H7 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by JAMES M. HOPPIN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Connecticut. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. THE motive which has chiefly led to the publication of the following recollections of English travel, has been the hope of exerting some little influence upon our countrymen who go abroad, to induce them to spend more time in England than they are commonly inclined to do, and to see that country more thoroughly, instead of making it a stepping-stone to the Continent. There have been heretofore, it is true, good reasons for this disinclination of Americans to remain very long in England; but these reasons do not now exist, or at least to the extent that they once did. And it hardly need be said, that there is no country which contains so much of absorbing interest to a thoughtful American as Old England; finding there as he does the head-springs of the life and power of his own nation, and in almost every object that his eye rests upon, seeing that which (a short two centuries ago) formed part of his own history. He 282121 finds there the complement of the life of the New World. It is especially good for his intensely active American nature to come in contact with the slower and graver spirit of England, and it thereby gains calmness and sobered strength. I do not profess in these pages to present much that is new or comprehensive in relation to so wellknown a country as England; but I have striven to draw a faithful though rapid picture of the English portion of the island, going from Tweedmouth to Land's End, touching upon nearly every county, and making the entire circuit of the land. The English Cathedrals have particularly attracted me, and I have loved to linger in their majestic shadows; and for the sake of younger readers, some account has been given of the history and progress of Architecture in England. I have everywhere spoken with the freedom which an American is accustomed to exercise upon all subjects, and yet in no spirit of bitterness or hostility, but, on the contrary, in a spirit of reverence and love for the great land of our fathers. III. LONDON ART AND THE LONDON PULPIT VI. WESTON UNDERWOOD TO CHELTENHAM |