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 and hollows, eminences which command extensive
views, and the whole is traversed with roads which are never allowed to
proceed from place to place in a straight line. The trees are too newly
planted to allow me to call the place beautiful, but within a few years it
will be eminently so.
I have followed the usual practice of travellers in visiting the ancient
town of Chester, one of the old walled towns of England, distant about
fifteen miles from Liverpool - rambled through the long galleries open to
the street, above the ground-story of the houses, entered its crumbling
old churches of red freestone, one of which is the church of St. John, of
Norman architecture, with round arches and low massive pillars, and looked
at the grotesque old carvings representing events in Scripture history
which ornament some of the houses in Watergate-street. The walls are said
to have been erected as early as the time of William the Conqueror, and
here and there are towers rising above them. They are still kept in repair
and afford a walk from which you enjoy a prospect of the surrounding
country; but no ancient monument is allowed to stand in the way of modern
improvements as they are called, and I found workmen at one corner
tumbling down the stones and digging up the foundation to let in a
railway. The river Dee winds pleasantly at the foot of the city walls. I
was amused by an instance of the English fondness for hedges which I saw
here. In a large green field a hawthorn hedge was planted, all along the
city wall, as if merely for the purpose of hiding the hewn stone with a
screen of verdure.
Yesterday we took the railway for Manchester. The arrangements for railway
travelling in this country are much more perfect than with us. The cars of
the first class are fitted up in the most sumptuous manner, cushioned at
the back and sides, with a resting-place for your elbows, so that you sit
in what is equivalent to the most luxurious armchair. Some of the cars
intended for night travelling are so contrived that the seat can be turned
into a kind of bed. The arrangement of springs and other contrivances to
prevent shocks, and to secure an equable motion, are admirable and
perfectly effectual.
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