The shape of a cross in which it is laid out, its walls and towers, its four arched gateways, its ramparts and ruined, towers, mantled with ivy, its old houses with Biblical inscriptions, its cathedral,--in which tall trees have grown up amid the arches, a fresh garden-plot, with flowers, bright green and red, taken place of the altar, and a crowd of revelling swallows supplanted the sallow choirs of a former priesthood,--present a _tout-ensemble_ highly romantic in itself, and charming, indeed, to Transatlantic eyes.

Yet not to all eyes would it have had charms, for one American traveller, our companion on the voyage, gravely assured us that we should find the "castles and that sort of thing all humbug," and that, if we wished to enjoy them, it would "be best to sit at home and read some _handsome_ work on the subject." At the hotel in Liverpool and that in Manchester I had found no bath, and asking for one at Chester, the chambermaid said, with earnest good-will, that "they had none, but she thought she could get me a note from her master to the Infirmary (!!) if I would go there." Luckily I did not generalize quite as rapidly as travellers in America usually do, and put in the note-book,--"_Mem._: None but the sick ever bathe in England"; for in the next establishment we tried, I found the plentiful provision for a clean and healthy day, which I had read would be met _everywhere_ in this country.
All else I must defer to my next, as the mail is soon to close.
LETTER II.
CHESTER .-- ITS MUSEUM .-- TRAVELLING COMPANIONS .-- A BENGALESE .-- WESTMORELAND .-- AMBLESIDE .-- COBDEN AND BRIGHT .-- A SCOTCH LADY .-- WORDSWORTH .-- HIS FLOWERS .-- MISS MARTINEAU.
Ambleside.

Westmoreland, 27th August, 1846.
I forgot to mention, in writing of Chester, an object which gave me pleasure.

I mentioned, that the wall which enclosed the old town was two miles in circumference; far beyond this stretches the modern part of Chester, and the old gateways now overarch the middle of long streets.

This wall is now a walk for the inhabitants, commanding a wide prospect, and three persons could walk abreast on its smooth flags.