollars a day-much oftener exceeding twenty. Such as feel a sort of pride in spending money freely-for the spirit is growing and branching, unfortunately, in our country-will choose the Clarendon, but will very probably find those there who will treat guineas as they have been used to treat shillings, and will have the morent of being outwitted

in their witlessness. For a man to play at extravagances in London, and make a show at the play, he must have not only his thousands, or his tens of thousands, or hundreds, or millions even, but almost his tens of millions. Leaving, then, the more noted houses of Charing Cross and Grosvenor and Cavendish squares to dowager old women who loll about in silk-lined carriages, with puppets in their armsand to younger scions of noble houses, who spend a week in London (at the expense of an elder brother) on their way to India, with a commission in the dragoons-and to men about town, who are waiting a berth in some club-house-and to such foreigners as care less for money than appearances our stranger will find more comfort if the cabman sets him down, on the night of his arrival, at some quiet boarding-house or unpretending inn, anywhere between Hyde Park and the Strand; or he may take lodgings, finding his breakfast at a coffee-room next door, and dine at the eating-rooms around Westminster or under the shadow of St. Paul's. Either of the latter methods will average from twelve to twenty dollars the week; and if the new-comer patronize, on frequent occasions, the dress circle of Her Majesty's theatre and the shops in Regent street, he may safely multiply the last estimate by four, without reckoning very wide of the truth.. And, at the best, keeping eyes wide open as he may, the stranger in London will find his ducats fast changing to silver, and his silver slipping away.

Setting aside a very pretty side view of London bridge from the Waterman's pier, and of Waterloo bridge from the balustrade of the London, and of St. Paul's from Ludgate Hill, (this last at the risk of being run over,) little can be seen in London without paying for the sight. The Poet's Corner, at Westminster, is indeed free; but if you wander into that neighborhood with the air of a stranger, (and what stranger of less than half a year's standing can shake off a look of wonderment as he strolls between Westminster Hall and the magnificent tracery of Henry the Seventh's chapel ?) you will have a porter or two, with brass labels about their necks, who, with a tip of the hat, will offer to conduct you down the narrow court into the little entry of the Poet's Corner. For this charitable office it is needless to say that at least a sixpence will be expected. The vergers are there in their black gowns, who will sell you a guide for five shillings, or will show

you through aisle and choir, in little parties of six or seven, for sixpence each. It is a fact, indeed, that no cathedral in England can be visited, out of service time, but by payment. At Winchester, at Salisbury, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, York, Durham and Lincoln, we have paid our shilling, and contentedly-for we were permitted to range at will, and, if we chose it, unattended, under the gray old arches; but at Westminster, the glory of them all for its historic recollections, even this privilege is denied. The scale of charges has become reduced to a code: every tomb bears its price; every chapel must have a little offering deposited at its shrine-not to the spirit of the departed great-not even with the miserable excuse that Catholicism offers, of saying mass for the dead-but as trinkgeld for the worthless vergers. St. Paul's is nominally free, and you may almost lose yourself in the great shadows of its interior unattended; but if you wish to enter the choir, or to ascend the dome or the cross, you will find that each has its price. Even the stalls upon a Sunday have all of them their valuation, and nothing but a silver key unlocks the iron side-doors which lead to the gallery. Somerset House and the Tower, Christ's Hospital and the Monument, the Zoological Garden, or the Houses of Parliament, are all subject to the same rules of visit. Fees regulated by authority will be found far more economical than those dependent upon the good will of the giver. Thus, the visitor at Chelsea Hospital, an institution nominally open to the public, will be met at the gateway by some rosy-faced old soldier, perhaps stumping it upon a wooden leg or two, who loves a cup of ale now as well as he loved the Rhine wine at Coblentz, and who will take off his hat in military style and kindly offer to conduct you about the buildings. At the door of the chapel he hands you over to another brother of the mess, who discourses upon the banners and the paintings. With a small fee at parting, you come again into the hands of your first usher, who by turns gives you over to the conduct of the man of the wards and the man of the hall; all whose fees, added to the shilling you give the general usher at leaving, make a pretty little sum, with which our old soldiers adjourn an hour after to a neighboring beer-shop, and, made merry with the malt, shoulder the crutch,

"And show how fields were won."

He is wise who, while looking at the sights of London, fills his pocket of a morning with six and fourpenny bits. Pence are hard to carry; besides, they are not well received in England; they may be put aside, in a corner of the trunk, for disbursement in Ireland. Even half-crowns are better than shillings; you may sometimes look for change on payment of half-a-crown-from a shilling, never.

One must ride much to see London, unless he anticipates a stay of one or two years. It behoves him, then, to acquire early some general knowledge of omnibus and cab rates. Both are regulated by law; but the misfortune is, that the conductors and drivers prove more than a match for the noviciate in expounding the law. The best general caution in regard to the omnibus is, never get in unless you have better authority than the word of the conductor as to where you are going, or unless you are careless where you are going. Imagine the satisfaction of a stranger who, invited to dine in the neighborhood of Portland Place at six o'clock, takes an omnibus at half-past five at Charing Cross, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour finds himself in the borough of Southwark, at least six miles from the desired point. Expostulation is too late, if it availed anything; the conductor had only misunderstood you, and kindly offers to make what amends he can, by taking you, for an additional sixpence, by the return omnibus to the place at which he took you up.

Cab riding is not expensive if the bargain be made beforehand-less even than in most of the provincial towns.

Suppose, now, the traveler, quit of London, upon the top of one of the stagecoaches, which yet have their booking offices in retired corners of the city, and which crash through the long line of suburbs, down into the quiet and brightfaced country. And what has he paid for his seat, whether he be going to Ware or Edmonton ? Too much, if a stranger; for the modern purveyors of the English stage-coach are graceless varlets, and if the principals are out of the way, you may find at the desk a booker as meek-looking as Newman Noggs, but as keen as old Nickleby, who will charge a half-crown over the fare, and make the cash book and cash box tally by the ingenious expedient of dropping the surplus into his own pocket. The time when responsibility attached

to the conductors of the system, and when the great court-yard of the Bull and Mouth thundered with the hoofs of the reeking teams from every county in England, has utterly gone by. It is only upon the lesser cross routes, and under the surveillance of proprietors of little capital and little character, that the present coach system is conducted. In Suffolk, and Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, with parts of South Wales and Devonshire, where the blaze of railways has not yet reached, the coach is now only to be found in England, with its old appoint

ments.

Among the first acquaintances which the stranger makes in coach traveling even before the grooms have left the horses' heads-is the coach-porter. If you have a portmanteau, he is very sure to know where it has been put-" he has looked out for it." If you have no portmanteau, and have not the air of one too poor to own one, he takes your umbrella as you climb to the top, and thinks, perhaps, that "your honor has a very nice umbrella," and hopes you may have a fine day. As the coach sets off, he worms his way over the top-avoiding shrewish-looking old women, if there are any, and people in blouses, and men in scant camlet cloaks, who carry baggy family umbrellas, and always look as if they had just lost a guinea-and touches his hat to easy, free-looking fellows and strangers, whom he learns to detect at least two squares off. The coach-porter, notwithstanding his rough exterior, has a great deal of suavity in his way of making demands, and in his acknowledgments; it is, moreover, worthy of remark, that he is the most moderate of all English officials in his claims. He will not refuse threepence; he even encourages, with a compassionate look, the givers of twopence, and, on one occasion, we remember to have seen him slip a pennyhalf-penny into his waistcoat pocket, without apparent affront.

No one, not a lady, and she hardly, should think of riding inside an English coach. Prices for the four seats within are nearly double those of the ten or twelve without, and much more than half less is to be seen from within. Of all the seats, à la voiture, we have ridden upon-from the curious side seats of the Irish car and Swiss char à banc, to the coupée and banquette of the French diligence we have found none equal, for thorough country seeing, to the top of

the English stage-coach. In posting, in phaeton, or gig riding, one is not high enough to see well over the hedges; and in the banquette, one can see only before him. In front you have the coachman, and behind, upon the mail, you have the guard.

At the end of a stage, some thirty miles on the route, you are a little surprised by the coachman's tipping his hat to you, and saying, in a cheerful, familiar way, that he goes no further on the box. To this you, as a stranger, wishing to chime in with the coachman's good humor, reply by expressing one or two very courteous regrets. But the old stager next you, wondering whether you are very shallow or very deep, makes his acknowledgment of the coachman's information by quietly slipping his thumb and finger into his traveling pocket, and pulling out a sixpence. It is next your turn, and for want of sixpence, you must give a shilling.

Perhaps there will be another opportunity of the sort, before the end of the day's ride, thus fortunately rendering you familiar at an early period with the customs of the country.

The guard, too, at the end, looks you in the face, in a way that makes it very hard to look back, unless you put a shilling or eighteenpence in his hand; to be sure, if he be upon the mail, he is forbidden to receive money; but pray, what guard can be found so ill-bred as to affront a stranger by refusing a trifling gratuity? Affronts of that kind are very rare in England.

The stranger who travels post, will find expenses multiplying beyond measure. He must expect to pay too much for his horses-too much for the postchaise, and he will never be able to satisfy the postillion. Beside, there is the boy who flings open the door-the groom who stands by the horses' heads-the boots who sees that the luggage is all right-the waiter who negotiates the bargain for the fresh horses-the maid who sidles out to ask madam if she will have a glass of water- and the crowd of beggars, who very rationally conjecture, that whoever travels post has plenty of spare pennies. Moreover, the posttraveler must never think of any but the first houses, nor of any place in them but the best parlors, nor of ordinary wine, except by the bottle; and if he could manage to dispose of one or two pints of Bordeaux at dinner, it would add amaz

ingly to the éclat of his visit, and he would have the satisfaction of finding half the small boys in town about his carriage at leaving.

Another mode of traveling which, in a given time, is the least expensive of all, and for one who wishes to see all, the most desirable, is walking. Your portmanteau may be sent forward to any part, as safely as if you were with it, or your knapsack may be strapped upon your back. At night, you wander wearily into one of those little closenestled, gray-thatched country villages, far away from the great lines of travel, where even the thunder of a post-chaise through its single, narrow street, is a rare event, where the children stop their seeming play to have a look at you, and rosy-faced girls peep out from behind half-open doors. A little by itself, with a bench each side the door, is the inn of the " Eagle and the Falcon"-which guardian birds, some native Dick Tinto has pictured on the square sign that hangs out from the corner. The hostess is half ready to embrace you, and treats you like a prince in disguise. She shows you through the tap-room into a little parlor, with white curtains, and mirror in gilt frame, and two or three family portraits interspersed with lithographic representations of the ancient patriarchs-half a dozen rich-bottomed chairs, a substantial walnut bureau of antique air, with a few books upon it that have doubtless descended in the family for two or three generations, complete the adornments. Here, alone, beside a brisk fire, kindled with furze, you can watch the white flame leaping lazily through the black lumps of coal, and enjoy the best fare of the "Eagle and the Falcon." Nor is the fare to be spurned. The bread may not be as white as in the shops about Whitehall, but it is sweet, and the butter is fresh and as yellow as gold. And she will cut you a nice rump steak to broil, and put you down a pot of potatoes, and half a head of a savoy. And she will scrape a little horse-radish to dress your steak with, and bring you a pitcher of foaming "home-brewed." And if it be in the time of summer berries, she will set before you, afterward, a generous bowl of them, sprinkled with sugar, and cream to eat upon them; and if too late or too early for her garden stock, she bethinks herself of some little pot of jelly in an out of the way cupboard of the house,

and setting it temptingly in her prettiest dish, she coyly slips it upon the white cloth, with a little apology that it is not better, and a little evident satisfaction that it is so good.

After a dinner, that the walk, the cleanliness and the good will of the hostess, have made more enjoyable than any one in your recollection, you may sit musing before the glowing fire, as quiet as the cat that has come in to bear you company. And at night, you have sheets as fresh as the air of the mountains. The breakfast is ready when you wish, and there are chops, and fresh eggs, and toast and coffee. For all this, you have less to pay than a dinner would cost in town

you have the friendly wishes of the good woman to follow you, and more than this, you see a remnant of the simplicity of English country character.

But let not the post traveler, or the coach, or the railway traveler, amuse himself with the anticipation of any such hostellrie in his route, or any such small bills to pay out of his purse. It is only the foot-loiterer, who, like ourselves, has pushed his way into retired hamlets, of which the name is scarce known to gazetteers, not knowing at morning where the darkness will come upon him

careless for to-morrow's journey, but exquisitely enjoying the novelties of today-directed by his pleasure, and guided by his map-such an one, and such an one only, can have pleasant reminiscences of the costs of English travel.

But what is the country inn that the ordinary traveler meets with? A good inn; holding a middle rank between the last spoken of, and the first. Such old towns as Woodstock, or Northampton, or Durham, or Carlisle, furnish the best specimens of this intermediate rank. In general they preserve the old inn-court with its balcony, where pretty Mary the housemaid and the younger Weller passed their serious pleasantries, and where, farther back, much gay tittle-tattle of the old English Drama had its locum in quo. The doors are low, the ceilings are low, and the archway that the coach thunders under with all its load, lowers down as if it would take you by the shoulders at the least. Boots and the maid, who in many of them acts the waiter, are always waiting to receive you with their best smiles. You get a good dinner of joint, and fish, and pastry, and the very best of ale. It is in such inns as these, one makes the acquaintance of